Page 67 - Time Special Edition Alternative Medicine (January 2020)
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We know that when a placebo works, it doesn’t mean a patient’s symptoms are not real.
means that the neurochemical changes produced by known as nocebo, from the Latin for “I will harm”).
the expectation of relief are just as real. More often than we might realize, sometimes we
Doctors can use expectations to their advantage, just brace for the worst. So while positive expecta-
even when they are administering potent drugs. tions can rev up the neurochemical pathways that
Here’s a scenario that plays out in emergency rooms can bring relief, negative expectations can trigger
every day. “If a patient needs pain medicine, I make those that can make us feel our pain more acutely.
sure my nurses tell the patient when he or she gets The success of the placebo effect sometimes lies
the shot,” says Ginger Campbell, an ER physician in the fact that humans are trainable animals. Re-
and the host of the podcast Brain Science. “If pa- member that biology lesson about Russian physiolo-
tients are given morphine but don’t know they got gist Ivan Pavlov and how he famously conditioned
it, the effectiveness of the morphine is decreased. dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell once they as-
But if they are told they are getting a shot that will sociated that bell with feeding time? Well, as far as
ease their pain, they experience relief faster than the the placebo effect is concerned, we may as well be
morphine can actually take effect. What you tell pa- those impressionable canines.
tients to expect really matters.” Inject someone with morphine each day for sev-
Our brains just as eagerly and efficiently pre- eral days and then give her a saline-solution injec-
pare us for negative outcomes. Tell a patient he will tion, and her body will respond to that injection as
probably feel nausea, dizziness or pain after taking if it actually contained morphine. Even our immune
a medicine, and chances are good he will experi- system is susceptible to conditioning. Studies have
ence those exact side effects (this phenomenon is shown that placebos can mimic the effects of the
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