During World War II, Henry Beecher worked as a medic in a field hospital in Europe.
Morphine was the go-to painkiller for wounded soldiers about to undergo emergency surgery. But morphine was always in short supply in wartime. Faced with an impossible situation, the hospital staff injected soldiers with a saline solution, (essentially water and salt), but telling them that they were given painkillers.
Miraculously, 40% of the soldiers experienced relief, with some able to undergo surgery with very little pain. That’s all because of a saline solution, nothing else.
What is at work here?
How is it that telling wounded combatants they received painkillers actually relieved their pain?
This is called the “Placebo Effect,” and it is most potently observed in the field of medicine.
The “Placebo Effect” is a well-documented phenomenon where an inactive/inert substance mimics the effects of actual treatment or procedure. In other words, a “sugar pill” or a “saline solution” becomes and functions like a real drug and treats disease.
Curious Examples of The Placebo Effect
Dr. Joe Dispenza, in his book “You Are The Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter,” documented several medical cases of the placebo effect:
Almost died of nothing
“Fred Mason,” a depressed 26-year old, was part of a clinical trial looking into the efficacy of an antidepressant drug.
One night, he and his ex-girlfriend had a huge fight over the phone. He was so livid that he took the bottle from the clinical trials and swallowed 29 pills. He wanted to end it all and was committing suicide.
Unfortunately, after ingesting the pills, Fred quickly changed his mind and realized he didn’t want to die. But the drug was already taking over his body. He was severely nauseous and feverishly asked for help from the neighbors before finally collapsing on the floor. Good thing somebody heard Fred and took him to the ER.
In the ER, Fred’s blood pressure was a faint 80/40. His breathing was fast and his pulse was 140. Pale, sweating, and speech slurred, he told the doctor that he ingested a bottle of antidepressant.
The trials research team was immediately contacted to find out what specific drug Fred took. Looking at their records, it was discovered that Fred was in the placebo group. Meaning, his bottle contained no antidepressant at all. There was no active ingredient in the pills, and they could have all been candy.
Fred’s doctors relayed the information to the patient. Hearing this, Fred’s blood pressure and pulse promptly returned to normal. His breathing became regular within minutes. His weakness, lethargy, and drowsiness quickly dissipated.
It was all a placebo effect.
“Mr. Wright”
Mr. Wright had cancer of the lymph glands. His body did not respond to the treatments and he had huge tumors in his armpits, groin, and neck.
He was at death’s door when he heard about an experimental drug, Krebiozen, which happened to be studied in the very hospital he’s in. With nothing to lose, he begged his doctor to give him the experimental drug.
Although he was not officially part of the study, Mr. Wright was able to get his hands on the experimental drug. Three days after the injection, he was seen walking around, interacting with nurses, acting like a reasonably healthy man.
In two weeks, he was released from the hospital. The tumors “had melted like snowballs on a hot stove.”
Mr. Wright has been healed. He happily lived his life, grateful for the miracle.
That is until after two months when he heard on the news that Krebiozen, the experimental drug that cured him, turned out to be ineffective against lymphoma. Almost immediately, his tumors returned. He relapsed quickly and needed to go to the doctor again.
His doctor, suspecting a placebo might be at play, told him that a corrected version of Krebiozen will soon be available to the hospital and he’ll contact Mr. Wright as soon as it arrived.
Mr. Wright got “Krebiozen” after a few days. (In truth, he was injected distilled water.)
Again, his tumors quickly disappeared and he was living happily for a couple of months.
Then, Mr. Wright heard an announcement from the American Medical Association that Krebiozen was conclusively found to be useless. The owners of the company making it were being indicted for the hoax.
Hearing this, Mr. Wright immediately relapsed for a second time and, within two days, died at the hospital.
“Sham Surgery”
In 1996, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Bruce Moseley looked into the effectiveness of arthroscopic surgery as a treatment for osteoarthritis of the knee.
Ten volunteers were found—all suffering from severe arthritis and had a noticeable limp or needed assistance to move around.
Five of the volunteers were given actual surgery while the other five were given “sham surgery.” Meaning, Dr. Moseley would cut on the skin with a scalpel and sew it back again, making it look like the surgery happened.
This was a “double-blind” study where Dr. Moseley didn’t know which patients would receive which treatment. When the patient was wheeled into the operating room, Dr. Moseley would open a sealed envelope telling him what type of procedure will be administered.
So, what are the findings for this study?
All patients, including those who underwent pretend surgery, experienced an improved range of movement and decreased pain walking!
Even 6 years after the study, all the patients, including the placebo group, were still walking normally and enjoying the new lease on life their “surgery” had given them.
The study was replicated with 180 test subjects and had the same results.
The placebo effect was also observed for other medical procedures like heart surgery, and medical conditions like depression and Parkinson’s—where patients who were given the placebo fared as well, or better than those given the treatment.
(In the case of “sham heart surgery,” 87% of the placebo group felt better after the “surgery,” compared to 67% of those who had the operation. For depression, a 1989 analysis of 19 double-blind clinical trials involving 2,300 patients found that the placebo had higher improvement rates than actual antidepressant drugs.)
How Is This Possible?
The mind is central to the “Placebo Effect.”
Thoughts have a direct effect on our bodies. Everyday experience proves that thoughts can initiate a chain of biological reactions that can be easily observed.
For example, thinking about a person one hates or recalling a bad customer service experience can get one’s heart racing. Suddenly the person becomes hot, his muscles tense and before he knows it, he’s catching his breath as if running a marathon. All it took was remembering a saleslady who was rude to him.
Or, someone who has just finished watching a Netflix horror movie can easily fall for the tricks his mind plays on him. Since his brain is primed for a jump scare, he could jump at all the little noises emanating from the kitchen.
Thoughts are potent, and the expectations people have (about what’s going on in the body), help bring about that which was expected.
The placebo effect is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Expecting to get better because of some pill (even if turns out to be a placebo), often leads to getting better. Why?
The body has a natural tendency to heal, repair, and preserve itself, even without medicine. It is its own pharmacy—a rich storehouse of biological chemicals, compounds, proteins, hormones, and neurotransmitters that can be activated for health. We have natural immunity that works efficiently, often outside of consciousness.
Believing in the placebo unleashes the ability of the body to heal itself. Our bodies already know how to do this.
The pill may be fake, but the effect is real. The placebo is not just “in the mind.” It is accomplishing real and lasting changes in the body.
In the brain, the placebo stimulates those very same neurons that an external drug would have fired.
This goes beyond “positive thinking.” It’s not just about the patient feeling good and not experiencing pain. Biological changes are taking place. For example, when researchers from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver looked at scans of brains of Parkinson’s patients, they saw up to 200% production of dopamine in patients helped by the placebo.
Still on Parkinson’s, Dr. Fabrizio Benedetti, found that the effect can stimulate the actual production of growth hormone as well as inhibit the production of cortisol.
As we have seen, the placebo can supplant the efficacy of known drugs.
(But instead of thinking of the placebo as mimicking the effects of medicine on the body, one can think about it the other way around: Drugs mimic/boost/reinforce what the immune system does, naturally.)
Taking Advantage Of The Placebo
Parents have long been using the placebo effect. Every time they tell kids that eating a green leaf would make them stronger or run faster—they’re unwittingly tapping on the power of the placebo.
The child, in wholehearted belief (because it’s mom and dad who said it), creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that allows him to do tremendous feats of athleticism when playing with other kids later that afternoon.
You might ask, “Can I use this on myself? Or will this work even when I already know it’s a placebo?”
Those questions were in the minds of the Harvard researchers looking at the placebo effects on IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). This time, the researchers did not trick the test subjects. They put “Placebo Pills” on the bottles, which means the test subjects know exactly what’s going on.
But guess what, it still worked! The placebo group experienced as much as 2x the relief of a control group that got no treatment. (These numbers are similar to those of real IBS drugs!)
The body’s natural healing faculty is that present and potent.
But more importantly, we’ve seen how thoughts percolating in an individual’s head have far-reaching effects on health. In a study, researchers informed hotel maids that their daily work routines (eg. cleaning rooms and turning beds) were calorie-burning exercises. They planted an idea and told them that they are getting good exercise daily, without even knowing it.
After a month, the researchers came back. They discovered that (compared to a control group,) the hotel maids they talked to lost an average of 2 lbs., lowered their blood pressure by an average of 10 points, and decreased their percentage of body fat.
The only difference-maker is the planted seed of thought, an idea. The researchers simply made the hotel maids more aware of the calorie-burning efficiency of their everyday work!
Our thoughts, expectations, and beliefs are central to well-being. That’s why optimists are generally healthier than pessimists.
Minds filled with positive, life-affirming thoughts generally fare better than those swimming in negative, toxic sludge. Nurturing negative thoughts and emotions do a number on the body. It upsets the natural balance of hormones, depletes energy, damages the immune system, and dulls the brain.
In the end, a healthy mindset and a wholesome attitude lead to a healthy body. This is the biggest lesson we can take from the placebo effect.
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