"In the studies, volunteers... received either active doses or a placebo packaged in identical capsules. At the end of several weeks, almost everyone’s mood and well-being had improved, regardless of what they had taken.... If they took a placebo but thought it was a microdose, they felt better, and if they had an active dose but wrongly guessed it was a placebo, they did not. A third placebo-controlled trial... tried to get around user expectations by giving participants four microdoses of LSD over the course of two weeks, but without telling them about the purpose of the study or even what they were taking. Once again, there was no difference between the LSD and placebo groups."
"Scientists are split" because there are still some researchers who want to keep researching. Maybe a better-designed study could eliminate the placebo effect? Or are they mostly thinking the placebo effect helps people and it's good to help people?
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You know Professor, back in trippier times LSD would allow us to smell and taste colors. Maybe with our aging loss of smell and taste we should just score a full dose of sime window-pane and recapture our youthful sense of ollafactory wonderment. Our 1969 selves would have rolled our eyes at micro-dosing.
@Heartless Aztec
The first stage of losing my sense of smell was, in fact, olfactory hallucinations. I kept wondering why there seemed to be this chemical floral smell. I don't have that anymore, but it isn't attractive to me. I would really like to be in touch with the real world.
The Fact of the Matter is,
And ALWAYS was, placebos are the most effective medicine Ever made
They should gradually up the dose until the placebo effect is no longer an issue then test that for benefits and detriments.
I think I'd like to hold off judgment on a thing like that, sir, until all the facts are in...I don't think it's quite fair to condemn the whole program because of a single slip up, sir.
My experience is that the dosage usually called a microdose, usually about 10 mcg, ia not enough to get much of an effect. If I can't feel it then I don't notice any difference. About 20 mcg will have an appreciable effect in stimulating creativity but without creating any issues in going about my business.
I haven't been on here much lately due to a variety of distractions, including moving to Nashville, TN from Texas. I'm going to Jamaica tomorrow for a psilocybin retreat in which the two doses over five days will definitely not be micro. All legal and very on the up and up. Set and setting will be controlled with lots of experienced therapuetic people around. We have done four weeks of prep work and we will do six weeks of integration afterward. I was supposed to go October 22nd, but I got Covid ten days out and I was afraid I might still check positive when I got there. They allowed me to move my date to this later scheduled retreat. Most likely, I will come back and give a report.
How did they ethically give LSD to people without telling them what they were getting or why?
The placebo effect is such a fascinating phenomenon. There’s even placebo sleep and placebo intoxication. Someone should develop a drug to trigger the placebo effect. (Seriously, though, the placebo effect has huge implications for the brain’s ability to heal the body—cracking that would be bigger than almost any actual drug we have.)
“Researchers want to keep researching” because that’s what “researchers” know how to do, and hey, maybe they can get another grant and publish another paper. It beats working!
there are still some researchers who want to keep researching
Placebo controlled trials consistently show an improvement in mood and well-being when researchers receive another grant.
Were the volunteers paid? Because I, personally, have found that $$ have a direct positive effect on my mood and well-being. If it's just a placebo effect, please send me your unused $$.
“Researchers want to keep researching” because that’s what “researchers” know how to do, and hey, maybe they can get another grant and publish another paper. It beats working!"
Amen.
One of my working days tasks was to review research proposals and findings. I can not recall a single instance when the findings did not include, "further research is warranted".
The placebo effect in most relevant research (biomedical and psychological) is usually around 10% and often higher.
@ Mid-Life Lawyer
I would very much like to read your report. I hope it goes well for you and has the desired results.
I have a friend doing this. He says he cannot tell the difference, but...it got him off of the prescribed meds he had been on for years and in that respect, he feels much better. So, placebo or not, for this person, in this case, I think it was helpful.
Is that the right conclusion, though? That the researchers simply want the study to continue? I would say it's likely to be a good scientific result with an unusual, unexpected conclusion. Placebo effect is real. They included testing for it, and discovered that, conclusively. If one wants to challenge or question the result, fine! But assuming a corrupted process without evidence is not scientific, nor ethically sound.
I've taken vitamins off and on, all my adult life. Some of them as a result of holistic health remedies with muscle testing, etc. Never persevered with them, though. Then a couple of years ago, preparing for some surgery, I decided to start taking an array of vitamins, effectively supplying pretty much the whole list of RDA's. Started feeling better within a few days, and have kept it up now for about 4 years. Placebo effect? My answer is, Who cares?.
Second tommyesq's question. When I read, " giving participants four microdoses of LSD over the course of two weeks, but without telling them about the purpose of the study or even what they were taking" that sure seemed like a violation of every ethical standard for drug research I'd ever heard of. Unless it was prisoners. That would be worse.
Prozac hype was about 40% placebo effect too. But everyone said, hey whatever works! Placebos work too!
And we're oh so much better now.
Seems to imply (or I’m inferring) that mental health cannot be treated by drugs as much as people (scientists, doctors, government) think it does.
CNN Admitted It
"A new preprint study from researchers at Harvard and Yale estimates that 94% of Americans have been infected with the virus that causes Covid-19 at least once, and 97% have been infected or vaccinated, increasing protection against a new Omicron infection from an estimated 22% in December 2021 to 63% by November 10, 2022. Population protection against severe disease rose from an estimated 61% in December 2021 to around 89%, on average, this November."
- CNN
Non-sterilizing therapeutic treatment. A placebo effect, at best. An adverse event, at worst.
Now if that injury was a trade-off and accepting it prevented you from getting the virus at all then, if the odds favored the jab, that might still be worth it. But we knew before the jabs rolled out, as the data from the trials showed and Birx admitted, that this was not the case.
Evaluate the risk, then with informed consent, make a Choice... uh, choice.
The Placebo effect was discovered in 1944 by Henry K Beecher, who would become the Mass General's Chief of Anesthesia after the war. It was very powerful and remains so. His discovery was that soldiers wounded in frontline combat had far less pain than soldiers who had similar injuries from non combat incidents. The euphoria from having survived combat was strong enough to nearly eliminate pain. It is real.
Shamans, witchdoctors, witches, and the entire medical industry for thousands of years before the 1800s relied mostly on the placebo effect. It's really, really, really better than nothing and helps a lot of people. A simple sign of compassion such as rubbing a sore part of the body can also help. "I'll kiss it and make it feel better."
Today the industry has turned de facto placebos into profit: Today's doctors prescribe, let's say, a modestly effective digestive or weight-loss aide with equally severe side effects, when they might more ethically suggest a dietary change that would eliminate the problem without 'drugs.' But profits. But NIH. But NIMH. Buth Fauci. But my retirement plan for Hawaii. But conflicts of interest.
I've been micro-dosing left-over pecan pie since Thursday. There's no known placebo for pecan pie.
The entire Silicon Valley is trending to placebo effect.
Michael K. "nearly" is an overstatement. "somewhat" for a few moments is closer. It's why line medics carry morphine.
Bob Boyd.
Is there such a thing as micro dosing pecan pie? Are you chained to your chair with Nurse Ratchit preparing your portions?
When you micro dose pecan pie, instead of cutting a slice, putting it on a plate and eating it, you just look both ways and if the coast is clear, you lift the cover of the pie pan, take one bite with a fork, put the cover back on, get clear of the area and get on with your...creative process, experiencing improved mood and a sense of wellbeing.
On one level, if the placebo effect makes people feel better, so what?
@ Mid-Life Lawyer...I will be interested to hear about your 'trip' : )
Bob Boyd. That's some gut-busting self-discipline. You need to see somebody about that.
Thanks to the well wishers.
The last several months of my life have been as chaotic as I have ever experienced. Covid, Rebound Covid which happens a lot when you take Paxlovid, and in between a spectacular wreck on I40 in which the Uhaul I was driving to Nashville was rear ended by an 18 Wheeler in a sudden stop coming into West Memphis and then driven into another 18 wheeler. I was wearing a seat belt but the air bag did no deploy. The back of my head hit something, presumably the back of the cab, and I do not remember the noise, the impact, getting out of the Uhaul, or anything until I was standing beside the demolished Uhaul talking to a state trooper. I didn't know why I had a Uhaul, where I came from, or where I was going. I found the address I was driving to on a Uhaul contract and it was vaguely familiar but I had no idea why I was going there. It was my apartment in Nashville and I had flown from Nashville back to DFW the day before, picked up the Uhaul, and was driving back. In about 30 minutes, it all started coming back to me including seeing the 18 wheeler coming up behind, knowing he was not going to be able to stop, and thinking, "this is it, this is how I die." I spent a few hours in a trauma center getting head and neck CT scans and was released. I still have some physical and mental issues that I will check on when I get back from Jamaica. This was not how I envisoned going into this retreat that was planned back in August. But, I'm working with it. It will probably be the perfect prep.
The Placebo Effect is even stronger when reinforced by a chorus of people telling you how effective something is.
Hence, the left's uproar over losing control of Twitter.
Wow, Mid-Life Lawyer, what a story! Glad you made it. Thanks for sharing.
Maybe a better-designed study could eliminate the placebo effect? Or are they mostly thinking the placebo effect helps people and it's good to help people?
A well designed study would also include people who get no "treatment" at all.
So we can see if it's actually a "placebo effect", or just a "time effect"
The back of my head hit something, presumably the back of the cab, and I do not remember the noise, the impact, getting out of the Uhaul, or anything until I was standing beside the demolished Uhaul talking to a state trooper. I didn't know why I had a Uhaul, where I came from, or where I was going
I really hope that the state trooper's response to that was "we need an ambulance for this guy, stat!"
Glad you survived, hope you recover quickly and fully
The back of my head hit something, presumably the back of the cab, and I do not remember the noise, the impact, getting out of the Uhaul, or anything until I was standing beside the demolished Uhaul talking to a state trooper. I didn't know why I had a Uhaul, where I came from, or where I was going.
Greg The Class Traitor
"I really hope that the state trooper's response to that was "we need an ambulance for this guy, stat!"
Glad you survived, hope you recover quickly and fully."
Right after the Trooper, two EMTs appeared. They started asking me questions then coaxed me into the ambulance. After just a few questions, they knew I had a head injury and memory loss, they found the spot on the back of my head, and examined the other numerous smallish injuries across my upper body, mostly my arms, then strongly recommended they take me to a Trauma Center. They said they could not "make me go." The trama center was across the Mississippi in Memphis. I arrived at 4:48 p.m., I noticed on documents later, and the wreck was about 3:45 p.m. or so. It was after 7:00 p.m. before I got my imaging because they kept getting new patients with gun shot and stab wounds etc. and I kept getting bumped because I wasn't in any obvious distress. A little after 7:00, the same Arkansas Trooper from the accident site came in and got my statement. I was pretty clear by then and he said that my statement was consistent with what his scene investigation revealed. He told me they gave the 18 wheeler driver that hit me a ticket for recklessness of some sort, don't remember now although I now have the Crash Report that was released ten days later if I wanted to look it up, and that was that. He was nice and professional. At about 9:30 p.m. they told me that "my brain was not bleeding" and they would release me soon. It was more or less a triage center. I had lots of bruise and abrasions and sore spots all over but they were about trauma and just glanced at those injuries. They were putting out fires. People who were brought in while I was lying there in a bed in the middle of more or less a hall, died while I was lying there watching and listening. I could here the intake person talking to the EMT's as they gave the information on the patients they brought in. A lot of the patients were in hand cuffs. Wild scene. I'm not through processing it for sure. I don't know if I was unconscious during the interval I lost, or I just don't remember.
1) The placebo "effect" is not a thing. It's statistical noise that's been given a name in a specific context. The human body is complex and poorly understood. Sometimes people get better for unknown reasons--and sometimes they just think they do. But it's just regression to the mean*.
2) The placebo "effect" by definition doesn't help with the underlying issue, so invoking it deliberately to "help" does not make sense. Since it's largely regression to the mean, it doesn't even make people feel better in the long run, or even help more than half of people.
3) The placebo "effect" is negative as well as positive--it does make some people feel worse. That's what you expect from statistical noise.
*Suppose I'm testing a drug that is supposed to confer probability-defying powers (but doesn't). I give it to 10,000 people and have them each flip coins. Somewhere between 5 and 15 of those people will get 10 heads in a row. (And 5 to 15 will get 10 tails). That's the placebo "effect" in a nutshell. They really did get ten of the same in a row, it's not their imagination, but the drug was not responsible, it's simply randomness in a large group of people and it's expected. And if you let those people who had ten heads or ten tails in a row try again, probably none of those people will get the same result, and that's the "regression to the mean".
Hi N. I work as a surgeon and obviously read scientific papers and have authored papers. If in an experiment you give everyone the same treatment and they all have a positive or negative affect could be that your intervention caused it and it could be that the patient experiences something That the brain convinces him is really there. For any trial to know with certainty that the intervention worked, it must be compared against something else. Where it is ethical to do so you would have one arm of patients, who received the treatment in one arm that did not receive the treatment. the placebo effect is the same as seeing the arm that did not receive treatment. There is no way to eliminate this effect. To what extent did the people who saw benefit simply convince themselves that there must be a benefit? This is the placebo effect, and needs its own arm to compare against the treatment arm. The placebo effect is simply measuring the arm of the study with no treatment, and so if there is no difference between the treatment arm and the not treatment arm, it means there is no objective benefit to the treatment itself. One single study, or perhaps two studies cannot be conclusive and so scientists would run several studies and as the results coalesce around the coherent answer that becomes the current truth. If the outcomes are consistently inconsistent at some point you determine, we should have seen a consistent answer and they’re probably is no effect of the treatment.
Gabriel said...
1) The placebo "effect" is not a thing. It's statistical noise that's been given a name in a specific context. The human body is complex and poorly understood. Sometimes people get better for unknown reasons--and sometimes they just think they do. But it's just regression to the mean*.
The placebo effect most certainly IS a "thing". It's a well known and tested fact that merely paying attention to someone / something and saying "we're working on it" causes positive changes.
2) The placebo "effect" by definition doesn't help with the underlying issue, so invoking it deliberately to "help" does not make sense. Since it's largely regression to the mean, it doesn't even make people feel better in the long run, or even help more than half of people.
Since the body has a fair amount of ability to deal with pain, and increase repair, but does not always do so, the claim that "state of mind" can't affect "state of body" is incredibly wrong
3) The placebo "effect" is negative as well as positive--it does make some people feel worse. That's what you expect from statistical noise.
If it was JUST statistical noise, it could be filtered out using statistics.
but it can't, which is why we pay a whole lot more to do studies with 1/2 the participants in the placebo group
That's a tale, Mid-Life Lawyer. I'm glad you survived and hope you get better, psychotropic drugs or not. It's bad enough driving I40 in a familiar rig.
We do have one of the best/most active trauma units at the Med (public hospital)--if you're cut or shot, go there if you can!
We also have a very active fraternity of ambulance chasers. They're all over the TV.
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