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Under a starless sky
06-16-2008, 08:33 AM
The placebo effect is where a person is given a fake drug or other and it works the same way as a regular drug or whatever.

There was a instance of this in the TV show M.A.S.H.: one character was given sugar pills or something and was told it would cool his body down. He could walk around in sweaters and fur and not break a sweat in 90 degree heat while everyone else was basically dying. He was later told it was a fake, and he immediately broke into a sweat.

Several studies and experiments have been done to see the effect of the placebo effect.

Some doctors have been known to give placebos to patients who think they have an illness and want something to get rid of it with (usually older women past menopause).

Have you ever been given a placebo? Or have you ever given a placebo to someone else?

My professor told me of two 15 or 16 yr old boys who went into a bar. The bartender made the boys a mixed drink and went about his business while the boys took their drinks and went to play pool. My professor pulled the bartender aside and asked, "Won't you get in trouble giving those boys alcohol?"
"No," said the bartender, "it isn't alcohol. We have a bottle under the table here that is filled with vinegar, pickle juice, water (and something else non-alcoholic that i cannot remember). We give it to them every friday and they think it is alcohol."
A little while later someone motioned for my professor to come and look at the boys. They were giggling and laughing and falling all over themselves.

It is funny how a mind thing can really do numbers on a person.

So, again, have you ever given or taken a placebo?
As far as I know, I have not.

Sanosuke23
06-16-2008, 09:05 AM
If I have, I don't know it.

I expect variations on that response to be legion.

Dxon
06-16-2008, 09:30 AM
I know it's an interesting effect. Your brain can also kill you. Hallucinations are dangerous? (Hallucinating fire or something. Body becomes really cold?? Or hot?)

Darklord
06-16-2008, 09:58 AM
It is somewhat similar to a snake bite? I have heard people live for days after being bitten by venomous snakes without knowing it. Once they find out, they die (either by realisation or a heart attack).

~*Red*~
06-16-2008, 01:57 PM
I don't think I've taken a placebo pill.

And I know who you mean; Corporal Klinger.

Alive-And-Dreaming
06-16-2008, 02:01 PM
My dad bought these kids driver's pop instead of beer, and I went to their party and everyone acted totally drunk.

Capernicus
06-16-2008, 02:32 PM
There was a instance of this in the TV show M.A.S.H.: one character was given sugar pills or something and was told it would cool his body down. He could walk around in sweaters and fur and not break a sweat in 90 degree heat while everyone else was basically dying. He was later told it was a fake, and he immediately broke into a sweat.

Citing a TV show as evidence is a bit ridiculous, though I know what you were trying to get at. The placebo is an interesting idea.

Amray
06-16-2008, 02:35 PM
That is a tad similar to that story about that Doctor who gave elderly patients the wrong pills and medication on purpose just so that they would die. How pointless, evil and stupid.

Don't worry though, the moron 'hanged' himself in prison.

Manhattan_Project_2000
06-16-2008, 03:22 PM
That is a tad similar to that story about that Doctor who gave elderly patients the wrong pills and medication on purpose just so that they would die. How pointless, evil and stupid.

Don't worry though, the moron 'hanged' himself in prison.

Not at all similar. Placebo effect is used to effectively treat psychosomatic symptoms, your story is about willfully murdering the elderly.

Eris
06-16-2008, 03:52 PM
Not at all similar. Placebo effect is used to effectively treat psychosomatic symptoms, your story is about willfully murdering the elderly.

Furthermore, the placebo effect is important in drug trials, where it's an important factor to test whether a drug actually has it's intended effect, or it's all in the head of the patient or experimenter. So they do double blind tests (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_blind_test), where there are two groups of patients that are given real drugs and placebo respectively, and importantly neither the patient or the experimenter know whether they are given placebos or actual drugs, so there is no possibility for placebo effect or experimenter bias.

MomijiTMO
06-16-2008, 06:31 PM
You wouldn't know if you were in the Placebo category in the trial anyway. It normally goes like this. 4 groups:

Stamped drug
Unstamped drug
Stamped placebo
Unstamped placebo.

Sometimes people report relief [in pain medication] when they have the stamped placebo. The brain is pretty amazing you know.

███
06-16-2008, 06:57 PM
So wouldn't Placebo then be a mental state of mind rather than a fake drug?

genericusername2
06-16-2008, 07:03 PM
Being a drug user myself, I would have to say the 'placebo effect' is complete ludicrous.

Manhattan_Project_2000
06-16-2008, 07:12 PM
Being a drug user myself, I would have to say the 'placebo effect' is complete ludicrous.
Well, when you become a scientist you can try to disprove the placebo effect all you want. Until then, we are going to stick with established medical fact, OK?

Fabala
06-16-2008, 11:08 PM
I understand the purpose of the placebo, and support not only that but the surrounding double-blind tests. Make sense, and studies have shown the "placebo effect" to be valid (Ever been sick and felt relief immediately after taking medication for it? Yeah, in most cases it's not the medicine's effects you're feeling.)

I know people volunteer to participate in these studies, but I can't help but feel a little put-off on behalf of those people who do have the condition the product is attempting to cure who receive the placebo. Effectively they are going without any real treatment for the course of the testing, placebo effect or not.

MomijiTMO
06-16-2008, 11:25 PM
The point of a trial is to trial the drug's effectiveness and to find out any side effects that might occur. It is not an option that people apply to receive treatment. There is no guarantee that it will work and therefore I don't think it is wrong to the people who participate in the trial if they are in the placebo group.

Fabala
06-16-2008, 11:45 PM
I didn't say it was wrong, just that I pity the people who are not receiving any kind of "real" treatment.

Ollie
06-17-2008, 12:09 AM
I didn't say it was wrong, just that I pity the people who are not receiving any kind of "real" treatment.
Aren't those people usually part of a test, though? They didn't sign up for "real" treatment.

Fabala
06-17-2008, 12:13 AM
They are. In some cases they're signing up because nothing else has worked for their ailment, and they're hoping for a breakthrough. It's those people, in their last ditch efforts to find new hope, that I pity for getting the placebo. Naturally they are going in aware they may be getting just that, as I think the placebo use is pretty common knowledge these days, but I can't help but pity them.

Oh no, my compassion is showing >.>

Manhattan_Project_2000
06-17-2008, 12:44 AM
So wouldn't Placebo then be a mental state of mind rather than a fake drug?
Missed this.

Yes. Placebo can mean sugar pills, but it can also mean any number of other tricks to convince people they are receiving medical treatment they are not. There exists such a thing as placebo surgery, for example. They do real surgeries on one group, and just cut the other group open and sew them back up so the patient believes he's had surgery.

Dxon
06-17-2008, 01:07 AM
Furthermore, the placebo effect is important in drug trials, where it's an important factor to test whether a drug actually has it's intended effect, or it's all in the head of the patient or experimenter. So they do double blind tests (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_blind_test), where there are two groups of patients that are given real drugs and placebo respectively, and importantly neither the patient or the experimenter know whether they are given placebos or actual drugs, so there is no possibility for placebo effect or experimenter bias.

I had this in school... It was sooo boring...

Did you people know that you learn 95% for nothing in school and you only going to use 5% you've learned? Other 95% will be forgotten over time.

Besides you all got placebo's already when you were young. Your mom would kiss the wound or something and you would feel better. That's a placebo too. Another reason to believe them. You've experienced them when it obviously wouldn't help. But it did. ^_^

Manhattan_Project_2000
06-17-2008, 01:18 AM
I had this in school... It was sooo boring...

Did you people know that you learn 95% for nothing in school and you only going to use 5% you've learned? Other 95% will be forgotten over time.Did you know that over 312% of people on the internet make up statistics 49.67% of the time?


Besides you all got placebo's already when you were young. Your mom would kiss the wound or something and you would feel better. That's a placebo too. Another reason to believe them. You've experienced them when it obviously wouldn't help. But it did. ^_^
A kiss isn't a strictly speaking a placebo, if anything it's faith medicine for toddlers. A placebo is fake real medicine as opposed to real fake medicine. Also, I personally was skeptical of the healing powers of motherly saliva even then.

Haoie
06-17-2008, 01:56 AM
It's extremely unlikely anyone here has.

Unless they take regular medication or have been on a drug trial.

Manhattan_Project_2000
06-17-2008, 10:10 AM
It's extremely unlikely anyone here has.

Unless they take regular medication or have been on a drug trial.

If they have ever gone into a Doctors Office with a viral cold and received antibiotics, any relief they experienced is from the placebo effect. Antibiotics will do nothing for a cold, but the patient feels that because a doctor prescribed it, it must do SOMETHING.

Eris
06-17-2008, 10:19 AM
I had this in school... It was sooo boring...

Did you people know that you learn 95% for nothing in school and you only going to use 5% you've learned? Other 95% will be forgotten over time.

That all depends on what you do with your life. If you waste you life packing fish in a factory, you're not going to need anything you learned in school. If you devote your life to personal intellectual advancement, you're going to need everything you learned.


A kiss isn't a strictly speaking a placebo, if anything it's faith medicine for toddlers. A placebo is fake real medicine as opposed to real fake medicine. Also, I personally was skeptical of the healing powers of motherly saliva even then.

They are the same in the sense that they're both suggestion.

Fabala
06-17-2008, 06:42 PM
If they have ever gone into a Doctors Office with a viral cold and received antibiotics, any relief they experienced is from the placebo effect. Antibiotics will do nothing for a cold, but the patient feels that because a doctor prescribed it, it must do SOMETHING.

Yes, this is because there are very, very foolish doctors, who don't have the balls to tell their patients to suck it up, ride the illness out, and NOT overload their bodies with antibiotics. This is why customer after customer in the pharmacy required our strongest antibiotics when they really DID need it to fight off infection.

How stupid. How lacking in foresight.

MomijiTMO
06-17-2008, 08:43 PM
Why does every good thread end up turning into a fight between mods and some members? I think we are getting pretty far off topic ;).

On topic:
If you are taking something [say antibiotics] to fight your flu and you believe it is going to make you better and you do get better, this could well be the placebo effect. In normal circumstances, you would get better but if you truly believe this pill is going to accelerate your recovery, then you might be able to speed up your own recovery process.

We need to differentiate between this effect and the drug in question effect on the body. Animal trials only get you so far.

Cancre
06-17-2008, 09:11 PM
uhhhhh the placebo effect so annoying like the told this girl she was going to get like really ill becuase of something they fed her and 2 days later she was throwing up and ick then they told her they had been testing her it went away instantly

Fabala
06-17-2008, 09:17 PM
Where's the fighting, exactly? o.O

My argument is that doctors are going about utilizing the "placebo effect" the wrong way. They could prescribe sugar pills and their patients would still feel better, but without the harmful effects of over-prescribing antibiotics.

allaboutyou3678
06-17-2008, 10:21 PM
I like that band. Just kidding I know this is not about them, but yeah I have never recievied a placebo, but I have seen the fake alcohol acting drunk thing. It pretty amazing since they even had a placebo hangover.

Reniti
06-17-2008, 10:58 PM
It's really an interesting topic to explore. I'd like to see myself under the placebo effect.

Under a starless sky
06-18-2008, 09:02 AM
There was a case a bunch of years ago, '50s or'60s or something, where people were going in for surgery (of the heart or something very important) and doctors would actually work on some people, but with others they just sewed them back up. All people got better. Of course, you could NEVER EVER EVER! do something like that now, cuz that is completely insane. I'm not saying the doctors were in the right, cuz those patients could have died or something. But the paatients thought they had been fixed and healed themselves. Kinda cool, but i would not want to be put in the operating situation. If i go in for an operation i expect the doctors to do watever needed done.

Manhattan_Project_2000
06-18-2008, 03:21 PM
There was a case a bunch of years ago, '50s or'60s or something, where people were going in for surgery (of the heart or something very important) and doctors would actually work on some people, but with others they just sewed them back up. All people got better. Of course, you could NEVER EVER EVER! do something like that now, cuz that is completely insane. I'm not saying the doctors were in the right, cuz those patients could have died or something. But the paatients thought they had been fixed and healed themselves. Kinda cool, but i would not want to be put in the operating situation. If i go in for an operation i expect the doctors to do watever needed done.
They still do that in clinical trials for surgeries.

Reniti
06-18-2008, 06:31 PM
Can someone with allergies, which doesn't go away in life, can experience the Placebo Effect? Say they take a pill for their pollen issues and the doctor "guarantees" that the effects will go away, will the allergies go away under the Placebo Effect?

genericusername2
06-22-2008, 06:06 PM
I will never become a scientist nor a teacher. Why try and educate others? My wise knowledge and understanding is all for myself.

Eris
06-22-2008, 06:17 PM
I will never become a scientist nor a teacher. Why try and educate others? My wise knowledge and understanding is all for myself.

Because understanding, perhaps not placebo effect, but it's underlying mechanism; Suggestion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suggestion) -- is probably one of the most important things you'll ever do. Without it, you are a fool. You'll, failing to explain it, be forced to blindly believe all sorts of garbage; be it ghosts, gods, astral projection and other mumbo jumbo.