January 10, 2014 • 26 mins
The placebo effect is pretty freaky when you think about it: just believing that a harmless substance is a medicine can really produce measurable benefits. It sounds crazy, but the placebo effect is real, and its implications continue to fascinate scientists. So why does it appear to be getting stronger?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to. Now, Hey, everybody,
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and
I am then. And today we're gonna be talking about
(00:22):
something that I've been doing since i was Oh, we
tyke something my mom taught me. Um, whenever i feel
like I'm getting sick and you know, we're in the
cold season right now, and uh, and I tend to
get one nice bout of sickness every year. And I
have gotten the sickness ever since I was a little boy.
(00:43):
And what my mom would do is give me a
giant glass of orange juice and she would say, drink this,
it'll make you feel better. And so now even you know,
I'm thirty now, and this year, I've been drinking orange
juice like a madman because I feel like it's gonna
stave off this pickness that's coming on. I know it's coming.
(01:03):
But what I've learned over the course of the past
few months, so that this is the vitamin C isn't
actually doing anything to my immune system. Huh. That our
belief that vitamins. Really, yeah, aren't doing anything about that? Well,
they're they're probably still good for you, even if even
if it's true that they're not doing anything. It's good
(01:24):
for my body, but it has no direct effect. Well
let's take a more extreme example. UM, do you have asthma?
Do you know anyone who has asthma? I did have
asthma as a child. Oh yeah, I grew out of it. Huh.
I had wimpy white boy syndrome. What the heck is that?
And that's something that my wife has talked to me about. Uh,
I don't know. It's something about our genes. Man, I
(01:46):
got all these recessive genes in me allegedly. You know,
a little little white boys, they tend to get a
little sick. I used to be hooked up to one
of those machines a respirator at night. Really I was
a kid. Yeah wow, Well luckily this was you were
not that person I was talking about. Then in a
novel that I really enjoyed, it was pretty creepy, called
(02:09):
it by Stephen King. Listeners, some of you may have
read it already, UM, and I'm sure a lot of
people have seen the mini series. UM read the book
I hate to be that guy. But the book is
crazy good and scary and freaky. Um. Anyhow, in it,
there is a character named Eddie cass Brack or something
(02:31):
like that, Eddie k will call it. Eddie is a
bit of a hypochondriac and he has a very overbearing mother,
and Eddie's mother is convinced that Eddie has asthma. Eddie
himself is also convinced that he has asthma. And there's
a spoiler alert here, and I feel like it's not
(02:53):
too not too um crappy of me to say this
because it's been out for a while. You're not really
breaking the story, then, I'm not breaking Yeah, I'm not
breaking a huge plot point in the story. Um. One
thing that you find throughout the story is that Eddie
Kay doesn't have asthma, and the entire time that he
(03:15):
thought he did as a child, his pharmacist was trying
to play kate his mother by giving him just an
inhaler that had some stuff sprayed in it to give
it a medicinal crappy taste. And despite the fact that
this was pretty much foul tasting water, it cured Eddie's
(03:36):
imagined asthma. Every time, ladies and gentlemen. What Matt and
I are talking about today is the placebo effect. And
a placebo effect is not just something that allows a
a purported medicine to fix a psychological or psycho somatic disease.
(03:58):
It can actually cure real conditions. And from what we've
been learning when we did an episode on this, apparently
the placebo effect is getting stronger. What do you think, Matt, Oh,
that is so crazy to me. So what we're really
talking about here is the power of the human brain
(04:20):
and the mind and belief, the power of belief. And
this is where it gets a little weird for me
because I have a hard time really grasping some of
this stuff because it seems so pseudo scientific. It seems
almost almost spiritual in a way, um, where it kind
(04:41):
of it bridges that mind body gap. Um. It's tough
for me to wrap my head around really, but it's fascinating.
My god, it's fascinating. Uh. What if I give you
a pill that will help you wrap your head around it?
See what that would probably work? I don't know, might
have to be from a doctor least at least have
(05:03):
All Right, well, let's start digging into this then, okay,
so let's define it first. The placebo effect according to
rational Wiki, which we wanted to check out here because
we figured they would have the least spiritualized definition. Right, So,
they say, it's a psycho somatic phenomenon in which symptoms
of a disease or condition lesson or even appear to
(05:26):
be comcured completely from the patient being merely exposed to
a treatment. Now, this is important because it means symptoms
might disappear, they might feel better, they might actually be better. Um,
whether or not the treatment they were given had any
real medicinal effect or or active chemical or pharmacological agent
(05:51):
in there. That means just the idea that you are
somehow being treated can affect your your mind such that
your mind makes effects on your body. Imagine yourself. Well,
it's so crazy. It just it's almost as though it's
allowing it's allowing you to unlock your your immune system
(06:14):
that already exists within you to fight off whatever the
thing is that you're trying to beat. Right, and we
know that we know that there are there are some
measurable effects of the mental outlook on the human body
mind over matter. If you will, right, um, and it's
strange because you and I did an episode a while
(06:36):
back that we rereleased recently asking whether or not the
placebo effect is getting stronger. Now we dug into it
with some more details in this podcast, and we have
some interesting things to tell to tell all you lovely
guys and ladies out there today. Um but before we
get to that, let's just say some weird, maybe disturbing,
(06:58):
maybe cool facts about the placebo effect. Um. One, the
packaging matters. Yeah, the packaging on the pill matters. If
it's flashy, it looks like they spend a lot of
money creating this package, which means, hey, maybe they spend
a lot of money creating this pill or whatever this
solution is that I'm taking. That's crazy. Yeah, And it's
(07:20):
it's an effect that also transcends medicine. People will judge
wine that seems to come in a more expensive bottle
as a better wine. Oh yeah, oh totally. Well. And
here's another weird thing. Ben older drugs, the real drugs
that actually have some kind of active agent in them,
(07:41):
don't seem to work as well anymore because they're they're older.
And I don't know this, this is really weird. There
are a lot of things you can get into with
this fact. But okay, so somebody's perception of it as
less effective, well, because that's been around for a long time. UM,
as opposed to this new drug that is essentially the
(08:02):
same thing and possibly even has the same active ingredient
in it, will be strong will have a stronger effect.
And there's another thing. There's a huge debate between the
medical communities, the respective little islands and the archipelago of medicine.
There's this huge debate about how alternative medicine quote unquote
(08:23):
or homeopathy works. Uh. Some people believe that it's entirely
due to the placebo effect. That if you really believe
you're drinking you know, energized water or you are having
a your chakras aligned, that the simple belief that a
patient might have that this is working is the engine
(08:46):
behind the results. Now, we're not doing an episode right
now on an alternative medicine or homeopathy or or any
of that stuff. We will do an episode on it
if you would like to hear it in the future. UM.
Interesting other facts about the placebo effect. It has been
observed in both animals and babies, and that's the weird
(09:09):
thing about that, Ben, is that it usually requires some
kind of conditioning, which basically just means someone telling you, hey, Ben,
I'm giving you this pill and it's going to help
with your prasides. Yeah, you have to know what is
what the mechanism is. It's not learned, yes exactly, but
but it's shown to work in babies and animals. And
(09:30):
how the heck do you translate for let's say an
orca whale that this medicine that you're giving it is
going to help with its fin I don't know, but
oreca whales are murderously intelligent, It's true, so they might.
They might. They'll be able to pick it up. Maybe intelligent.
Yeah right, Um, so we said placebos are more expensive,
(09:52):
work better. We also know that if you if you
have more of a placebo, then you will feel like
it's more effective. You know, just like when you're taking
real medicine, take two pills, then it'll have an increased effect.
Apparently that even works when the medicine is fake. So
(10:14):
if you take two sugar pills or you know, blue
sky cough medicine doses or whatever, then it will it
will have more of a dramatic placebo effect well, and
it's also shown that more, the more dramatic, the way
you get the medicine, the way it's given to you,
the better it's gonna work. So what do you mean,
(10:36):
So if I just give you a pill that you
have to take, uh, it's gonna have a certain effect.
But if I roll up with a syringe and give
you an injection of just some sailine, then you know
that's that's that's an intensive thing that I've just given
you a drug that requires to go directly into your bloodstream. Yeah,
it's gonna make you feel like I'm doing more and uh,
(10:57):
and it's probably gonna work better. So we could also
extend that maybe too when the doctor is talking with you.
If the doctor sits you down and says, you know, Matthew,
this is an astonishing new experimental treatment. This will cure you. Yeah,
then you'll be more likely to feel the effects. Right. Yeah,
(11:18):
we're coming from a place of authority. We've and you know,
we've explored this before been but that authoritative voice of
someone who seems at least seems to be an expert
in something, that information comes off much more strongly. All
you need is that subtitle at the bottom of the screen.
Right expert on insert x here. Uh. Yeah, we also
(11:41):
know that um placebos can overpower real pharmacological effects. So people,
for instance, who were given drugs to induce nausea didn't
develop symptoms when they were told the treatment would actually
wait for it relieve nausea. That's what Yeah, Uh, I
(12:06):
just need I just need to sit down for a second. Ben,
I think I think my uh my anti nausea medication
is working well. Now, we we can while while Matt's
trying not to throw out we can we can skim
over some of these because we've got a lot of
facts that people have to get get too. But the
primary thing we wanted to talk about is um that
(12:28):
the placebo effect does appear to be getting stronger over time.
And some of this is due to the idea that
our expectations of medicine, not just what medicine treats, but
what medicine is, have changed over time. So here's the question, Matt,
is the placebo effect becoming stronger or are we measuring
(12:51):
things differently? What what gives? That's an excellent question. So
this goes to there are a couple things we're gonna
be able to talk about here. Um, but wow, man,
the most important one, I'm gonna we're gonna leave for
the end because I think that's the most interesting. Um
about how about how how wide the measurements are? Well,
(13:13):
we'll go back to that. We go back to that one.
The most interesting. Um. So, from two thousand two to
two thousand six, the number of drugs that were axed
after phase two clinical trials. That that's the volunteer trials. Okay,
the poor college student trials exactly. Yes, Well, they increased
because the drugs couldn't beat the placebos that they were
being compared to, which is wild. It's wild, man, Yeah,
(13:36):
and they're they're Also when we dug into this, we
found that there were a few big factors that generated
this appearance of an increase in the placebo effect. Um.
The first one, and one of the big keys is
powerful advertising. And it makes sense if you think about it, right,
(13:56):
because advertising affects the mind, and the placebo effect is
a product of mind. And man, that again, it's that
mind body connection that it's so fascinating. We're gonna have
to have some kind of large series just on this bend,
just on the mind body connection. And you know what
(14:17):
we need to do. We need to get uh, we
need to get the people from stuff with blow your mind.
Oh yeah, that'd be cool. That's what we should do.
Maybe you and Robert and Julie and I can all
take a vision quest. So the the other interesting thing
here is that for anyone who doesn't know the at
least the Western pharmaceutical industry, which is the vast majority
(14:40):
of the international pharmaceutical industry, spends so much money on advertising.
Now you would think that people would spend so much
more money on research and design. How can we cure HIV?
How can we cure insert disease here? But how can
we sell more of my drug? Right? A lot of
(15:00):
it is more. How can we how can we get
people to take more ZR tech? Yeah, and not only
sell it monetarily, but sell it to you that it works,
that it's a real thing that is functioning and effective.
And this goes to something else that I want to
talk about. Now. We're saving the big one for the end,
but not. Another reason for the increase in the perception
(15:22):
of the placebo effect is that we have a much
larger pool of diseases now, and psychological disorders have begun
to be counted as something. You know, so, oh you're depressed,
Oh you're you're you're you have O c D of
(15:42):
some sort, you have a d h D for instance,
and and and various things that would be qualified as
psychological disorders rather than physical disorders. Sleep So well, sometimes
you feel guilty. You should take this and look at
this cute animation that we've created for it. See pay
(16:02):
no attention to the fine prints about these terrible side
effects and the weird dreams. Oh yeah, may cause vivid hallucinations,
strange dreams, side urination, whatever that is. Uh yeah, Well, now,
of course we're not saying this to in any way
denigrade people who do suffer from psychological disorders. And we're
(16:23):
not saying absolutely not, we're not saying that this that
the medicine that these people might be taking isn't really real.
But what we are saying is that the placebo effect
is measurable in these psychological disorders as well. And it
is no secret that psychological disorders are widely misdiagnosed. Oh yes,
(16:47):
I've had many conversations with my wife, the school psychologist,
about misdiagnosis, especially in younger people, right, and and some
of us we you know, the behavior of a of
a young human being, it can seem a ratic in
comparison to an older human being. Um, Different disorders manifest
at different times. There are a lot of factors at play.
(17:09):
It's not a cut and dry thing. So pharmaceutical companies
have spent a lot of money researching these diseases specifically, right,
Oh yeah, absolutely, And just another thing here been that
kind of it struck me as crazy, is that the
attitude of the way a doctor comes at your disease
(17:33):
and the way they basically whether or whether or not
they give you a negative or a positive diagnosis initially
is going to change, can change the way the outcome
of whatever it is that you're suffering from. Okay, So
just whether or not you have a positive or negative
outlook on whatever it is that you're going through can
(17:56):
change the way it affects you. Okay. So if a
doctor comes in and says, you know, I've got great news,
Mr Boland, your hammer toe will be completely solved by
this operation that we're doing, or not operation that's important
was solved by this pill or even better disinjection, right
(18:21):
versus we've got terrible news, Mr Bolan, There's only one
hope for your hammer toe. It's this amputate amputate placebo.
That one back, all right, So now it's time for
the largest reason. Maybe we'll do a drum roll and
then that the honor is yours. So the most interesting
(18:46):
reason that it seems the placebo effect is increasing is
because our our range, our scope is getting much larger,
and we're we're looking at many more developing nations um
and getting data from developing nations that have access to
drugs that they have never really had access to before.
And it's Western medicine. And there's there's kind of this, uh,
(19:10):
this thought that Western medicine is very powerful, and the
belief in this medicine itself is very strong in a
lot of developing nations. So when you give someone in
a developing nation a let's say a handful of pills
and you say this is going to cure x for you,
(19:31):
the strengthen that belief of that medicine, even if it's
a placebo, it's so great that it seems to be
almost larger there. So the expectancy, which is key in
in the effect of a placebo, means that placebos in
developing or poor countries actually do better than they would
(19:53):
in a developed country. Yeah, it's pretty pretty weird, isn't it. Yes,
And so that's what you mean by scope, right, So
since the I see what you're saying, Since we're measuring
from a much larger sample size, we're bringing up the average.
And you know, we'd be remiss if we didn't point
(20:13):
it out. A lot of not a lot, but some
of those conspiracy theories about the way that pharmaceutical corporations
handle experimental trials and developing countries have a grain of
truth to them. As a matter of fact, a few
of them are absolutely true. Um, so there is there's
(20:36):
a wealth of information that we could examine there in
a in a larger context. And there's a lot here
that we're not touching on too much about the the
prevalence of organized medicine, the way it's organized. Does the
A M A do more harm than good? That's one
that we here brought up a lot. And uh, I
(20:59):
don't know about you, man, but I'd love to examine
those in the future and hear what our listeners think
about this. But first, before we tell you how to
contact us, let's hit one last thing. Then, okay, what's that.
Let's talk about the power of belief and it's limitations. Good, yes, uh,
sort of the the future, the going forward of the
(21:22):
placebo effects. Now we've explained a couple of reasons why, um,
the methodology or the sample size may have changed to
affect the placebo We also talked about the expectations of
medicine and disorder. So now it's time to talk about
how we can use this information you me, everybody listening
(21:42):
to UH to bring forth hopefully fruitful changes. Well, yeah, then, yes,
here's here's the here's the thing. In some cases, even
if you know you're taking a placebo effect, it still
seems to have an effect. That's that's pretty crazy, right,
So even if you're aware that you are just taking
(22:05):
a sugar pill, you can convince yourself that it's not
just a sugar pill and it may help you. Yes,
that's true. So what we're saying is that it may
be possible to construct psychological strategies that hack a patient
h to to exploit the placebo effect for positive results.
(22:26):
Now are better results rather? Now we know, of course,
that if someone is, for instance, horrifically burned you can't
give them a sugar pill and solve their problems. Absolutely not.
They're they're definite limits to this. If there weren't, then
everybody would just live forever. Right. But we we do
know that there is We are in a pioneering age
(22:50):
of exploration between the relationship between the human minds and
the human body, and the placebo effect is much more
likely to be the tip of the iceberg than it
is the iceberg entire um. So although we know why
it's increasing, we do know that there's something to it,
and it's reminded me of a lot of other sort
(23:12):
of placebo effect related things about the mind having power
over the body. But before I get under rant, before
we go too long, um, we've already built up our
case for pharmaceutical shenanigans in the developed world, which we
will return to, and we've already touched on some of
(23:34):
the conspiratorial things that people say about alternative medicine versus
western medicine, and we want to hear what you think
about it, because all of our best ideas come directly
from you, the listener, And to prove that, let's do
some listener mail. Matt, what do you say absolutely let's
(23:58):
get started with Kelly E. M. She wrote to us
and said, Hey, guys, I'm really enjoying your podcast so far.
You sometimes seem concerned that the episode is running too long,
but in my opinion, the episodes are too short. Your
conversations are really engaging and I want to hear more
details and nuances about each topic. Keep up the good work, Kelly. Wow, well,
(24:18):
then I feel bad that we're reading that at the end. Yeah. Well, Kelly,
thank you so much for writing in. We really appreciate
your input. And you know, sometimes the time constraints, we
we just put them on our ourselves because we kind
of have to get in and out of here quickly.
There's so many people using this, uh, this recording studio.
But you know what, I think we can make time.
(24:40):
We'll see what we can do. Um. In some cases
they may be a little longer. In other cases, maybe
they may be a little shorter, but hopefully you'll enjoy them. Yeah. Hey,
one interesting thing Kelly that you might want to know
is that all of our podcast, probably about an hour
and a half, we record them and they get heavily redacted.
I'm so kidding. I'm kidding. We we do We are
(25:03):
really excited to have a longer um show opportunity, and
we're gonna see how how much we can fit into
the audio episodes before the powers that be catch us
down and tear it takes us down. Yeah. Um so
in the meantime as we build this crazy house of
cards in a windy room, wish us luck with the
(25:26):
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are conspiracy stuff at both of these and guess what,
(25:49):
you can always take a page from Kelly's book and
send us an email directly. We are conspiracy at Discovery
dot com. For more on this topic another unexplained phenomena,
visit test tube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can
also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at
(26:11):
conspiracy stuff.
From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to. Now, Hey, everybody,
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and
I am then. And today we're gonna be talking about
(00:22):
something that I've been doing since i was Oh, we
tyke something my mom taught me. Um, whenever i feel
like I'm getting sick and you know, we're in the
cold season right now, and uh, and I tend to
get one nice bout of sickness every year. And I
have gotten the sickness ever since I was a little boy.
(00:43):
And what my mom would do is give me a
giant glass of orange juice and she would say, drink this,
it'll make you feel better. And so now even you know,
I'm thirty now, and this year, I've been drinking orange
juice like a madman because I feel like it's gonna
stave off this pickness that's coming on. I know it's coming.
(01:03):
But what I've learned over the course of the past
few months, so that this is the vitamin C isn't
actually doing anything to my immune system. Huh. That our
belief that vitamins. Really, yeah, aren't doing anything about that? Well,
they're they're probably still good for you, even if even
if it's true that they're not doing anything. It's good
(01:24):
for my body, but it has no direct effect. Well
let's take a more extreme example. UM, do you have asthma?
Do you know anyone who has asthma? I did have
asthma as a child. Oh yeah, I grew out of it. Huh.
I had wimpy white boy syndrome. What the heck is that?
And that's something that my wife has talked to me about. Uh,
I don't know. It's something about our genes. Man, I
(01:46):
got all these recessive genes in me allegedly. You know,
a little little white boys, they tend to get a
little sick. I used to be hooked up to one
of those machines a respirator at night. Really I was
a kid. Yeah wow, Well luckily this was you were
not that person I was talking about. Then in a
novel that I really enjoyed, it was pretty creepy, called
(02:09):
it by Stephen King. Listeners, some of you may have
read it already, UM, and I'm sure a lot of
people have seen the mini series. UM read the book
I hate to be that guy. But the book is
crazy good and scary and freaky. Um. Anyhow, in it,
there is a character named Eddie cass Brack or something
(02:31):
like that, Eddie k will call it. Eddie is a
bit of a hypochondriac and he has a very overbearing mother,
and Eddie's mother is convinced that Eddie has asthma. Eddie
himself is also convinced that he has asthma. And there's
a spoiler alert here, and I feel like it's not
(02:53):
too not too um crappy of me to say this
because it's been out for a while. You're not really
breaking the story, then, I'm not breaking Yeah, I'm not
breaking a huge plot point in the story. Um. One
thing that you find throughout the story is that Eddie
Kay doesn't have asthma, and the entire time that he
(03:15):
thought he did as a child, his pharmacist was trying
to play kate his mother by giving him just an
inhaler that had some stuff sprayed in it to give
it a medicinal crappy taste. And despite the fact that
this was pretty much foul tasting water, it cured Eddie's
(03:36):
imagined asthma. Every time, ladies and gentlemen. What Matt and
I are talking about today is the placebo effect. And
a placebo effect is not just something that allows a
a purported medicine to fix a psychological or psycho somatic disease.
(03:58):
It can actually cure real conditions. And from what we've
been learning when we did an episode on this, apparently
the placebo effect is getting stronger. What do you think, Matt, Oh,
that is so crazy to me. So what we're really
talking about here is the power of the human brain
(04:20):
and the mind and belief, the power of belief. And
this is where it gets a little weird for me
because I have a hard time really grasping some of
this stuff because it seems so pseudo scientific. It seems
almost almost spiritual in a way, um, where it kind
(04:41):
of it bridges that mind body gap. Um. It's tough
for me to wrap my head around really, but it's fascinating.
My god, it's fascinating. Uh. What if I give you
a pill that will help you wrap your head around it?
See what that would probably work? I don't know, might
have to be from a doctor least at least have
(05:03):
All Right, well, let's start digging into this then, okay,
so let's define it first. The placebo effect according to
rational Wiki, which we wanted to check out here because
we figured they would have the least spiritualized definition. Right, So,
they say, it's a psycho somatic phenomenon in which symptoms
of a disease or condition lesson or even appear to
(05:26):
be comcured completely from the patient being merely exposed to
a treatment. Now, this is important because it means symptoms
might disappear, they might feel better, they might actually be better. Um,
whether or not the treatment they were given had any
real medicinal effect or or active chemical or pharmacological agent
(05:51):
in there. That means just the idea that you are
somehow being treated can affect your your mind such that
your mind makes effects on your body. Imagine yourself. Well,
it's so crazy. It just it's almost as though it's
allowing it's allowing you to unlock your your immune system
(06:14):
that already exists within you to fight off whatever the
thing is that you're trying to beat. Right, and we
know that we know that there are there are some
measurable effects of the mental outlook on the human body
mind over matter. If you will, right, um, and it's
strange because you and I did an episode a while
(06:36):
back that we rereleased recently asking whether or not the
placebo effect is getting stronger. Now we dug into it
with some more details in this podcast, and we have
some interesting things to tell to tell all you lovely
guys and ladies out there today. Um but before we
get to that, let's just say some weird, maybe disturbing,
(06:58):
maybe cool facts about the placebo effect. Um. One, the
packaging matters. Yeah, the packaging on the pill matters. If
it's flashy, it looks like they spend a lot of
money creating this package, which means, hey, maybe they spend
a lot of money creating this pill or whatever this
solution is that I'm taking. That's crazy. Yeah, And it's
(07:20):
it's an effect that also transcends medicine. People will judge
wine that seems to come in a more expensive bottle
as a better wine. Oh yeah, oh totally. Well. And
here's another weird thing. Ben older drugs, the real drugs
that actually have some kind of active agent in them,
(07:41):
don't seem to work as well anymore because they're they're older.
And I don't know this, this is really weird. There
are a lot of things you can get into with
this fact. But okay, so somebody's perception of it as
less effective, well, because that's been around for a long time. UM,
as opposed to this new drug that is essentially the
(08:02):
same thing and possibly even has the same active ingredient
in it, will be strong will have a stronger effect.
And there's another thing. There's a huge debate between the
medical communities, the respective little islands and the archipelago of medicine.
There's this huge debate about how alternative medicine quote unquote
(08:23):
or homeopathy works. Uh. Some people believe that it's entirely
due to the placebo effect. That if you really believe
you're drinking you know, energized water or you are having
a your chakras aligned, that the simple belief that a
patient might have that this is working is the engine
(08:46):
behind the results. Now, we're not doing an episode right
now on an alternative medicine or homeopathy or or any
of that stuff. We will do an episode on it
if you would like to hear it in the future. UM.
Interesting other facts about the placebo effect. It has been
observed in both animals and babies, and that's the weird
(09:09):
thing about that, Ben, is that it usually requires some
kind of conditioning, which basically just means someone telling you, hey, Ben,
I'm giving you this pill and it's going to help
with your prasides. Yeah, you have to know what is
what the mechanism is. It's not learned, yes exactly, but
but it's shown to work in babies and animals. And
(09:30):
how the heck do you translate for let's say an
orca whale that this medicine that you're giving it is
going to help with its fin I don't know, but
oreca whales are murderously intelligent, It's true, so they might.
They might. They'll be able to pick it up. Maybe intelligent.
Yeah right, Um, so we said placebos are more expensive,
(09:52):
work better. We also know that if you if you
have more of a placebo, then you will feel like
it's more effective. You know, just like when you're taking
real medicine, take two pills, then it'll have an increased effect.
Apparently that even works when the medicine is fake. So
(10:14):
if you take two sugar pills or you know, blue
sky cough medicine doses or whatever, then it will it
will have more of a dramatic placebo effect well, and
it's also shown that more, the more dramatic, the way
you get the medicine, the way it's given to you,
the better it's gonna work. So what do you mean,
(10:36):
So if I just give you a pill that you
have to take, uh, it's gonna have a certain effect.
But if I roll up with a syringe and give
you an injection of just some sailine, then you know
that's that's that's an intensive thing that I've just given
you a drug that requires to go directly into your bloodstream. Yeah,
it's gonna make you feel like I'm doing more and uh,
(10:57):
and it's probably gonna work better. So we could also
extend that maybe too when the doctor is talking with you.
If the doctor sits you down and says, you know, Matthew,
this is an astonishing new experimental treatment. This will cure you. Yeah,
then you'll be more likely to feel the effects. Right. Yeah,
(11:18):
we're coming from a place of authority. We've and you know,
we've explored this before been but that authoritative voice of
someone who seems at least seems to be an expert
in something, that information comes off much more strongly. All
you need is that subtitle at the bottom of the screen.
Right expert on insert x here. Uh. Yeah, we also
(11:41):
know that um placebos can overpower real pharmacological effects. So people,
for instance, who were given drugs to induce nausea didn't
develop symptoms when they were told the treatment would actually
wait for it relieve nausea. That's what Yeah, Uh, I
(12:06):
just need I just need to sit down for a second. Ben,
I think I think my uh my anti nausea medication
is working well. Now, we we can while while Matt's
trying not to throw out we can we can skim
over some of these because we've got a lot of
facts that people have to get get too. But the
primary thing we wanted to talk about is um that
(12:28):
the placebo effect does appear to be getting stronger over time.
And some of this is due to the idea that
our expectations of medicine, not just what medicine treats, but
what medicine is, have changed over time. So here's the question, Matt,
is the placebo effect becoming stronger or are we measuring
(12:51):
things differently? What what gives? That's an excellent question. So
this goes to there are a couple things we're gonna
be able to talk about here. Um, but wow, man,
the most important one, I'm gonna we're gonna leave for
the end because I think that's the most interesting. Um
about how about how how wide the measurements are? Well,
(13:13):
we'll go back to that. We go back to that one.
The most interesting. Um. So, from two thousand two to
two thousand six, the number of drugs that were axed
after phase two clinical trials. That that's the volunteer trials. Okay,
the poor college student trials exactly. Yes, Well, they increased
because the drugs couldn't beat the placebos that they were
being compared to, which is wild. It's wild, man, Yeah,
(13:36):
and they're they're Also when we dug into this, we
found that there were a few big factors that generated
this appearance of an increase in the placebo effect. Um.
The first one, and one of the big keys is
powerful advertising. And it makes sense if you think about it, right,
(13:56):
because advertising affects the mind, and the placebo effect is
a product of mind. And man, that again, it's that
mind body connection that it's so fascinating. We're gonna have
to have some kind of large series just on this bend,
just on the mind body connection. And you know what
(14:17):
we need to do. We need to get uh, we
need to get the people from stuff with blow your mind.
Oh yeah, that'd be cool. That's what we should do.
Maybe you and Robert and Julie and I can all
take a vision quest. So the the other interesting thing
here is that for anyone who doesn't know the at
least the Western pharmaceutical industry, which is the vast majority
(14:40):
of the international pharmaceutical industry, spends so much money on advertising.
Now you would think that people would spend so much
more money on research and design. How can we cure HIV?
How can we cure insert disease here? But how can
we sell more of my drug? Right? A lot of
(15:00):
it is more. How can we how can we get
people to take more ZR tech? Yeah, and not only
sell it monetarily, but sell it to you that it works,
that it's a real thing that is functioning and effective.
And this goes to something else that I want to
talk about. Now. We're saving the big one for the end,
but not. Another reason for the increase in the perception
(15:22):
of the placebo effect is that we have a much
larger pool of diseases now, and psychological disorders have begun
to be counted as something. You know, so, oh you're depressed,
Oh you're you're you're you have O c D of
(15:42):
some sort, you have a d h D for instance,
and and and various things that would be qualified as
psychological disorders rather than physical disorders. Sleep So well, sometimes
you feel guilty. You should take this and look at
this cute animation that we've created for it. See pay
(16:02):
no attention to the fine prints about these terrible side
effects and the weird dreams. Oh yeah, may cause vivid hallucinations,
strange dreams, side urination, whatever that is. Uh yeah, Well, now,
of course we're not saying this to in any way
denigrade people who do suffer from psychological disorders. And we're
(16:23):
not saying absolutely not, we're not saying that this that
the medicine that these people might be taking isn't really real.
But what we are saying is that the placebo effect
is measurable in these psychological disorders as well. And it
is no secret that psychological disorders are widely misdiagnosed. Oh yes,
(16:47):
I've had many conversations with my wife, the school psychologist,
about misdiagnosis, especially in younger people, right, and and some
of us we you know, the behavior of a of
a young human being, it can seem a ratic in
comparison to an older human being. Um, Different disorders manifest
at different times. There are a lot of factors at play.
(17:09):
It's not a cut and dry thing. So pharmaceutical companies
have spent a lot of money researching these diseases specifically, right,
Oh yeah, absolutely, And just another thing here been that
kind of it struck me as crazy, is that the
attitude of the way a doctor comes at your disease
(17:33):
and the way they basically whether or whether or not
they give you a negative or a positive diagnosis initially
is going to change, can change the way the outcome
of whatever it is that you're suffering from. Okay, So
just whether or not you have a positive or negative
outlook on whatever it is that you're going through can
(17:56):
change the way it affects you. Okay. So if a
doctor comes in and says, you know, I've got great news,
Mr Boland, your hammer toe will be completely solved by
this operation that we're doing, or not operation that's important
was solved by this pill or even better disinjection, right
(18:21):
versus we've got terrible news, Mr Bolan, There's only one
hope for your hammer toe. It's this amputate amputate placebo.
That one back, all right, So now it's time for
the largest reason. Maybe we'll do a drum roll and
then that the honor is yours. So the most interesting
(18:46):
reason that it seems the placebo effect is increasing is
because our our range, our scope is getting much larger,
and we're we're looking at many more developing nations um
and getting data from developing nations that have access to
drugs that they have never really had access to before.
And it's Western medicine. And there's there's kind of this, uh,
(19:10):
this thought that Western medicine is very powerful, and the
belief in this medicine itself is very strong in a
lot of developing nations. So when you give someone in
a developing nation a let's say a handful of pills
and you say this is going to cure x for you,
(19:31):
the strengthen that belief of that medicine, even if it's
a placebo, it's so great that it seems to be
almost larger there. So the expectancy, which is key in
in the effect of a placebo, means that placebos in
developing or poor countries actually do better than they would
(19:53):
in a developed country. Yeah, it's pretty pretty weird, isn't it. Yes,
And so that's what you mean by scope, right, So
since the I see what you're saying, Since we're measuring
from a much larger sample size, we're bringing up the average.
And you know, we'd be remiss if we didn't point
(20:13):
it out. A lot of not a lot, but some
of those conspiracy theories about the way that pharmaceutical corporations
handle experimental trials and developing countries have a grain of
truth to them. As a matter of fact, a few
of them are absolutely true. Um, so there is there's
(20:36):
a wealth of information that we could examine there in
a in a larger context. And there's a lot here
that we're not touching on too much about the the
prevalence of organized medicine, the way it's organized. Does the
A M A do more harm than good? That's one
that we here brought up a lot. And uh, I
(20:59):
don't know about you, man, but I'd love to examine
those in the future and hear what our listeners think
about this. But first, before we tell you how to
contact us, let's hit one last thing. Then, okay, what's that.
Let's talk about the power of belief and it's limitations. Good, yes, uh,
sort of the the future, the going forward of the
(21:22):
placebo effects. Now we've explained a couple of reasons why, um,
the methodology or the sample size may have changed to
affect the placebo We also talked about the expectations of
medicine and disorder. So now it's time to talk about
how we can use this information you me, everybody listening
(21:42):
to UH to bring forth hopefully fruitful changes. Well, yeah, then, yes,
here's here's the here's the thing. In some cases, even
if you know you're taking a placebo effect, it still
seems to have an effect. That's that's pretty crazy, right,
So even if you're aware that you are just taking
(22:05):
a sugar pill, you can convince yourself that it's not
just a sugar pill and it may help you. Yes,
that's true. So what we're saying is that it may
be possible to construct psychological strategies that hack a patient
h to to exploit the placebo effect for positive results.
(22:26):
Now are better results rather? Now we know, of course,
that if someone is, for instance, horrifically burned you can't
give them a sugar pill and solve their problems. Absolutely not.
They're they're definite limits to this. If there weren't, then
everybody would just live forever. Right. But we we do
know that there is We are in a pioneering age
(22:50):
of exploration between the relationship between the human minds and
the human body, and the placebo effect is much more
likely to be the tip of the iceberg than it
is the iceberg entire um. So although we know why
it's increasing, we do know that there's something to it,
and it's reminded me of a lot of other sort
(23:12):
of placebo effect related things about the mind having power
over the body. But before I get under rant, before
we go too long, um, we've already built up our
case for pharmaceutical shenanigans in the developed world, which we
will return to, and we've already touched on some of
(23:34):
the conspiratorial things that people say about alternative medicine versus
western medicine, and we want to hear what you think
about it, because all of our best ideas come directly
from you, the listener, And to prove that, let's do
some listener mail. Matt, what do you say absolutely let's
(23:58):
get started with Kelly E. M. She wrote to us
and said, Hey, guys, I'm really enjoying your podcast so far.
You sometimes seem concerned that the episode is running too long,
but in my opinion, the episodes are too short. Your
conversations are really engaging and I want to hear more
details and nuances about each topic. Keep up the good work, Kelly. Wow, well,
(24:18):
then I feel bad that we're reading that at the end. Yeah. Well, Kelly,
thank you so much for writing in. We really appreciate
your input. And you know, sometimes the time constraints, we
we just put them on our ourselves because we kind
of have to get in and out of here quickly.
There's so many people using this, uh, this recording studio.
But you know what, I think we can make time.
(24:40):
We'll see what we can do. Um. In some cases
they may be a little longer. In other cases, maybe
they may be a little shorter, but hopefully you'll enjoy them. Yeah. Hey,
one interesting thing Kelly that you might want to know
is that all of our podcast, probably about an hour
and a half, we record them and they get heavily redacted.
I'm so kidding. I'm kidding. We we do We are
(25:03):
really excited to have a longer um show opportunity, and
we're gonna see how how much we can fit into
the audio episodes before the powers that be catch us
down and tear it takes us down. Yeah. Um so
in the meantime as we build this crazy house of
cards in a windy room, wish us luck with the
(25:26):
next level. Let us know what you think. Do Please
find us on Facebook and become our friend on Facebook.
We would really appreciate it. It makes us much less
likely to be fired. And if you say, hey, Facebook
is for the birds whatever, that's dumb. While speaking of birds,
why not try Twitter. We are on there too. We
are conspiracy stuff at both of these and guess what,
(25:49):
you can always take a page from Kelly's book and
send us an email directly. We are conspiracy at Discovery
dot com. For more on this topic another unexplained phenomena,
visit test tube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can
also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at
(26:11):
conspiracy stuff.
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