83 The Placebo Effect The Power of Positive Thinking

CHAPTER 1 What Is a Placebo. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEDICINE AND NO MEDICINE? SOMETIMES NOTHING AT ALL. A placebo is something that has no value by itself. In medicine, a placebo is often a pill. The pill looks identical to medicine, but it has no real medicine in it. In the past, these pills were sometimes made of sugar. That gave placebos the name "sugar pills." Scientists often use placebos for medical studies. Imagine a new medicine has been invented. The scientists want to know how well it works, so they carry out a study. They collect a group of people and give some of the people the new medicine. The others get a placebo. The placebo looks just like the actual medicine. The people do not know if they have gotten the real medicine or the placebo. Then, the scientists compare the two groups to see if the medicine has had any effect. Because placebos are not medicine, they do not actually do anything. However, that does not mean placebos have no effect, as the story of Henry Beecher shows:

Henry Beecher was an American doctor in World War II. One day, a soldier was brought to him. The soldier had been in a battle and was hurt very badly. He needed an operation. However, Dr. Beecher had no more morphine. Morphine is a very powerful drug. It takes away a person's ability to feel pain. Dr. Beecher did not know what to do. He was worried that without morphine, the patient would die during the operation. Finally, a nurse tried something very strange. She injected the soldier with a mix of salt and water. This mix, called a saline solution, does nothing. It is a placebo. However, the nurse told the soldier she was giving him morphine. Immediately, the soldier relaxed and said he felt very little pain. The doctor was able to operate. Dr. Beecher had just seen the "placebo effect."

CHAPTER 2 The Power of Suggestion DO WE BELIEVE THINGS JUST BECAUSE OTHERS TELL US THEY ARE TRUE? MAYBE MORE THAN YOU THINK. The placebo effect has interested scientists and doctors for a very long time. It happens when a patient is Given a placebo but still experiences a noticeable positive change. The change can happen in many different ways, but each time it is because the patient believes the placebo is really medicine. The World War II soldier experienced less pain because he thought the placebo was morphine. Placebos can also help nervous patients to relax. If a patient suffers from allergies, a placebo can stop the effects of the allergy. The placebo effect depends on the doctor's suggestion. In one study, a doctor told patients that a certain medicine would make their heart beat faster. It did. Then, the same doctor told other patients a medicine would make their heart beat slower.

It was also successful. In both cases, the medicine was the same placebo. The different effects were because of the effect the doctor's suggestions had on the patients' minds. The power of suggestion works in many different ways. Sometimes the suggestion does not even need to be spoken. If, like Dr. Beecher, a doctor gives a patient a placebo instead of morphine, it is better to inject it than give it in a pill. The injected placebo is more effective. This is because an injection suggests stronger medicine is being used. Even a doctor's clothes have the power of suggestion. A 2005 study showed 76% of people trusted a new doctor more when he or she wore a traditional white lab coat. The lab coat suggests that the doctor has studied medicine and has experience with different illnesses.

There have also been studies that show a doctor's white coat may have a negative effect. Although most people relax when speaking to a doctor, some become very nervous. This makes their blood pressure rise. The doctor sees the high blood pressure and decides the person has a real health problem. This may lead to medicine for a problem that does not exist outside the doctor's office. This is known as the "white coat effect." Interestingly, a final study on the doctor's white coat shows it even has a positive effect on the doctors themselves. A group of students was given a number of questions. Half the students were dressed normally, but the other half were given white lab coats to wear over their clothes. The group with the lab coats did much better on the test than the other group.

The researchers believe the white coats made the students feel more confident. These three studies about the white coat effect show just how powerful the power of suggestion truly is. The power of suggestion is often used in advertising. Businesses work hard to suggest their product is better than others. A 2007 study showed how successful this can sometimes be. In it, researchers bought food from a popular American fast food restaurant. All of the food was wrapped in paper that showed the name of the restaurant. The researchers took off the restaurant's paper from half of the food and replaced it with plain paper. When they gave both sets of food to a group of children, the children said that the food wrapped in the restaurant's paper tasted better than the identical food in plain paper.