The power of placebo.͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Today I'm thinking about the power of placebo. Spending time with my daughter and her kids (my grandkids) reminds me how powerful placebo really is. In nutrition and science land we talk about placebos almost as a negative. We use placebos to determine whether something else is actually effective, with the implication being the placebo is the barometer for uselessness. Of course the placebo doesn't do anything—it's what we compare to the experimental condition we're testing. Placebo is the control.
But in real life, especially when dealing with small children, placebo is extremely potent and powerful.
When you kiss a scraped knee, it isn't some biological property of the kiss that fixes the pain. Rather, your power, love, and authority as a parent all confer the beneficial effect. From your kid's perspective, your kiss has the power to fix their pain. They know it to be true, and so it is. That's enough.
"It's going to be alright." It truly will be all right. You will make it so. Even if you won't make it so, even if you can't tell the future (you can't), in that moment, your child knows that mom, dad, grandpa or grandma will make everything all better.
So the placebo is a very physical, biological phenomenon. It has physiological effects—measurable ones. But it does so not through any inherent biological properties of its own. We can identify the pain numbing properties of novocaine or Tylenol in test tubes and lab tests. We can't identify the pain numbing properties in placebo, but it's still real.
That's what makes it so incredible. And that's why you shouldn't throw away placebo as useless. Never say "it's just placebo." Never count yourself out or discard a very real and useful tool that we as humans all carry.
Placebo isn't a lie. It's the foundation for a lot of what makes us human, what makes things work, even so-called pharmaceuticals and medical interventions. Ignore it at your own peril.
I'm curious. How do you use placebo? How has it impacted you? Search through the last few weeks or months of your life and try to recall when and where you used or were affected by placebo. Let me know your thoughts in this week's New and Noteworthy. |
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Mark's Daily Apple 1101 Maulhardt Ave. Oxnard, CA 93033 |
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