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Comment by jtokoph | Hacker News Reader

Hmm. What if It's just that more Americans are complaining about pain that isn't truly real? Like somewhat imagined.

So now a higher ratio of trial patients aren't I'll in the first place.

There are a bunch of illnesses that have real pain and suffering as a symptom, but don't have any identifiable cause.

Pain is sometimes one of these. The pain the person reports is real pain - you can do scans and see it - but it doesn't have a physical cause.

It's likely that these people experience strong place o responses.

But the. We know that cognitive behaviour therapy is used for cancer patients, and we wouldn't normally describe their pain as psychological.

So, pain is complex and fascinating and difficult.

Absolutely. Try answering the question "what is pain" to see how complex this phenomenon is.

A valid question, but it raises another question - why just Americans?

Coping mechanism for socioeconomic factors not unique to but most prominent in the US.

Watching TV in America is nothing but a continuous flow of commercials about symptoms and diseases that they really want to convince you that you probably have. We know advertising can make you want all kinds of things, so why not symptoms and diseases?

Funny fact, any commercial for a drug, here in Romania, is ending with a very fast auction-style warning that last less than 5 seconds. In US you have like 5 minutes of country music and elder people having a picknic while all the possible dangers in the world are softly planted in your mind. :)

Well that would explain why placebo is also rising against antidepressants, unless more American are diagnosed with being depressed than they truly are.

The criteria for "major depression" have been broadened, so more people are included.

Here's a recent paper talking about placebo and anti-depressants.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wps.20241/abstrac...

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