In depression treatment trials, placebo effect is growing stronger | Hacker News Reader

In depression treatment trials, placebo effect is growing stronger

arstechnica.com

19 pointsrntn11 comments

Does anybody know something like a "feel taken care of"-illusion or fallacy?

Like when you regularly visit your shrink or a doctor or someone who has the appearance of a medical professional who does stuff or talks about stuff that seems medical and he or she and the whole thing is basically a placebo but it's actual meaning and purpose is to have you in the center for a couple of minutes and the whole damn thing adds up over time and you start to feel better because there are actual people focused on making your life in this life better. And these people have secretaries and assistants and there's management and administration and even a freaking janitor who waters real plants in a place that zooms in on you and whatever the fuck it is that makes you go there?

Not my field, but I do know of studies that measure patient's satisfaction with medical treatment goes up when the provider wears a white coat rather than scrubs or business casual.

Some of these studies replicate the effect for veterinarians as well (the effect is on the pet owner, in those scenarios, though it would be amusing if such an effect could be demonstrated on pets' health outcomes).

I imagine that the halo of being exposed to multiple such markers (even indirect ones such as you've suggested) for professionalism and care will reinforce this effect, and so would repeated exposure, though all this suggests is that patients would be more likely to report that they feel their treatment is working, which might be different than an improvement in actual clinical outcomes.

A term to pop into PubMed or similar would be "non-specific effects". There's a ton written about it.

Shouldn’t we be trying to maximize the placebo effect?

If we can heal ourselves just by believing we can, then isn’t that an amazing ability that we should be trying to develop and improve?

The problem with a placebo is that it doesn't last or resolve the underlying cause

It is a nice "break" while it lasts, though

isnt the problem that you cant patent it ? :P

What do you mean?

Like if your headache goes away with a placebo, isn’t that the same as taking a pain killer?

In that case the effect is the same isn’t it?

A headache often has an underlying cause, and the placebo effect will not heal that.

Neither will Tylenol heal it, so what’s the difference?

Both have the same exact effect, which is what is controlled for in double blind studies

Every study is done on a different population and with a slightly different protocol. The only thing a placebo gives it is being able to compare the treatment to the natural course of the disease.

You compare between different placebo groups in the same study, but comparing between different placebo groups in different studies is cargo cult science.

>comparing between different placebo groups in different studies is cargo cult science.

I'm a science dude but I'm also a cargo guy.

Maybe that's why I was thinking it's about time we see placebo on the rise.

After all it does seem to have the most remarkable effect on the widest variety of conditions compared to any other single solution.

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