Have you ever seen a friend get a massage and instantly feel the sensation in your body? This is called the placebo effect. As many of you may or may not know, not all medications that doctors prescribe are helpful. In fact, most of them are sugar pills that trick your mind into healing. These are called placebo pills
The placebo effect is a psychological idea that if you think you are going to get better, you will get better. This has proven useful for treatments of issues such as depression, and although it has an overall positive effect, there is a lot of controversy on whether or not to use it in the United States. Placebo pills also set standards for clinical trials. The Food and Drug Administration requires that all new medicines be tested in randomized controlled trials that show they are better than placebo treatments.
This ensures that the public has access to high-quality medications. But in some cases, the placebo effect overpowers the effect of any other drugs. Before the pandemic, about 1 in 12 U.S. adults had a diagnosis of depression. During the pandemic, those numbers rose to 1 in 3 adults. This produced 27 million dollars of antidepressants around the world. Yet, none of them are as effective as the placebo effect. Placebo pills are cost-effective and can assist with depression, yet the United States is still controversial about placebos.
How does it work?
Imagine visiting a doctor to cure a headache. Your general practitioner will most likely give you a pill for a headache, expecting you to think it is a cure. They say it reassuringly and confidently, even if they are just sugar pills, and you feel better after taking them. This process works by creating expectations and conditioned responses for your body. Placebo pills also activate existing systems of healing within the body. Emerging research suggests that even when people know they are receiving a placebo, the inactive treatment still has effects on the brain and reported levels of improvement.
A 2013 study from the United Kingdom found that “97 percent of physicians” acknowledged in a survey having used some form of placebo during their career. They are already incorporated in our lives but not to the extent they should be. Placebo pills are the future and further research about mind-body healing is being carried out. Placebo pills are also cheap, lack side effects, are non-addictive, and enhance healing. They have high potential and I believe they should be incorporated more in our lives, especially for problems such as depression.
Works Cited
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/04/01/placebo-medicine-healing-impact/