"The term placebo effect exploded into the academic world in 1955 when Beecher published his famous paper "The Powerful Placebo". Through a meta-analysis of 26 clinical trials, Beecher showed that the placebo effect was responsible for approximately 32% of a drug's healing power. This study continues to have an immense impact on how society views the placebo. Even today, many student pharmacists are taught that the placebo is responsible for one-third of a drug's effect." Dr. Rajneesh Kumar Sharma MD
It is sometimes assumed that because a person believes a medicine will cure them even though they took a sugar pill that it was their belief that cured them. They fail to realize the disease was itself caused by a belief and the undoing of that original belief undoes the disease.
"Discord is disease; harmony is health and every person starts from one or the other of these two bases. The word truth is applied to both, but if there was not any discord, there would be no need of harmony, for before there was discord all was quiet. So that it is a truth that there is such a state as discord in the mind, but the discord is in us and not in the thing spoken of. The discord is not in the tune but in those that hear it, for if there were no one to hear it, there would be no discord." Quimby
- Professor Kaptchuk of Harvard researching the power of Mind to heal.
- The Placebo Effect is Real
- The Placebo Phenomenon: Acupuncturist and Harvard Professor Discovers How the Mind Can Heal the Body
Placebo factors have neurobiological underpinnings and actual effects on the brain and body. They are not just response biases. Other placebo responses result from less conscious processes, such as classical conditioning in the case of immune, hormonal, and respiratory functions.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17550344
Parkinson's disease: Placebo relief is associated with the release of dopamine in the brain. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/293/5532/1164
Placebo Effect on Parkinson's Disease: Expectation Pays (VIDEO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZIObBGuJEc
Depression: Placebos reducing depression affect many of the same areas that are activated by antidepressants with the addition of the prefrontal cortex. - http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=175519
Antidepressants and the placebo response.
CONCLUSION: Because they do not incur drug risks, exercise and psychotherapy, which show at benefits at least equal to those of antidepressants, may be a better treatment choice for depressed individuals.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20170046
THE NOCEBO EFFECT: HOW WE WORRY OURSELVES SICK
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/04/the-nocebo-effect-how-we-worry-ourselves-sick.html
Glucose: The expectation of an intravenous injection of glucose increases the release of dopamine in the basal ganglia of men (but not women). - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/syn.20541/abstract
Caffeine: Placebo-caffeinated coffee causes an increase in bilateral dopamine release in the thalamus. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2004.03310.x/abstract;jsessionid=F13EA25D7BDA4E7D929A23E23D1D5456.d02t02
Meditation boosts genes that promote good health
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23480-meditation-boosts-genes-that-promote-good-health.html
Witches call it spells.
Christian's call it prayer.
Spiritualists call it manifestation.
Atheists call it the placebo effect.
Scientists call it quantum physics.
Everyone's arguing over it's name.
No one is denying its existence. [anon]
See Also
As a Man Thinketh
Belief
brain
Disease
Error
Healing
How Idea Becomes Matter or Disease
hypothalamus
Keely - Cure of Disease
Keelys Secrets - Part 2 - One Phase of Keelys Discovery in Its Relation to the Cure of Disease
Nocebo Effect
Part 23 - Harmony is Health - Discord is Disease
Placebo Effect
Psychosomatic Disorders
Sympathetic Vibration in Healing
thought
Wisdom
1.4 - Etheric Mind Force in Healing