placebos

Put differently, they seem to have an intuitive understanding to only use placebos for illnesses that are well served by placebos.

What if the thing you ask it is to get rid of the irrational mechanisms that makes placebos works on you even though you know they are placebos?

For instance, medical experiments testing both placebos (negative) and medicine (positive) and looking for differences.

A double blind with placebos test is the gold standard, and difficult to implement with humans when it comes to diets.

Indeed, placebos are not a good treatment for the vast majority of physical illnesses.

I wonder what it would say about the under development placebo effect blocker if placebos were evidence of god.

In only 30-90 days, drug withdrawal can cause placebos to seem worse, if a patient switches from drug to placebo during the experiment.

In the last few years I've learned that they don't seem to work much better than placebos.

Curiously, placebos work even if the patient knows it is a placebo.

But they do get a lot more benefits from placebos than I do, so I can't say they're entirely wrong.

Considering that the best ALS drugs cost about $1000/month and have results that statistically are barely distinguishable from placebos, there's a long way to go.

Also, placebos might cause the patient to initially get worse before they get better, whereas a drug might cover up symptoms while hurting long-term recovery.

In some settings, double-blind experiments (with placebos) are indeed "better"; but it is not required to get scientifically valid results.

Placebos are NOT effective in treating actual disease states or improving "hard endpoints" such as reduction of all-cause mortality or major morbidity from specific diseases with verifiable physiological signs.

When the mayor or some other official suggest that cyclist need "more shiney" and to "keep your wits about you" (1) it is a way of fobbing off with cheap placebos.

Or flip it: Placebos are another face on the basic processes underlying what we call "magic", with all of the "mystical" "woo" removed.

Placebos can only affect psych/neuro (and possibly hormonal) conditions, which is the brain is biologically capable of changing things.