What is a placebo. Placebo effect - what is it in simple words? Placebo in pharmacotherapy

In the effectiveness of the drug. Sometimes a placebo capsule or tablet is called empty. Lactose is often used as a placebo substance.

In addition, the term placebo effect called the very phenomenon of improving human health due to the fact that he believes in the effectiveness of some effect, in reality neutral. In addition to taking the drug, such an effect can be, for example, the performance of certain procedures or exercises, the direct effect of which is not observed. The degree of manifestation of the placebo effect depends on the suggestibility of the person and the external circumstances of the "treatment" - for example, on the appearance of the placebo, its price and the total difficulty in obtaining the "medicine" (this strengthens the credibility of its effectiveness due to the unwillingness to consider effort and money wasted) , the degree of trust in the doctor, the authority of the clinic.

Story

It was first mentioned in a medical context in the 18th century. In 1785 it was defined as "a banal method or remedy", and in 1811 it was defined as "any remedy chosen for the satisfaction of the patient rather than for his benefit". Sometimes there was a deterioration in the patient's condition, but the "treatment" could not be called ineffective. Placebo was common in medicine until the 20th century, doctors used it as a "necessary lie" to alleviate the patient's condition.

Effect mechanism

The placebo effect is based on therapeutic suggestion. This suggestion does not require any special skills, since the criticality of consciousness (“I don’t believe”) is overcome by linking the suggested information to the actual object, usually a pill or injection, without any real effect on the body. The patient is told that this drug has a certain effect on the body, and despite the ineffectiveness of the drug, the expected effect manifests itself to one degree or another. Physiologically, this is due to the fact that, as a result of suggestion, the patient's brain begins to produce substances corresponding to this action, in particular, endorphins, which, in fact, partially replace the effect of the drug. The second factor that ensures the effectiveness of placebo is an increase in general immunity, the “defensive forces” of a person.

The degree of manifestation of the placebo effect depends on the level of suggestibility of a person and the physiological possibility of the formation of the necessary chemical compounds.

Placebo in pharmacotherapy

Placebo in evidence-based medicine

At the same time, many modern drugs act integrally, so their therapeutic effect also contains a “placebo component”. Therefore, bright and large tablets generally act more strongly than small and nondescript ones, and drugs from well-known companies (and the same composition, and the same bioequivalence) give a greater effect than drugs from "market outsiders", etc.

placebo in pharmacology

It is used as a control drug in clinical trials of new drugs, in the procedure for quantifying the effectiveness of drugs. One group of subjects is given a test drug tested in animals (see preclinical trials), and the other is given a placebo. The effect of the use of the drug must significantly exceed the effect of the placebo in order for the drug to be considered effective.

Placebo is also used to study the role of suggestion in the action of drugs.

The typical level of positive placebo effect in placebo-controlled clinical trials averages 5-10%, while its severity depends on the type of disease. In most trials, a negative placebo effect (nocebo effect) is also manifested: 1-5% of patients feel some form of discomfort from taking a “dummy” (the patient believes that he has allergies, gastric or cardiac manifestations). For some people, the unpleasant anticipation of a new drug may take the form of marked pharmacophobia or pharmacophilia.

Placebo in psychiatry

The placebo effect is widely used in psychiatry. The first reason for this is that the human brain, through autosuggestion, more easily corrects its own work than the work of other organs. Therefore, placebo is especially effective in mental disorders. The second reason is that for many mental disorders - such as insomnia, depression, nightmares - effective drugs have not yet been found, or these drugs are effective only for a small proportion of patients.

Based on one study conducted on 15 patients with anxiety disorder and published in 1965, it was shown that the placebo effect can work even when the patient was told that he was taking an "empty" drug. This phenomenon can be explained by the patient's faith in the method itself.

Information from Encyclopatia

Placebo - faith hidden under a thin shell of a pill / ampoule.

Comes from lat. placebo- please, satisfy("placere" - like).

History

The inventor of the phenomenon is the American anesthesiologist Beecher, who described it in 1955 after analyzing 15 studies, according to which 35% of patients out of more than a thousand felt improvement after using pacifiers. Even during the war, he drew attention to how the wounded, when morphine ran out, were injected with saline for pain relief (telling them that it was morphine), and they still felt how the pain passed.

In the not so distant 2008, there was a big scandal from Irving Kirsch, who, after analyzing a bunch of FDA studies, came to the conclusion that 82% of the effect of antidepressants is placebo. Srach does not subside to this day, posters are drawn “Depression does not exist!” and insane films like Psychiatry: An Industry of Death are being made, although due to gross violations of the calculations and methods of analysis, denials have long been published that tell us that patients on pacifiers fall back into depression much more often than on joyful pills.

However, the question of the strength of the placebo effect still remains open, because all the studies that have been conducted give conflicting data and are criticized from different angles, in light of which a second control group has been introduced into some clinical trials, which receives nothing at all.

What is it

The placebo effect is one of the subspecies of opium for the people: it is a subjective improvement in the patient's well-being, based on the belief in the effectiveness of the drug / method, which in fact is not burdened with a real effect. The phenomenon is based on the natural suggestibility of each of us, fueled by external factors such as massive advertising, high prices or the authority of the specialist who prescribes / conducts this “treatment”. The placebo industry is incredibly developed due to the fact that where there is no effect, there are (mostly) no negative consequences either. Frightened by the side effects of real drugs, the masses are looking for painless methods of taking their banknotes from them and, of course, find them in the cozy arms of charlatans.

One of the highest quality pacifiers is the popularly loved valerian, although glucose / lactose, calcium, saline, vitamins, olive / corn oil are more commonly used; also suitable are any colorful solutions, turned off devices (the main thing is that the bulbs are bewitchingly lit) and hypnosis: chilling stories about successful operations “under hypnosis” and without anesthesia are explained precisely by self-hypnosis.

Nocebo

The opposite effect, observed in fierce hypochondriacs and suspicious personalities: the pacifier causes pseudo-side effects from mild discomfort to panic attacks. However, nocebo also appears on normal drugs, when a person is very afraid of side effects and they appear all at once, regardless of the dose. Actually, by replacing the active drug with a pacifier, you can reliably find out whether these were real side effects, or nocebo.

How it works

Suggestibility, coupled with the expectations and hopes of a person, leads to considerable changes, because experiences, emotions and thoughts affect the biochemical processes in the brain. The latter, controlling the rest of the body, with its positive attitude and attitudes, can have a measurable effect on improving the condition. Complementing all this with immersion in the [comfortable] treatment process, attention and care from the doctor, we will get almost a panacea, although not all people are susceptible to it.

But there is a suspicion that the action of the pacifier relates more to the effect of the brain not on the body, but primarily on human behavior: from the point of view of psychology, a role-playing game is clearly seen in the behavior of the patient, since the status of the sufferer is based on specific socio-cultural stereotypes. In this case, placebo makes it possible to measure the degree of change in behavior from sick to healthy, taking into account the person's attitude to his actions and statements about his own state. This helps to explain the fact that most of those who received effective pseudo-treatment become discouraged when they find out about it, realizing the doubts that arise in the head about the seriousness of their symptoms.

It is interesting that endorphins are involved in the implementation of the placebo effect, which is associated with the body's ability to reflex (including under the influence of higher nervous activity) secrete endogenous opiates, catecholamines and corticosteroids into the blood,. This explains the apparent effectiveness of any acupuncture and the frequent satisfaction of patients with them.
In addition, the conditioned reflex mechanism of the effect was confirmed in mice: rodents were given syrup with an immunosuppressant, which objectively suppressed immunity, and after some time they were given just syrup, and it also led to immunosuppression.

At large specialists in quack placebo therapy, people queue for their opium, which they are promised by homeopaths, hirudotherapists, osteopaths and other magicians. According to various sources, the placebo effect is usually realized in 10–35% of cases, or even more, which, with due artistry and persuasiveness of the “specialist”, can inspire faith in the kind of assistance provided to many thousands of gullible people, including various intellectual level. Moreover, even when a person is aware that he is taking a pacifier, he may be subject to a placebo effect - a phenomenon called "meta-placebo".

In official Russian medicine, the effect is brazenly exploited by narcologists for the treatment of alcoholism with all sorts of “suturing” and “coding” that grossly contradict world practice (see links at the bottom of the page).

In normal medicine

The placebo effect has three rational applications:

As an object of comparison for this drug/method in efficacy studies (RCTs);
As a means of antihypochondriacal therapy in obese cretins of absolutely unconvincing patients with screams “Doctor, give me something!”. According to research in Denmark, up to 50% of doctors use pacifiers when treating patients at least 10 times a year (only these are not shit medicines, but antibiotics for viral infections). However, it must be remembered that it will not work to reproduce the placebo effect cited in the studies for a five-minute intake and administration of fuflomycin “to get rid of it”, this can only be done with a competent approach, normal interaction with the patient, care for him and only in addition to basic medical recommendations.
As a diagnostic method to separate real from imagined symptoms: 25% of those mentioned above used a placebo for just that.

Doctor, what will happen to me?

You will feel the unspeakable joy of experimenting on yourself if you find yourself in a research group. After signing a voluntary consent to participate in the experiment, you will get a huge set of attractions, where it is not known what exactly is the attraction, and what is just a sofa:

Wart Removal: Patients are daubed with bright, inactive paints with the ardent promise of the disappearance of the warts as the paint fades. Someone's going down.
For asthmatics, it is enough to say that they are taking bronchodilator drugs, so that some of them objectively expand their bronchi (remember that asthma is partly psychosomatic).
The pain after the extraction of the wisdom tooth goes away with both real and imaginary use of ultrasound (the main thing is that the device is turned on).
Colitis is relieved by a pacifier in 52% of patients.
Pain: Three groups of patients with severe pain receive different (without knowing it) dosages of the painkiller Buprenorphine (1 - 11.55; 2 - 9.15; 3 - 7.65) with appropriate instructions: 1 - you are not given pain medication; 2 - you are given either pain medication or a placebo; 3 - they give you one of the coolest painkillers. The result is the same reduction in pain in all three groups.
Migraine: As a psychosomatic illness, it has a response to pacifiers. Moreover, when they are administered by injection, and not by tablet, the effect is 7% higher.
Some surgeries: those who have just had an incision and stitched back up sometimes do just as well as a normally operated one (do not repeat with appendicitis!).

However, even without such troubles in the harsh reality, you may encounter:

Drugs without proven efficacy: used as widely as one can imagine;
homeopathy: sugar balls without active ingredient - a reference placebo worthy of the Chamber of Weights and Measures;
acupuncture: another standard, only procedural - they poke with needles, some endorphins are produced - and voila! relief;
osteopathy: these eccentrics crumple the external genitalia of the integument of the human body, promising to cure the internal organs;
spa treatment: relaxation with a set of spa treatments, physiotherapy and climate has a beneficial effect even on a healthy person, but objectively only patients with tuberculosis and a couple of other severe illnesses need it.

The list of other attractions of all colors and sizes is endless.

Yet

The scale of the Russian pharmacological placebo can be estimated;

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"People willingly believe what they want to believe" Gaius Julius Caesar (ancient Roman statesman, dictator, commander).

Faith can work miracles.
Faith is a person's confidence in the truth of something (for example, scientific, political, religious and other ideas).
Faith - it was she who gave birth and gave life to the placebo effect.

In general, as you may have guessed, our dear readers, today we will reveal this mysterious phenomenon (placebo effect). So, let's find out what gave rise to it, who worked on these issues and whether there is any benefit from it at all. So, about everything in order:

Term "placebo effect"(from lat. placebo - getting better) was first introduced by an American doctor Henry Beecher in 1955, although this effect was noticed as early as the 1700s, the real physiological features were studied only in the 1970s.

So, according to studies conducted in the 1970s by a group of scientists led by Stanley Milgram(Professor at Stanford University): “For patients with anxiety disorders, the most effective pills were green, less red, even less yellow. On the contrary, in case of depression, yellow tablets were more effective, green ones were less effective, and red ones were ineffective. And yet, the researchers then could not draw any unambiguous conclusion from the results of their work.

A lot of interesting things about the "placebo" can be gleaned from Dylan Ivans books— researcher from the University of Bath (UK) « placebo. Consciousness takes over matter in modern medicine".

As you already understood, the placebo effect is a very mysterious phenomenon from the field of psychology and physiology, but today it is quite widely known in society, although still little understood.

So, the placebo effect is a phenomenon in which the human body finds ways to get rid of the disease on its own, without the use of effective drugs, but only using their imitators (dummy drugs).

Important! Recovery comes through faith in the effectiveness of the drug used.

Recently, the placebo effect has become widely practiced in medicine (especially in psychiatry), and so, sometimes doctors purposefully prescribe a placebo to a certain circle of patients (for example, hypochondriacs- people who are overly worried about their health) or people who are excitable, constantly worrying about something. And as a result, suffering from frequent insomnia. And here the most striking thing is that in such cases it is the “dummy” drug, like nothing else, that has the best effect on improving the patient’s condition (the placebo acts on the body, even if the patient knows that it is a placebo), although it seems to be obvious that the positive effect of such a method of treatment should be reduced. But no! Here is such a mystery.

But there is still an answer to it, and it lies in a simple one: the doctor’s authority plays an important role here (does he have the title of “honored”, is he a professor, etc.), the appearance of the pill itself also plays a decisive role (its color and shape). In addition to taking drugs, such a positive effect may be the performance of certain exercises that do not give a direct, beneficial effect.

Keep in mind!

The placebo effect affects children much more than adults.
And in both cases, addiction is possible.
The placebo effect is stronger the more expensive the medicine.
The strength of the effect depends on the place of residence (and a vivid example of this is the inhabitants of the United States (prone to hypochondria), it is for this reason that vaccination advertising is so widely deployed in this country).
Placebo affects different people in different ways (someone can even provoke an asthma attack, while for someone, on the contrary, it will alleviate suffering).

“The brain itself can make heaven out of hell and hell out of heaven” John Milton (English poet and thinker).

William Osler, one of the greatest doctors in the world, at the beginning of the century confidently stated that the success of a doctor of any specialization largely depends on his character and behavior, as well as on the patient's belief in the effectiveness of the medicine and the omnipotence of the doctor.

Norman Cousins in the bestseller "Anatomy of the disease from the point of view of the patient" in detail (step by step) describes many examples of the effectiveness of the "placebo". He constantly emphasizes that the mental attitude and attitude of the patient to the disease has a huge impact on its course.

Incredible cases of healing

Case 1. Strength of metal spokes. In 1801, the British physician John Haygarth questioned the effectiveness of metal knitting needles, which were extremely popular at that time (they were supposedly made of a special alloy) and, therefore, were endowed with a special magical power that could heal the entire body. Then John Haygarth decides to conduct "his session" of healing - with ordinary wooden sticks, while passing them off as those most popular - miraculous. And what is most interesting: four out of five of his patients have significantly improved their well-being.

Case 2. Operation on the brain. There is another very interesting experiment on this topic: in one of the foreign medical clinics, they organized such a test: the first group of people with Parkinson's disease underwent an operation to transplant special nerve cells into the brain, and the rest of the participants in the experiment were simply told that they also underwent a similar operation , although no surgical interventions were performed with the representatives of the second group. At the same time, a double "blind" control was carried out, that is, neither the patients themselves nor the medical staff knew who the new cells were actually implanted in. And after a year: in both groups, patients began to observe tendencies towards recovery.

Case 3. Painkiller. In 1944 (during the battles for South Italy), the American military doctor ran out of painkillers, and in order to somehow calm the soldier’s aching wound, he gave him ordinary water, passing it off as the required medicine, and surprisingly, the pain of the wounded subsided.

Case 4 Cancer can be cured. The last example, no less striking in its strength of faith: one man, aged 61, was diagnosed with cancer (throat cancer). Having learned about his illness, the man lost 44 kg in a short period of time, it became more and more difficult for him to breathe and swallow day by day. The probability of saving a life was 5%. After much deliberation, the doctors nevertheless decide to conduct a course of radiation therapy, under the guidance of Dr. Carl Simonton, who at the same time taught his patient the technique of self-hypnosis - thereby setting him on a direct path to recovery. The man's task was as follows: to tell himself every day that his cancer cells are excreted from the body through the liver and kidneys. The result was amazing - in just two months the man fully regained his weight, strength, and most importantly, the signs of cancer disappeared.

Nocebo "the other side of the coin"

The placebo also has a malicious enemy - it is called "nocebo"- causing only a deterioration in the patient's health. There are many shocking examples (even deaths) of patients, only from the fact that he found out what side effects the prescribed drug carries.

All in all, placebo and nocebo- these are two sides of the same coin, and which of them will manifest itself in each specific case depends not only on the patient's expectations, but in many respects also on the competence (professionalism) of the doctor prescribing these drugs.

There is even an anecdote on this topic:

Doctor from God
Doctor "well, with God"
Doctor "God forbid"

Friends, it is not in vain that people say: "trust, but verify."

Purely my opinion: you can’t blindly believe everything, but you can’t deny a lot. We must try to act rationally in every situation presented by life.

Please leave your comments and feedback in the line below. Everything that worries you, we will definitely cover in the next issues.

In 1944, during the battles for southern Italy, the American military doctor Henry Beecher runs out of morphine. He injects a wounded soldier with a saline solution instead of an anesthetic and notes with surprise that the pain is going somewhere, despite the complete absence of the active substance. Thus was made one of the first medical descriptions of the placebo effect, the roots of which can be found in ancient healing rituals.

Why does a substance that does not have any medicinal properties, nevertheless, works, and sometimes very effectively?

Often the placebo effect is considered just a hindrance - a kind of subjective illusion caused by self-deception. The medicine has to work “for real”, otherwise it is not a medicine. Official medicine sweeps aside everything subjective, so doctors stigmatize homeopathy and insist on strict clinical trials, which are designed to exclude the effect of self-hypnosis.

But quite rigorous scientific studies conducted in recent decades show that the placebo effect is not a hoax or fiction, its mechanism is much deeper. Placebo affects the nervous, hormonal and even immune systems, rebuilding the brain, and through it other body functions. Improvements are seen in asthma, cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal and nervous disorders, anxiety and depression.

It turns out that simply believing in healing has healing potential. Of course, the placebo effect has significant limitations (it’s still not worth being treated for cancer with sugar balls), but its positive effects at least deserve attention. Studies of the placebo effect show that our body is much more connected to consciousness than is commonly believed.

How to Treat Autism with Salt Solution

In 1996, Carole Horvath, a gastroenterologist at the University of Maryland, performs an endoscopy on a two-year-old boy with autism. After the procedure, the child suddenly feels much better. His sleep and bowel function are improving, but the changes are not limited to this: the boy begins to communicate more, maintains eye contact, repeats the words on the cards.

The parents decide that it's a hormone called secretin, which is given before the procedure to activate the pancreas. Several more trial injections are carried out with the same effect, and soon amazing news flashes through the media: a cure for autism has been found! Hundreds of families are craving the coveted substance, and reports are mounting of children who have benefited from secretin like no other drug.

But the effectiveness of the hormone had to be confirmed by clinical trials. In such studies, the effect of the drug is compared with a placebo, and neither patients nor doctors should know where the dummy is and where the active ingredient is. If there is no difference in the result, then the drug is considered ineffective.

Secretin did not pass this test. The amazing effect of the hormone turned out to be an illusion. But something else is surprising: even those subjects who were simply injected with saline during clinical trials actually got better - their autism symptoms decreased by about 30%.

Secretin does work, but the substance itself had nothing to do with it.

The placebo effect is usually attributed to the patient's expectations and beliefs. But it is unlikely that a small child with autism can be aware of what kind of medicine they are given and what effects should be expected from it. Later, researchers came to the conclusion that it was the parents, the situation of taking the medication, and the hype that was raised around secretin in the media. As a result, parents and doctors attributed any positive changes in the child's behavior to the effect of the drug, more often contacted him and tried to involve him in interaction.

Secretin changed the perception and environment so that the signs of autism were not so obvious. This does not mean that he is really treated with this hormone. But the effect of this does not become less surprising.

How placebo works

Parkinson's disease, which often manifests itself in old age, makes movements constrained, makes the limbs tremble and disturbs the person's posture. The cause of the disease is the destruction of cells that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. Some of the symptoms of parkinsonism can be alleviated with a substance called levedopa, which the body converts into dopamine.

But in many cases, placebo works just as well. Canadian neurologist John Stessle showed how after taking dummy pills, the brain of patients is filled with dopamine, as if they had taken a real medicine. The tremor immediately disappears, the body straightens. The very thought that you have taken the active substance eliminates the symptoms of the disease. This effect can be traced down to a single neuron.

In this example, it becomes clear that the placebo causes the brain to produce additional dopamine. Pain-relieving effects, in turn, are provided by the production of endorphins, which are sometimes called "natural pain relievers".

In fact, the placebo effect is not a single reaction, but a whole set of effects that involve the natural capabilities of our body.

Italian neurologist Fabrizio Benedetti investigated the placebo effect on altitude sickness, which occurs as a result of oxygen starvation in rarefied air. It turned out that the placebo reduces the production of prostaglandins, which dilate blood vessels to saturate the body with oxygen, and at the same time lead to severe headaches, nausea and dizziness. The subjects breathed fictitious oxygen, and the level of prostaglandins in the blood fell.

A placebo is said to be effective only if the patient believes that their medicine is "real". This raises serious ethical difficulties: is it possible to prescribe a fictitious drug, pretending that it is not fictitious at all?

Professor Ted Kapchuk of Harvard Medical Institute in Boston tried to solve this problem. Half of his patients with irritable bowel syndrome were told that the capsules they were given did not contain active substances, but they could work through the influence of consciousness on the body, starting the processes of self-healing. As a result, their condition improved much more than those who were not treated at all. The same thing happened in patients with depression and migraine.

University of Michigan anthropologist Dan Murman believes that the active ingredient in any therapy is meaning.

It can be assumed that passes and incantations used to make no less impression than today's white coats and diagnostic categories. From this point of view, the difference between "real" and "fictitious" is no longer so impenetrable. The placebo effect is a semantic reaction that goes to the level of the body and gets a physical embodiment.

It is the semantic effect that explains the following features of the placebo effect:

Large tablets are more effective than small ones.
Expensive tablets are more effective than cheap ones.
The more radical the effect, the stronger the effect: surgery is better than injections, which are better than capsules, which are better than tablets.
Colored tablets are better than white ones, blue calms, red anesthetizes, green relieves anxiety.
The placebo effect differs from culture to culture and from individual to individual.

This explains the limitations of the placebo effect. It can relieve some symptoms, change blood pressure, improve well-being, but it will not saturate the blood with oxygen and will not expel a pathogenic infection from the lungs (although it can enhance immune responses). The placebo effect appears to be most pronounced in psychiatric disorders such as addiction, depression, and anxiety.

In 2009, psychologist Irving Kirsch found that popular antidepressants, which literally flooded the US pharmaceutical market, were almost indistinguishable from placebo in their effectiveness. Valium, which is often used for anxiety disorders, doesn't work if patients don't know they're taking it.

Almost all doctors occasionally give their patients a placebo. In a 2008 American study, half of those surveyed admitted this; in the Russian context, this figure would certainly be even higher. Here are just a few popular drugs whose action is based on the placebo effect: Arbidol, Afobazol, Anaferon, Oscillococcinum, most and many other drugs.

The placebo effect also has a dark side - the so-called. "nocebo effect" (from the Latin "I'll hurt"). After reading the instructions for the drug, you can find unpleasant side effects in yourself that otherwise would not have manifested. If you believe that breaking a taboo entails certain death, and then accidentally touch the leader's food, you are likely to actually die. Perhaps this is how the evil eye and voodoo curses work.

The mechanisms of action of placebo and nocebo are identical, and both effects can accompany any medical procedure. This is the mechanism by which our psyche interprets events, attributing to them a good or bad meaning.

It is impossible to get rid of the placebo effect in medicine, just as it will not be possible to separate bodily health from psychological well-being.

It would be a mistake to think that "all diseases are from the mind", subconscious traumas or wrong thinking. But consciousness does have healing properties. To recognize this, we no longer need to slide into mysticism, abandoning the search for evidence and rational thinking.

What does it mean? From Latin, "placebo" is translated as "flattery, please" and means it is a physiologically inert substance that is used as a drug. At the same time, the positive therapeutic effect of this substance is based on the psychological subconscious expectation of the patient.

The placebo effect manifests itself depending on a number of factors: the degree of suggestibility of the patient, the authority of the attending physician, the size and color of the capsule, and so on.

Reality or myth

The term "placebo effect" was coined by American physician Henry Beecher in 1995. It was he who discovered that a third of the patients are cured from tablets that do not contain active substances. The placebo effect manifests itself depending on the state of the person and on his expectations. Some argue that placebos only work on suggestible patients, but this is not true.

The positive effect of drug treatment largely depends on psychotherapeutic factors. The right attitude can enhance the therapeutic effect of pharmacological agents.

Placebo effect - what does it mean in terms of pharmacology

Placebo pills are used as a control drug in new drug trials. A group of subjects is given a test drug previously tested on animals. The other group receives a placebo. For a drug to be considered effective, the effect of its use must exceed the placebo effect.

Placebo effect - what does it mean in terms of pharmacotherapy

In some cases, doctors prescribe a placebo to patients who are prone to self-hypnosis of painful manifestations. This avoids unnecessary use of pharmaceuticals and possible complications from medication. By the way, the positive effect of homeopathic remedies can also be explained by the placebo effect.

In principle, a placebo is not only a substance or, for example, an imitation of a procedure. You can get the placebo effect even with the help of a conversation, the main thing is to mobilize the patient's beliefs in the right direction.

The placebo effect - what does it mean in terms of evidence-based medicine

Many drugs have yet to pass placebo-controlled trials. At the same time, many drugs work largely due to the “placebo component”. This explains the fact that large and bright pills are more effective, and advertised drugs cure faster than little-known medicines.

In psychotherapy, the placebo effect is achieved through suggestion. Healing suggestion does not require special skills, since the problem of the patient's disbelief is easily solved by linking the information to the actual object. It can be an injection or a pill that has no real effect on the body. At the same time, the patient is informed that the drug he is taking has a certain effect on the body, and, despite its inefficiency, the expected effect begins to manifest itself to one degree or another.

Physiologically, the effect of a placebo can be explained as follows: as a result of suggestion, the human brain begins to produce substances corresponding to this action, which partially replace the effect of the drug. The second factor that ensures the effectiveness of placebo is the strengthening of general immunity, which naturally fights the disease.