Healing Children's Attention & Behavior DisordersDr. Abram Hoffer, M.D., FRCP(C)
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| No one has yet shown that placebo responses are that specific.
The placebo response is not dose related, yet the vitamin response is. Many children did not get well until the dose had been doubled or tripled.
Older children responded more quickly than the younger children. Female children responded better than male children. I know of no evidence the placebo response is age and sex related. There was a negative relationship between frequency of interviews and response. A placebo response depends on the relationship between therapist and patient. |
| One would have to conclude that the placebo response was highly specific to vitamins only. No one has yet shown that placebo responses are that specific.
The placebo response is not dose related, yet the vitamin response is. Many children did not get well until the dose had been doubled or tripled.
Older children responded more quickly than the younger children. Female children responded better than male children. I know of no evidence the placebo response is age and sex related. There was a negative relationship between frequency of interviews and response. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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 A more recent metaanalysis from data submitted to the FDA showed that 80% of the improvement with antidepressants comes from the placebo response. When the data from all of the studies performed on venlafaxine (Effexor), fluoxetine (Prozac), and nefazodone (Serzone) were lumped together, there was only about a two-point improvement on a fifty-six-point scale (the twenty-one-question Hamilton Depression Scale) above and beyond the placebo response. The conclusion was that the effects of antidepressants are modest, if even real, but that it is not ethical to give a placebo. |
Andreas Moritz
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 If the doctor is convinced that the treatment of the patient's illness will be successful, the patient's perception of the doctor's confidence is much more likely to produce a placebo response than if the doctor is doubtful about his approach. Dr. K. B. Thomas from Southampton, England has shown that a doctor doesn't even need a prescription to help his patients. Dr. Thomas selected 200 patients who were suffering from various symptoms such as headaches, stomach pains, back pains, sore throats, coughs and fatigue. First he divided the patients into two groups. |
Benjamin H. Natelson, M.D.
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 I'm not sure just what the doctors at those sites did and said to get this striking placebo response, but I would like to bottle it. In my experience and that of others, seeing striking improvement of fatigue with any drug is rare, let alone finding those results with a sugar pill.
The remaining sites—including our own—showed the opposite tendency, but the numbers of patients recruited were too small to outweigh the negative effect from the other two sites. I've told you this story to make the point that the gold standard for drug testing can have flaws that muddy the water. |
Lynne McTaggart
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 This result tended to contradict the idea that a positive outcome comes entirely down to a placebo response; those who wrongly believed they received the healing did not do as well as those who rightly believed they had received it.
Schwartz's studies uncovered something fundamental about healing: both the energy and intention of the healing itself and the patient's belief that he or she had received healing promoted the actual healing. Belief in the efficacy of the particular healing treatment was undoubtedly another factor. |
Tori Hudson, N.D.
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 Even in studies where the placebo response is given credit, perhaps the belief that the mind can heal the body is the real explanation. The interaction between neurotransmitters, neurophysiology, the body's steroids, circadian systems, mood, and behavior plus plants and nutrients from nature may remain scientifically elusive, but, to the credit of women, we have instinctually come upon safe and effective natural solutions. |
Andreas Moritz
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| Even if his methods may not be very effective, the symbol may still be powerful enough to trigger a good placebo response.
In every medical treatment, the placebo is actually the main determinant of the degree of success the treatment has. The results of every controlled study ever done confirm this statement. If any other treatment administered in the medical system proved to be as effective and consistent as the placebo effect, it would most certainly have been heralded as one of the biggest medical breakthroughs of all times. |
| In other words, any benefits of the drug besides being a trigger for the placebo response are non-existent.
During medical training, every would-be doctor has to face the unpleasant fact that drugs themselves cannot induce a healing response. A drug may work in only 35 percent of the people who receive it. The rest of them may have either no results or become worse because of the drug's side effects. Doctors also know that a patient has a much greater chance of improving with a certain drug if they guarantee an improvement. |
| The triggers are trust, confidence and happiness, and are the same triggers that can cause a placebo response. To buy these drugs on the pharmaceutical market, you will have to spend up to $40,000 per course of treatment. The "success rate" with the administered drugs is less than 15 percent, and their side effects are so severe that they can destroy the immune system and sow the seeds for future diseases, including cancers (see section on "Cancer—Who Makes It?" in Chapter 10). A 15 percent success rate is typically less than what a normal placebo effect would achieve. |
| And trust in oneself is the necessary element to trigger the placebo response, which is needed to truly cure any disease (versus just removing symptoms).
This connection also works when the healing response is triggered by an external source such as another person, like a therapist or a healer. The success that hands-on healing or prayer can have for a sick person is the result of a two-way process but largely depends on the patient's receptivity, deserving ability, and acceptance. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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| When the data from all of the studies performed on venlafaxine (Effexor), fluoxetine (Prozac), and nefazodone (Serzone) were lumped together, there was only about a two-point improvement on a fifty-six-point scale (the twenty-one-question Hamilton Depression Scale) above and beyond the placebo response. The conclusion was that the effects of antidepressants are modest, if even real, but that it is not ethical to give a placebo.
It was also pointed out that the efficacy of SSRIs is greater than that of medications used for other purposes, like statins. |
| This is the gold standard for evaluating the risks and benefits of drugs, and it is required to definitively evaluate drugs as well as alternative treatments.
The placebo response is essentially how much better you do if you take a pill that you believe helps you, even if it really does nothing in terms of its actual effect on your body. At the end of the study the "blind" is removed, and the doctors look to see if the drug was better than the placebo in improving the symptoms of the disease or preventing some predefined event, like a heart attack. |
Ann M. Coulston and Carol J. Boushey
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 The purpose of the blind, in an RCT, is to equalize that interference—that is, both the placebo and the treatment group experience a placebo response, and any residual difference will, therefore, likely be due to the intervention. But with a concurrent cohort study (often termed a "prospective" design) we must contend not only with the influence of other, unrecognized factors, but with unbalanced interference. Because both the study participants and the investigative staff are aware of who is a member of the active and placebo arms of the study, there is unequal interference. |
Dawson Church
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 They work synergistically with all the other systems in your body
One of the most intriguing ways in which we activate naturally occurring healing proteins in our bodies is the placebo response. In order for new medications to be proven effective in scientific studies, they are required to demonstrate efficacy that is significantly greater than an inert pill—a placebo. One of the remarkable things about many medications is that their effects are only slightly better than those obtained from a placebo. Some drugs and surgical procedures have results that are no better than a placebo. |
Thomson Healthcare, Inc.
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 In addition, this trial had a high placebo response of 33%, perhaps an indication of selection bias to those who have an affinity for complementary therapies (Hughes et al 2002).
Osteoarthritis
Oral glucosamine was effective for osteoarthritis of the spine in a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Subjects (n=160) with symptomatic cervical and/ or lumbar spine osteoarthritis of at least 6 months' duration received 1,500 mg of glucosamine sulfate daily or placebo for 6 weeks. |
Andreas Moritz
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| Thousands of different studies tell of the amazing effects of the placebo response. In another classic study conducted in 1950, pregnant women who suffered from severe morning sickness were given syrup of ipecac, which is an effective compound to induce vomiting. The women were told that ipecac was a powerful new cure for nausea. To the amazement of the researchers, the women ceased vomiting.
Another intriguing experiment was conducted with the help of medical students. |
Thomson Healthcare, Inc.
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| Throughout the study, the placebo response was high, up to 58.1% on the physician global evaluation scale and 45.4% on the VAS pain relief scale used by patients. Based on this study, capsaicin cream is effective in some patients with diabetic neuropathy but burning is a frequent side effect which may lead to treatment discontinuation (Anon, 1991).
The efficacy of topical capsaicin was determined in 22 patients with chronic, severe painful diabetic neuropathy over an 8-week study period in a randomized, placebo-controlled study. Significant improvement was seen with capsaicin 0. |
Lynne McTaggart
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| The fact that the people who knew they were being prayed for not only had no placebo response but also evidenced more postsurgical complications than any other group, he says, "suggests that very strange internal dynamics were operating within the Harvard prayer study."18
The Mid-America Heart Institute study—the study in which prayer by Christians of diverse denominations had reduced symptoms in heart patients by 10 percent—was also criticized for offering so many end points that it was bound to show a positive result. |
Healing Children's Attention & Behavior DisordersDr. Abram Hoffer, M.D., FRCP(C)
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| I know of no evidence the placebo response is age and sex related. There was a negative relationship between frequency of interviews and response. A placebo response depends on the relationship between therapist and patient. Many of these children had had close and frequent relationships with the mental health personnel who were treating them, often for years with very little response. Yet on the vitamins with a minimum of visits to my office they did respond. |
Jacky Law
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 Such drugs may do very well, if only as vehicles for the placebo response, but the issues surrounding them also show the cultural factors at work and why the information war about the nature of health is made very much easier for pharma if you are addressing people who will always want what they have lost, particularly if it is related to youth, and even more so if it is to do with sex. |
| Most natural forms of healing are thought to work largely because they evoke a placebo response through the trust patients have in the treatment, the practitioner, or both.
Pharma stands accused, however, of actively trying to get people to internalize morbid messages that suggest they are ill. 'The way to sell drugs is to sell psychiatric sickness. If you are Paxil and you are the only manufacturer who has the drug for social anxiety disorder, it's in your interest to broaden the category as far as possible and make the borders as fuzzy as possible,' said US bioethicist Carl Elliott. |
John E. Sarno, M.D.
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 I explained that the temporary improvement following surgery was related to the placebo response. His pain, tingling, and numbness recurred because carpal tunnel syndrome had not been the most accurate diagnosis. His neck, shoulder, and back pains were also manifestations of TMS. It took some courage on my part to admit that my original diagnosis was not correct. Fortunately, he accepted the TMS diagnosis and agreed to the education treatment.
He was much improved during the first month after attending the lecture, and now, four months after, he is totally asymptomatic. |
Dr. Timothy Scott
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 A JAMA article's title tells the story: "Placebo Response in Studies of Major Depression: Variable, Substantial, and Growing."91
Placebos are not always equivalent to real medicines. You will not cure malaria or heal an infection or correct poor vision with placebos. We still need antibiotics, athlete's foot medicines and glasses. But placebos are highly effective for anything that is more subjectively measured (depression) rather than more objectively measured (bacterial infections, athlete's foot infection or poor vision). And this is not a recent discovery. |
Kelly Patricia O'Meara
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 The authors further state in "Antidepressants and Placebos" that "the small difference between the drug response and the placebo response has been a "dirty little secret" (Hollon, DeRubeis, Shelton, & Weiss, 2002) known to researchers who conduct clinical trials, FDA reviewers and a small group of critics who analyzed the published data and reached conclusions similar to ours (e.g., Greenberg & Fisher, 1989)...' |
Jacky Law
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| Rather than learn what this strong placebo response is telling us, Dr Ken Borow, CEO and president of the clinical outsourcing company, Covalent, suggests companies should design criteria to exclude susceptible patients.18 But these criteria are published and will have an effect on the eventual market success of the product.
Two companies, Lilly and Pfizer, have therefore stumped up $1 million (not a lot of money in the scheme of things) to fund scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), to investigate how people who respond most to placebos might be isolated. |
volker schulz and Rudolf Hansel
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 Placebo response in studies of major depression - variable, substantial, and growing. JAMA 287:1840-47.
Weihrauch TR, Gauler TC (1999) Placebo - Efficacy and adverse effects in controlled clinical trials. Arzneim-Forsch/Drug Res 49: 385-393.
Weiss RF (1991) Lehrbuch der Phytotherapie, 7th edition, Hippokrates, Stuttgart.
Westendorf J (1992) Pyrrolizidin Alakloids - General Discussion. In: De Smet PAGM, Keller K, Hansel R, Chandler RF (eds) Adverse effects of herbal drugs. Volume 1, Springer Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg New York, 193-214.4.
Wichtl M (Hrsg) (1989) Teedrogen. 2nd edition. |
| In the treatment of premenstrual and menopausal syndromes, however, preparations made from chasteberries and black cohosh offer an alternative to higher-risk hormone therapies for a number of patients, especially when one considers that the subjective complaints of the syndromes in particular show a placebo response rate of approximately 50 %. Given the considerable practical importance of these preparations, further reliable evidence is needed to document their safety and efficacy.
EQ| Drug Products
The Rote Liste 2003 includes a total of 20 single-herb products for gynecologic indications. |
Healing Children's Attention & Behavior DisordersDr. Abram Hoffer, M.D., FRCP(C)
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| They ruled out any placebo response. Dr Brenner concluded that hyperactivity was multifactorial, and that a significant number are caused by vitamin deficiency or dependencies. He treated 100 children. They were given a preliminary treatment trial with thiamin 400 mg qid, placebo, calcium pantothenate 218 mg, and finally pyridoxine 100 mg tid each for three to four days in this order. Thirty-eight did not respond, 26 improved on thiamin but 22 deteriorated, 23 improved with pantothenate with 9 getting worse, and 18 got better on pyridoxine with 16 being worse. |
Leo Galland
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 This means that the placebo response is not a fixed entity that remains constant from one doctor-patient encounter to the next. It can change dramatically with the nature of the person, the doctor, and the treatment administered.10 When the doctor enthusiastically supports a treatment, the placebo response may be greater than 80 percent.11 When tested against a treatment that the doctor believes to be highly effective, the placebo will have a stronger effect than when it is tested against a treatment that the doctor believes is weakly effective. |
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