Sunday, September 02, 2007

Sugar Pills

After a semester off school, I am ready to tackle the online world of learning again. My classes start this week: Health psychology and Social Change.

One of my favorite areas of health psychology is the placebo effect. I find it fascinating that the mind has so much control in contributing to one's perseverence or fall. The placebo effect is related to the power of suggestion. Research studies often divide people into groups: one gets the real medication, the other gets a sugar pill. Surprisingly, it is common for people to report getting better simply from the belief that they are taking a certain medication.

Tonight I was reading about how the type of treatment a patient receives plays a factor in how potent the placebo effect can be. It was interesting to learn that big pills work better than small pills. And, colored pills are better than white pills. Capsules are more beneficial than tablets. Studies have gone as far as demonstrating that people who receive a "fake" knee surgery (the surgeon cuts open someone's knee and sews 'em back up without doing any procedure) will report significant reduction in pain years after the surgery. Fascinating to me.

1 comment:

Courtney said...

could somebody please cut open my head then and sew errr back up! (wait, it's labor day wknd, i probably just need to stop drinkin')