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48 Percent of Doctors Admit to Prescribing Placebos Just to Shut You Up

placebo effect, prescription, doctorThe next time your doctor prescribes you a medication, you have about a 50-50 chance that it’s a placebo, according to a new study by University of Chicago researchers.

Their survey of 466 faculty physicians at Chicago-area medical schools found that 45 percent said they had prescribed placebos in regular clinical practice, with just over half having prescribed them in the previous year.

The most common reasons why doctors prescribed placebos were to:
  • Calm a patient down
  • Respond to demands for medication the doctor thought were unnecessary
  • Do something after all other treatment options had failed
Almost all of the doctors -- 96 percent -- believed that the placebos could have a real therapeutic effect.

A separate study by the University of Michigan, for instance, found that patients given placebos, but told they were receiving painkillers, had increased production of endorphins -- your brain’s natural pain relievers.

Sources:

Dr. Mercola''s Comments Dr. Mercola's Comments:

Receiving a placebo medication can be a very good thing, provided that the placebo is truly harmless.

But as one newspaper pointed out, one of the most common “placebo” treatments given was antibiotics for viral infections, which do not respond to antibiotics. This is not really a placebo effect at all, but rather is prescribing completely unnecessary drugs that can cause further harm to you and increase antibiotic-resistance in the community.

Assuming a true placebo -- a completely inert, harmless pill or treatment -- is used, then you can get remarkable results. The profound impact of the placebo effect has been scientifically proven beyond a doubt.

The best example of this was published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2002. It revealed that arthroscopic surgery for knee pain worked no better than a placebo surgery.

This was a double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial performed at some of the top U.S. hospitals -- and was about as scientifically accurate as they come. Other studies, too, have proven that the placebo effect is often just as good as “real” treatments such as:
These studies show that the surgery or medication are not responsible for the improvements, rather, it is the ability of your brain to produce healing that offered the relief. Healing lies in the power of your mind -- and this is what is at the heart of the placebo effect.

You may not yet realize it, but you have an enormous untapped potential to manifest healing in your body -- if you sincerely believe it. If you focus your intention on something, you can manifest nearly any result you desire.

The New Biology is one of the newest and most exciting schools of thought out there that explains this. Listen to my recent interview with Bruce Lipton, PhD., a forerunner in this field, and you’ll begin to understand that your mind controls your tendency to develop or resist disease.

But there is one catch.

To manifest healing in your body, you must be free of emotional blocks standing in your way.

For instance, if you have pain but you believe that somehow you deserve it, that you’re to blame for it, or that you will never be rid of it, then you will tend to manifest those negative tendencies in your body.

So what should you do?

Get to the root of your emotional conflicts and release them. I suggest using one of the most efficient and effective tools to achieve this and that would be energy psychology. My favorite energy psychology tool is EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). And remember, if you have an especially traumatic, complex or deep-seated emotional challenge to overcome you can always find an EFT therapist to guide you.


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Comment on This Article Community Comments (32)
 
 
Posted On Jan 10, 2008
Placebos, by definition are inert substances that are not supposed to have any chemical reaction in the body.  I am not sure how sugar pills became a placebo.  But Antibiotics, and other pharmaceuticals are not placebos and should not be used as such.  But this just goes to show the connection between mind, body and emotions. Maybe the Doctors should have their patients try EFT first.

Mary

 
mmc88121
Moderator User Moderator User, Joined On 11/2006
mmc88121  
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Reesacat
Savvy User Savvy User Joined On 1/2007
Reesacat  
 
Posted On Jan 10, 2008
I agree, Mary.  Just ask anyone who has had a life-threatening reaction to penicillin or sulfa if antibiotics are a placebo.

 
 
 
Posted On Jan 10, 2008
My grandfather was a medical doctor for 49 years.  He practiced up until the late 1950's.  My father said he had two doctor's bags that he would take with him on his house calls in rural Colorado. 

One bag held the pills he would prescribe.  Amongst his pills were various shapes and sizes and colors of sugar pills he would prescribe when he didn't  know what for sure to give.  The most powerful sugar pills were the little red ones.

A placebo can only work if the patient believes the pill will work.  Thus, the doctor must lie convincingly when prescribing a placebo in order for it to have any "effect".

Lawyers and law suits now deter doctors from "experimenting" with a placebo on patients to see if it might help before guessing at prescribing more dangerous drugs.


 
foxtroter_203
Savvy User Savvy User, Joined On 9/2006
foxtroter_203  
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Russ Bianchi
Savvy User Savvy User Joined On 9/2006
Russ Bianchi  
 
Posted On Jan 10, 2008
Hypocondria remains a clear and present problem in modern medicine, based on the reactive conditioning, and brain washing, that most problems can be solved with a pill, syringe, or surgical procedure; and that plainly is NOT true.


energy_203
Apprentice User Apprentice User Joined On 8/2007
energy_203  
 
Posted On Jan 11, 2008
PPARGG:  My guess is that the dogs got a little "love" with either pill, and that makes all the difference.  I insisted on seeing my cat ASAP post-surgery, even though she was in for several days after, and the vet said the change in demeanor and recovery was remarkable after that.


Reesacat
Savvy User Savvy User Joined On 1/2007
Reesacat  
 
Posted On Jan 11, 2008
Energy, that is an excellent point.

The studies don't factor in things like TLC (Tender Loving Care).

In nursing school we were taught that the therapeutic use of self was the most important tool we had-listening, compassion, and tough love if needed were just as important as the physical care we gave.


Crunchy Bostwick Mama
Novice User Novice User Joined On 11/2007
Crunchy Bostwick Mama  
 
Posted On Jan 11, 2008
As far as the placebo goes with a dog's anxiety, who determines that the dog is feeling better - the dog, or a person who is observing the dog? Perhaps the person who is observing the dog is observing a change that isn't there, or even projecting some kind of positive feelings toward the dog that are causing less anxiety? More food for thought! 


Patty D
Savvy User Savvy User Joined On 6/2007
Patty D  
 
Posted On Jan 11, 2008
I worked on a psych unit for a while.  We had standing orders that when a patient started to get out of control that we were to give an injection of OBECALP first, before resorting to Haldol, Thorazine etc.  It was nothing more than a vial of normal saline with a phony pharmacy label placed over the normal saline label.  It often was effective.


Nathan_203
Savvy User Savvy User Joined On 4/2007
Nathan_203  
 
Posted On Jan 12, 2008

 Quote....A placebo can only work if the patient believes the pill will work. Thus, the doctor must lie convincingly when prescribing a placebo in order for it to have any "effect". 

 Doesn't this also appy to chemotherapy and radiotherapy prescribed to shrink cancer tumours in the hope this will cure cancer.

Friends With Cancer support at http://www.friendswithcancer.com.au
say  there is a better way to healing.

 
 
 
Posted On Jan 29, 2008

The first paragraph is grossly misleading. The odds are not 50-50 that you get a placebo each time you get a prescription from your doctor. The survey said that 50% of doctors said they have given placebos at SOME POINT. So your odds of having a doctor who sometimes prescribes placebos is 50%.


 
Mr.AK
Apprentice User Apprentice User, Joined On 6/2006
Mr.AK  
 
 
 
Posted On Jan 11, 2008
There should be a code word for p-l-a-c-e-b-o, known only to doctors and pharmacists. Thus, instead of overprescribing antibiotics when they are uncalled-for, they could pacify patients with the proverbial sugar pill.

Let's make it generic, though. Wouldn't want to rip anybody off.

 
Islander
Moderator User Moderator User, Joined On 3/2007
Islander  
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Kissamee
Apprentice User Apprentice User Joined On 12/2007
Kissamee  
 
Posted On Jan 11, 2008
placebo was the code word before the sheeple got smarter.

Kel

0becalp would be a good one now.


Patty D
Savvy User Savvy User Joined On 6/2007
Patty D  
 
Posted On Jan 11, 2008
OBECALP has been in use for a good 20 years, see description below in other comment.


MB
Novice User Novice User Joined On 1/2007
MB  
 
Posted On Jan 13, 2008
There is a "word" for placebo - homeopathic remedy.

 
 
 
Posted On Jan 29, 2008

My father was a Navy-trained surgeon, and as such, the best osteopath in the north country. When I collided with a car that turned left in front of my motorcycle, my kneecap cracked into 6 peices against the roll bar, and my father wired it back together. He also did a large number of other patients a great deal of good, extending their health and well being for many years. But he did something that was all too common back then: dispense shots of penicillin as placebos. His thinking was that it couldn't cause any harm, and it might do some good. We now have more penicillin and other anti-biotic resistant strains of various diseases circulating various populations than ever before. And it doesn't help that paranoid consumers feel that every time they wash their hands they need to use an "anti-bacterial" soap. This only encourages normally benign bacteria to evolve into something far more dangerous. Over 99% of all naturally occuring bacteria are easily managed by a healthy human immune system, but at the rate we are currently encouraging changes in our bacterial populations, this is bound to go down.

FOR EVERYONE'S SAFETY, STOP USING UNNEEDED ANTI-BIOTICS!

Baking soda, vinegar, salt, et cetera are all safe, effective cleansing agents that effectively keep bacteria at bay without encouraging difficult mutations. If you keep on using operating room anti-biotics in everyday situations, you'll be out of luck if you ever need to be operated on, since you could be covered with anti-biotic resistant bacteria.


 
jonallen
Apprentice User Apprentice User, Joined On 3/2007
jonallen  
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derketchup
Novice User Novice User Joined On 1/2008
derketchup  
 
Posted On Jan 29, 2008

Dispensing penicillin like that is called "prophylactic" and not "placebo"


 
 
 
 
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