We experience it for the first time without knowing from our childhood and have continued to experiment with more or less frequently as the aches and the susceptibility of each.

By convention, we often have the mistaken idea that a placebo is simply to a drug in appearance but in reality, has no active or anything that may cause any effect on the human body itself. To some extent, it stands to reason that if the drugs are those that heal us, placebos be limited to drugs in appearance. However, this is not exactly. Placebos can take many and strange ways, far removed from a simulated medication, which makes it a more widespread phenomenon and subtle than we are aware at a glance.

As I mentioned earlier, most (not all) have experienced the placebo effect in our childhood and we had to give sugar pills for that. After falling our parents were there with a plaster relief to "heal". At the time of placing the strip, it seemed that immediately the pain lessened, we were improving since that time. When was it, that was the typical "Heal, heal, frog ass. If healthy today will heal tomorrow "used in many countries each with its variant. Perhaps the biggest can not remember these experiences, but certainly know how to stop mourn a child, anxious and / or pain by the mere fact that you know someone is treating your problem, it is healing (or at least tries ).

The phenomenon of the placebo effect of the strips in children is not trivial. In fact, it was found that the placebo effect is greater when the strips are cartoons, they feel better and settle down more easily if you're not really doing anything except protecting the wound. The distraction of a child with their favorite cartoon can be a good analgesic.

As we grow, and become adults, we might think that the stripes and the "Healthy, healthy ..." does not convince us. We're not so naive as to think that so they could heal Memec ... Or can they? For better or for worse, when we continue to grow in many ways, some big kids. Our ingenuity to the placebo still present and need not be a imitation of drugs without any effect for us to experience the placebo effect.

It has long been known that the doctor-patient relationship itself is a placebo in itself and can be very powerful when there is an optimal way. That is, patients often get better or improve more than they would with only one effective drug by the perception that they are worried about their problem, they are healing. For the more human it is a doctor, more likely to cause a placebo effect in their patients.

There have been few studies have attempted to clarify this phenomenon. For example, one study took two groups of patients: one was fully informed and reassured in advance about how it would be its evolution while the other group received no such treatment. The results were quite conclusive: Patients in the group who had been informed and reassured needed, on average, half of analgesics and two and half days left before the other group hospital.

Similar results have been found in most studies. For example, in another made 3 years ago and published in the BMJ (Effect of Providing Information about normal test results on Patients' reassurance: Randomised controlled trial) in the group of patients who had been briefed in detail were quieter, took less medication and reported less chest pain than those who had not been just reported (with an explanation booklet or standard).

And is that not only the placebo effect of a good doctor-patient relationship benefits both the patient and physician can also save a lot of public health expenditure. Something that is not taken into account for virtually none of the managers, who seem more intent on making patient care in an industrial production chain.

Interestingly, often, the placebo effect is given or reinforced with small gestures that may seem nonsense. For example, in a study two years ago and referenced in the excellent health blog with things, we find the following:


    [...] The patients who underwent microdiscectomy (removal of an intervertebral disk or part of it) by lumbar disc herniation have less postoperative pain when given a reminder of the operation. What kind of memory? A disc fragment removed put in a pot with a saline solution. Apparently, patients are in the "souvenir" a sign that the operation was a success and that quiet will calm the pain.

As explained very well in the pella gofio, most likely this phenomenon is not isolated and could be evidenced by studies in other areas:


    In fact, without having made any serious study, I dare say the same of gallstones and cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal). We even had a "pool of reserve" for cases of biliary sludge. Past tense "of course".


Clearly we are still a big kid. We attract both strips to cartoons but "placebilmente" speaking, we say no to a good souvenir and "sound healing" of a doctor delivered by us.