This is obviously a complex issue. But I think that strong belief as with hypnosis and other suggestions can't be discounted (faith healers).
There are people who have apparently died from being made to think they they were having blood drain from their bodies. And if someone goes into surgery with a death wish of a negative expectation the Nocebo effect is apparently very dangerous. At the extreme ends of mind body relationship, there are people that insist that those with multiple personality disorder/disassociative personality disorder can gain and lose medical conditions such as diabetes and eye colour can change between the personalities. Blisters have apparently been raised by pencils that hypnotized subjects have been told is hot. So let's say that the mind body connection is complex, but that a sugar pill will not always deliver a powerful mind body effect, which is not to say it can't if there is not enough belief. I also recall an experiment very poorly recounted: rats being effected by a 'ritual' where if a chemical was omitted the expected results still occurred. I don't recall the details but essentially this was somewhere between a placebo effect on a mouse/rat a Pavlovian response. John On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 3:05 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: > If the studies I read are correct, this indicates the disease they are > trying to cure with this particular drug usually goes away on its own. The > "placebo effect" is not getting stronger. They happen to be treating a > disease in a group of people where nature usually does a better job than > medical science does. > > There are several diseases and syndromes that used to be treated > aggressively but nowadays are often left alone because they usually go away > after a while, or they cause no serious harm. Then there are diseases where > some doctors recommend treatment and others do not, such as childhood > hemangioma. > > - Jed
