Mike
Carruthers:
The placebo effect appears to be very real. The mind does seem
to help people get better under the right circumstances and your
doctor is a part of it.
Richard Kradin,
M.D.:
Physicians who listen well, who tend to be empathic and compassionate,
those who evoke trust - all of these factors will tend to promote
a better therapeutic response. In the absence of those factors,
even effective drugs can be rendered ineffective.
Dr. Richard Kradin,
author of the book The
Placebo Response & the Power of Unconscious Healing,
says there's also something called the "Nocebo Effect"
which is the opposite of the placebo effect.
It's pretty much
when you treat somebody and the response that they have is somewhat
paradoxical so that rather than getting better when you expect
they would get better, they would develop some side effect or
complain that their symptoms are worse.
People who exhibit
the "Nocebo Effect" tend to share certain personality
traits.
People who tend
to be negative, pessimistic or tend to obsess frequently will
have those types of responses to a greater degree.
An illustration
to the "Nocebo Effect" is the fact that three times
more people are treated for allergies to penicillin than actually
have the allergy.
Because people
respond that they develop allergic responses but when you look
at them in more detail many of those patients don't have it.
Tomorrow how
the size and color of a pill can impact its effectiveness -
I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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