It would be absurd for a major pharmaceutical company to make, package, and sell bottles of sugar pills as prescriptions for Parkinson's, schizophrenia, or depression. Absurd, possibly, until you consider that placebos have almost doubled in statistical significance in double blind tests of new drugs conducted by pharmaceutical companies since 1980. Even less absurd when you consider that long-standing and well-established drugs like Prozac are now coming up short when put to the test against a placebo. Somehow, the placebo effect is becoming stronger.
What is especially interesting about this is what the team of researcher William Potter and technician David DeBrota uncovered when they took a comprehensive look at the test records of Eli Lilly, a major pharmaceutical firm. They found that observers in lab tests had different ideas of success or improvement in their clinical results labsite to labsite. They found that the placebo effect could be huge even in trials that were tightly controlled. Perhaps most interestingly, he found that different drugs were found to be more or less effective as compared to a placebo based on geographic location. A certain drug tested in the United States may fail in double blind trials while it succeeds in France and Germany.
Is this really so surprising, though? In a culture where poor grades or hyperactivity are grounds for prescribing amphetamines to a ten year old, where feeling scared, lonely, or unhappy is a condition treated through medication, where pills are almost as ubiquitous in the average handbag as loose change, why wouldn't we put our trust in anything we're told to take? As we've come to rely more heavily on pills and pharmaceuticals for whatever ails us, we could be conditioning ourselves to respond more to the mere presence of the pill than to the pill itself. Something has to give: either drug companies need to begin pioneering new ways to test their products, or research has to be put into utilizing the body's natural propensity for self-healing as an alternative to pharmacological methods.
What is especially interesting about this is what the team of researcher William Potter and technician David DeBrota uncovered when they took a comprehensive look at the test records of Eli Lilly, a major pharmaceutical firm. They found that observers in lab tests had different ideas of success or improvement in their clinical results labsite to labsite. They found that the placebo effect could be huge even in trials that were tightly controlled. Perhaps most interestingly, he found that different drugs were found to be more or less effective as compared to a placebo based on geographic location. A certain drug tested in the United States may fail in double blind trials while it succeeds in France and Germany.
Is this really so surprising, though? In a culture where poor grades or hyperactivity are grounds for prescribing amphetamines to a ten year old, where feeling scared, lonely, or unhappy is a condition treated through medication, where pills are almost as ubiquitous in the average handbag as loose change, why wouldn't we put our trust in anything we're told to take? As we've come to rely more heavily on pills and pharmaceuticals for whatever ails us, we could be conditioning ourselves to respond more to the mere presence of the pill than to the pill itself. Something has to give: either drug companies need to begin pioneering new ways to test their products, or research has to be put into utilizing the body's natural propensity for self-healing as an alternative to pharmacological methods.
Relevant Sites:
"Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why." from Wired.com
2 comments:
Reading through Dan's blog about the effectiveness of placebos, I immediately thought of steroid use. While the two don't seem to have any obvious connection, both steroids and placebos give their users hope. Many baseball players who have taken steroids note that the biggest benefit while taking steroids is the confidence they have while 'juicing.' Though steroids boost physical strength and improve the player’s power, the main advantage players describe is that they believe they can do anything while aided by the steroids. The players are filled with confidence and, with their newfound psychological advantage over their opponents, they usually play much better than they normally would have. I believe the same is true with placebos. Just like steroids give their users confidence, people in experimental trials gain confidence because of the prospect of improvement. Much like the “morphine” (actually salt-water) injection helped to save the soldier in World War II, placebos have been shown to be effective because the patients believe that the “drug” they are taking has a possibility of saving them. If someone is sick and the experiment is their last option, they put all of their faith into the treatment. If there is one day where they feel just a little bit better, they regain hope because they believe that the placebo can cure them even though it isn’t doing anything. By tricking the body and regaining that desire to live and feel good, the mind is able to do amazing things. Giving people the power to believe and have hope is what ultimately enables them to live.
After reading your blog post and the relevant article, I began to think of all the reasons people take medications in the United States, and as far as I can tell, people take drugs for pretty much anything. This list includes relatively trivial problems like minor headaches, slight pains, or the inability to focus which, while annoying, are conditions that we can certainly live through. I once knew someone who took up to ten Advils a day: a few for a headache, a few a little later for preventing another headache, some for a fever, and then another couple to prevent her muscles from hurting during crew practice. While this is an extreme case, we do rely too heavily on man-made drugs rather than our own body to take care of our problems. The purpose of medication is to induce a process that our body can (or at least could) do naturally. But now, instead of trying to get the most out of our bodies, we have turned to technology to solve the problem. Because we know that drugs will help us, they are our answer to all our troubles. As the article points out, a lot of its aid comes in the form of the mental assurance it brings rather than the actual chemical makeup.
A part of the article I found very interesting was when Silberman discussed the colors of pills and their effects on the brain. Yellow is the most effective antidepressant because it is “like little doses of pharmaceutical sunshine.” Red brings stimulation, green reduces anxiety, and white soothes. The fact that something as simple as the color of the pill can produce better effects shows that our brain can do much more with our illnesses than we think. Scientists still cannot understand all of its capabilities and even though we would like to think it can, our technology still cannot match it. Our brain doesn’t need help with every small problem our body faces, and we should let it take care of us. Disorders like ADHD never used to be a problem until we started diagnosing and prescribing medication for it; its label as a real disorder has registered it in our brains as a real problem and shut off a mental pathway that could fix it. But we should forget all our preconceived notions of illnesses and allow our mind to perform to the best of its capabilities. Because as long as we allow it to, our brain can make us do almost anything it wants.
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