Deseret News | Experts: Placebo power behind many natural cures

Reader comments
Experts: Placebo power behind many natural cures

Placebo effect and ethical | 8:26 p.m. Nov. 10, 2009

studies of cures.

It is interesting to me that for a treatment to be scientifically proven it must go through properly applied double blind studies.

I know researchers who feel it is unethical to withhold treatments they are sure work just to fulfill the requirements of double blind studies. Why? Because a true double blind study requires that some of the participants are given treatments that the researcher is sure will not work. True the dispensers of the treatment may not know which participants get the real stuff but do they not have a moral obligation to provide the best treatment they know of?

One of the reasons some natural "cures" are not proven is because of this very issue. If you are convinced a "cure" works do you not feel a moral obligation to provide it?

So, in these cases is anecdotal evidence of a "cure" the result of the placebo effect or is the natural cure really working?

Maybe it depends on who is going to make money from the "cure." Drug companies would have a hard time making big dollars from herbal treatments.

Not so funny | 9:10 p.m. Nov. 10, 2009

"a European study involving twice as many patients and using a more realistic sham procedure found the fake treatment to be just as good. The conclusion: Pain relief was due to the placebo effect."

What? Real pain cured by a "sham procedure?" How can that be? What about all the other "silly" not real to be obviously dismissed by those "who really know" placebo effects?

I would refer anyone who is truly interested in this topic to a book by Andrew Weil, "Spontaneous Healing : How to Discover and Embrace Your Body's Natural Ability to Maintain and Heal Itself" (Mass Market Paperback - April 4, 2000)" Amazing case after case of dire medical conditions modern medicine couldn't help are discussed. A very thoughtful read.

Weil is a Harvard educated MD and professor at the University of Arizona medical school who is considered one of the foremost experts on "alternative" medicine in the world. He points out in the book the placebo effect rather than being some laughable mind trick is actually the body tapping into the incredible power it possesses.

THIS IS TRUE HEALING AND IS WHAT WE WANT AND NEED.

Add your comment

Comments are monitored. Any comments found to be abusive, offensive, off-topic, misrepresentative, more than 200 words or containing URLs will not be posted.

Words Remaining

E-mail address: For internal use only. We may want to contact you to publish your comment (not your e-mail address) in the newspaper or for a separate story idea.

1 photo

Rob Carr, Associated Press

Nurse Donna Audia performing Reiki on a patient at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. The patient was too sedated to remember his treatment with Reiki energy therapy, but his wife thinks it helped him.