Why Placebo? The placebo effect is more than a strange curiosity. It is the foundation of much of modern medicine. Yet we know almost nothing about it. That's why this blog tracks the illusive placebo and shows how it is tied to almost every facet of health.
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 Under the category of “things I seriously doubt are true but still somehow believe” I officially add cranberry juice. Other examples are good governance, free markets, and fat free peanut butter cookies.
But the power of cranberry juice to cure urinary tract infections (UTIs) is legendary. Men and women across cultures seem to believe that anything as nasty as cranberries must be somehow medicinal (apologies to the entire state of Massachusetts for that last comment, but you know it’s true). As soon as the first symptoms appear, the thinking goes, you run to your local supermarket and buy some cranberry juice and some UTI medicine. For most people, the UTI is gone in a matter of days and you’re never quite sure which purchase was responsible.
However, a team from the University of Michigan recently separated the one from the other. Looking at 319 female students, they found that cranberry juice was no different from placebo juice. In fact, the cranberry group was actually slightly more likely to get a second UTI than was the placebo group. Of course, these were college women, which isn’t necessarily a representative segment of the population (men also get UTIs, but it’s usually due to a chronic condition of some sort).
There is a buried headline in this story that so far no one has reported on – namely that scientists have discovered a placebo cranberry juice. Seriously, are we to believe that the placebo group couldn’t tell the difference between placebo cranberries and the real thing? Apparently not, because it seemed to work just as well as the real thing. Now we just need a cranberry juice without that nasty bitter aftertaste.
 The reason I have not been publishing lately is that I have been consumed with a story that officially hits the newsstands today. It’s a piece about the difference between the sustainable we think we are eating and actual sustainable fish. To call them placebo sustainable fish would be a stretch, even for me. Still, take a read and expect more post about actual placebos soon.
 Take Two Of These has officially returned from it’s extended vacation while I worked on three intense stories, the first of which will appear soon on the cover of San Francisco Magazine.
In the interim, I am sad to say that I have missed a number of great placebo stories. In fact, I even got scooped by the master of placebo TV (fake TV that looks just like real TV) himself, Stephen Colbert. For a quick look, click here.
He references a wonderful study in PLOS One where Harvard scientists give 80 mostly female patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) a placebo pill and tell them that it’s a placebo pill. The team reports that a significant number of people got better on the sugar pills than on no treatment at all.
This is actually not the first time people have been found to get better on pills that they knew were useless. Several teams did this in the 1990′s with similar results. To my knowledge, this might be the first IBS study. IBS seems like a perfect place to study the placebo because, like lower back pain, it’s everywhere and has no set treatment. These mildly annoying, widespread, moving-target disorders are already fertile ground for placebo treatments like homeopathy.
One of the most important aspects of any study like this is what was described by one placebo expert to me as “the theater of medicine” that surrounds the experiment. I assume that these people didn’t walk into an empty room and pick up Sweet Tarts from some guy in jeans. The paper is sadly lacking in the kinds of details that make or break this work. Were they given out in a hospital? What color were the pills? Did they take blood pressure? What were the the people giving the pills wearing?
Studies have shown that some people actually experience some relief as soon as they enter a hospital or clinic. Furthermore, most people in trials are barraged by attention. By the time a patient gets his/her blood pressure measured and says “ah” a few times, the purpose of a pill might be moot for something as evanescent as IBS. Despite the frustrating lack of detail, I like this study and applaud the researchers.
As for Colbert, well, I have to say that a lynx isn’t exactly the scariest animal I could think of. I mean really? It’s like a glorified house cat. If you really want to scare someone into health, I suggest using an ostrich. They’re cheaper and genuinely lethal.
Over the last year or so, an obscure little plastic bracelet promising to supercharge your speed, strength, and overall athletic ability has rocketed from a small Southern California outfit to the biggest new trend in the sports world. These bands, which are remarkable similar to the Lance Armstrong “Live Strong” bracelet, claim to combine Eastern philosophy and modern science into a hyper-colored device that can help athletes be the best they can be.
Now I am as open as the next guy to the newest quick fix marketing ploy (actually, this is patently untrue) and like to give the benefit of the doubt to companies selling alternative medication that I am unfamiliar with (also totally false, truth be told). However, the Power Balance band is a stretch (Power Balance appears to be the first product, but now several other have sprung up to follow suit). According to Josh Rodarmel, chief operating officer for the company, the $40 band is equipped with holograms that “have frequencies that react positively with your body’s energy field” to improve balance, strength and flexibility. The active ingredient, and I am not making this up, came from Mylar sacks, which are both cheap and apparently positive-hologram-endowed.
Sadly, the company has almost no information beyond a few short statements on their website talking about “natural energy flow” and “Eastern philosophies.” I tried to find some shred of scientific credibility behind these claims but eventually threw up my hands in frustration. The basic idea is that somehow a tiny strip of Mylar (a type of plastic used in driver’s licenses, cassette tapes and some plastic wrap) in the band affects the flow of electricity in the body, which, somehow, make you play better. The makers of these products have admitted that they are not sure what mechanism is at work and several have admitted that the placebo effect likely plays a big role. Continue reading Tap into the Power!
 Ever feel tired? Feel like you’re slower than you used to be? Attention span waning? The reason you feel that way is all the toxins in your body! And the only way to get rid of those toxins is through the new (actually old) big fad: Cleansing diets.
That’s right, with just a mixture of maple syrup, lemon and cayenne, you too can have the energy and focus of your former self! In fact, go for ten days and you can play the entire country song backwards (your girlfriend comes back, your dog’s alive, and the truck starts working again).
That’s the hype of the so-called “cleanse.” There are many different types, but all involve changing your diet in some way to force your body to extrude all its supposed nasty chemicals. It’s not clear what these toxins may be – most websites cite vague “petrochemicals” and “pesticides.” Linda Page, a naturopath and author of the book Detoxification, describes it to WebMD as your body being “congested” from too much or the wrong kinds of food and calls cleanses “detoxifying.”
But the question remains, is there any real merit to the hype?
I’ll get right out in front saying I have always wanted to do this. I am incredibly attracted to bizarre treatments and health solutions, which is probably why I started this blog. My hidden desire to cleanse started when a friend told me he did it and he felt like Superman. He said his sweat and breath smelled funny as the toxins cleared out and his poop got rock hard. Don’t ask me why the poop thing seemed the most impressive, but it did.
However, I am a scientist first and New Age junkie second. To wrap my head around this phenomenon, I turned to a tool that I now offer the reader free of charge. It’s a list of classic mistakes made by scientists while trying to creating a health study. I find it’s also a handy logic tool any time someone advertises a new way to get thin/smart/strong/attractive/happy. I have created a link at the to top of the page that reads “How to Tell if a Health Study Is Any Good.” Bookmark it.
So let’s use it on “The Cleanse.” Looking at the list, the first three pitfalls pop right out. First there is no doubt that placebo effects play some role in cleansing. As we have discussed on this blog, this would be enhance by the second on the list, novelty. The novelty being, well, not eating any food. Then there’s the third. Is something else going on that we don’t know about? Now this one is devious. Finding an unknown active ingredient requires a thorough understanding of exactly what is happening.
It turns out, there may be one. It’s called ketosis. Essentially, as soon as the body goes into starvation mode, some basic changes happen in the body. Now, we in America rarely have to worry about starvation (that’s actually not true but I’ll assume it is for most of my readers). However, Homo sapiens as a species know it well.
Continue reading Evaluating “The Cleanse”
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Under the category of “things I seriously doubt are true but still somehow believe” I officially add cranberry juice. Other examples are good governance, free markets, and fat free peanut butter cookies.
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