The Other Side of Impossible by Susannah Meadows

Author:Susannah Meadows
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2017-05-02T04:00:00+00:00

9

The Science of the Mind and Body

“Things Shift Toward Wellness”

IF ANYONE WAS GOING TO feel a placebo effect, the healing that happens when you believe a treatment will make you better, it was Jamie.

Even though we often think of placebos as the sugar pills people are given in medical experiments, they don’t have to involve a false therapy. The study in the chapter about Jamie, showing the powerful influence a doctor’s confidence and kindness can have on recovery, is a great example of the other factors that can prompt a placebo effect. In fact, the placebo effect is likely to happen “just about any time you seek healing in a setting that creates an expectation of improvement,” according to a 2014 Mayo Clinic report.

And now consider Jamie. She’s like Pigpen from Peanuts, only instead of a dust cloud, she constantly radiates optimism. During her battle with RA, every treatment was going to work, she just knew it, and it did, usually, until it didn’t. Then she was always on to the next, her hope unscathed. Amanda Hanson, too—she expected Hayden to heal, which no doubt rubbed off on her son. Terry Wahls was more conservative about the possibility of recovery at first, but then she became positively bullish.

Faith like that can release endorphins, those potent pain-fighting chemicals homemade by our bodies. If you’ve been given morphine before and then take a phony version you think is real, you’ll likely feel a similar effect, according to a 1999 study in The Journal of Neuroscience. The relief is not in your head; you’re accessing your own pharmacy. In a similar way, athletes who doped with fake morphine, after having taken the actual drug at a previous time, also got a boost, researchers reported in 2007 in the same journal. The subjects lasted longer in a pain tolerance competition, which was a stand-in for endurance sports.

This kind of expectation-as-drug following exposure to the real thing has been repeated in studies of an immune suppressant, a dopamine drug for Parkinson’s, and an anti-anxiety medication.

In fact, drugs often turn out to derive a major portion of their benefit, if not all of their benefit, from positive expectations rather than the therapy itself, according to the Mayo Clinic. Surgeries, too.

Parkinson’s disease is caused by the breakdown of neurons deep in the brain. Surgically implanting neurons from embryos into patients’ brains has been shown to improve symptoms in a few studies. But none of these tested the surgery against placebo: believing you’re getting the treatment. In a 2004 Archives of General Psychiatry study, Parkinson’s patients underwent brain surgery but only half got the transplant. Those who believed they had gotten the new neurons—whether they had or not—did better than those who didn’t believe. Doctors saw improvement in motor functioning, tremors, and walking ability, among other measures.

How a placebo works exactly is a mystery. Part of the reason is that trying to understand the connection between the mind and body has not traditionally been a major focus of biomedical research.

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