[HN Gopher] All Placebos are not created equal (2021)
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All Placebos are not created equal (2021)
Author : sebg
Score : 50 points
Date : 2025-03-21 11:28 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.samstack.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.samstack.io)
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Something I never see discussed (though if you have resources on
| the subject, please share them with me) are the very real and
| important difference between believing and wanting to believe and
| feeling better _about_ something without the something itself
| being better.
|
| When I feel like my symptoms have improved, that is factually
| distinct from my symptoms having improved. Ok, so far so obvious.
| But it is also factually distinct from me _really_ feeling like
| my symptoms have improved. It may very well be that I 'm just not
| sure and that I subconsciously lean toward giving the benefit of
| the doubt as a tie-breaker for my own uncertainty. And then I can
| feel better _about_ that without the underlying symptom
| improving, and that is definitely factually distinct from the
| symptom improving.
|
| The impact would obviously be age-related, since age equals
| exposure to factors like social influence, introspective
| knowledge of the limits of self evaluation, and so on.
|
| And it is _not the same thing_ as a placebo effect improving the
| symptom itself. I can be experiencing the exact same amount of
| pain but wishy-washy on the evaluation, but people report on the
| placebo effect as though it means I experience less pain. But
| maybe I 'm just less frustrated by the pain, or less inclined to
| admit the pain to myself or to others, or less inclined to trust
| myself. Maybe believing feels good, so I want to do it.
| overu589 wrote:
| Also discounting that the mind and body themselves are self
| regulating technology. For instance I have the conscious
| ability to push pain off into the distance and be unaffected by
| it, for others they can "take their mind off it" in various
| ways. Reminds me of Lawrence of Arabia, "the trick is to not
| care."
|
| There is more, much more, regarding our humanity and the mind
| body link which science does not have qualitative ways of
| exploring.
| jonhohle wrote:
| I find this very true of minor burns (e.g. touching a hot or
| dish). I can tell myself it doesn't hurt and mostly it
| doesn't from that point forward. I can't do that for any
| other type of pain, though.
| iinnPP wrote:
| I don't want to expose the actual placebo or condition but have
| been self-studying this for ~7 years now. It's not within
| societal knowledge as of today.
|
| The placebo is mentally administered, has a 100% success rate
| at provably halting the condition for a indeterminate amount of
| time. It also works in reverse, and is quite dangerous when
| used this way.
|
| It's one of my LLM tests to have the LLM come to the conclusion
| based on available data on the condition (as it was my only
| source). Today, no LLM has passed the test.
|
| I hope this helps.
| phtrivier wrote:
| No, it does not help.
|
| Feel free to submit detailed results to peer review. 100%
| success rates have been too rare, these days.
| iinnPP wrote:
| You're welcome to be upset at the lack of peer review or
| details. However, I will point out that the post includes
| that this is deliberate. I also pointed out that the
| knowledge can be dangerous, which is why it wasn't
| expounded on.
|
| There's some questions in the person's post that I was
| providing some reflection on. The truth of my comment, or
| any peer reviewed study for that matter, is up to the
| reader.
|
| It's funny because the idea of a mental placebo requires
| the user to place their trust in the very same.
|
| Have a good day.
| theoreticalmal wrote:
| What condition?
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| It doesn't help because without any details at all from which
| to form an empathic bond between us there's no path for us to
| navigate from "obviously fabricated anecdote" to "believable
| anecdote".
|
| It's also obnoxious for you to play obfuscatory gatekeeper
| with grown ass adults, and it makes your word less valuable
| not more.
|
| > _It also works in reverse, and is quite dangerous when used
| this way._
|
| We're adults. We get to make our own mistakes if we want to.
| Thank you for the warning, but please provide the information
| so we can decide what to do with it for ourselves instead of
| patronizing your audience. Otherwise it really does make you
| sound like a crank, unfortunate as that may be.
| iinnPP wrote:
| The intent was to indicate that part of your problem might
| lie in what you believe and how that impacts the effect of
| any placebo.
|
| I have no desire or need to prove anything on the internet.
| I provided enough information for a motivated person to
| determine what was said and apply it themselves.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| The human body is extremely complex, drugs have always side-
| effects. Placebo effect is quite efficient for simple symptoms
| and has no side-effect, so it's in our interest to "want to
| believe"
| jt2190 wrote:
| > But maybe I'm just less frustrated by the pain, or less
| inclined to admit the pain to myself or to others, or less
| inclined to trust myself. Maybe believing feels good, so I want
| to do it.
|
| That wouldn't be the placebo effect then, it would be more of a
| psychological phenomenon in the realm of how your mental
| outlook can influence how you experience pain. That is also
| heavily studied.
|
| Edit: This video is good intro to the placebo effect:
| "Harnessing the power of placebos" Alia Crumb, 2017 (video)
| https://youtu.be/WcQnSW1wpGA?si=A2tzqvd45BLiMADW
|
| Edit 2: I think what you're describing is generally called
| "pain tolerance".
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _That wouldn't be the placebo effect then_
|
| This is my point! I would argue that a lot, if not most or
| even all, of what gets called a placebo effect is clearly
| confounded by these obviously-not-placebo-effect-as-defined
| effects without any distinction, and to me that casts the
| field into myopic disrepute.
|
| > _I think what you're describing is generally called "pain
| tolerance"._
|
| No, I think that's yet another different thing.
| thelaxiankey wrote:
| I think my favorite point to this effect is that there's plenty
| of medical literature (in the Lancet, and others) suggesting
| hypnosis is as effective as certain drugs for killing pain in
| certain contexts. And hypnosis is nothing more than talking
| someone, in a very directed way. There's caveats of course, but
| that's true of all drugs... Not to mention all this stuff on
| gut microbiota, and even the truly 'woo-woo' stuff like
| acupuncture. Personally, I don't think it's crazy at all to
| imagine that sticking a needle near the right neuron can cause
| some kind of occasionally helpful physiological response... in
| fact, it would be almost more surprising to me if this wasn't
| possible. Modern medicine works wonders for infectious diseases
| & physical issues, but I'm not entirely convinced we have a
| handle on the more subtle stuff.
|
| I've been a lot more attentive to this kind of stuff lately due
| to some chronic health stuff that came up in the family. I
| think there's probably some framework in modern medicine that
| makes it less prone to adopting these kinds of methods. Maybe
| it's just historical baggage, who knows...
| XorNot wrote:
| The problem with acupuncture is that the relative
| effectiveness compared to placebos has gotten worse and worse
| as better placebos have been developed for trials.
|
| I.e. you mentioned "sticking a needle next to the right
| nerve" - that's a valid research question...and it was
| studied. Turns out sticking needles where an acupuncture
| specialist thinks they should go, versus just randomly has
| the same reported effect in trials.
| linasj wrote:
| There are so many misconceptions in this article.
|
| Placebo effect is not getting stronger over time. We are getting
| better at controlling for all other factors: regression to the
| mean, self reporting related biases, the effect that people
| change their behaviour when they are being observed, etc.
|
| Placebo effect is not "mind over matter" it just all the peoples
| behaviours, biases and life that is happening while they are
| getting treatment.
| danilor wrote:
| Would anybody more knowledgeable in the topic help me understand
| the results of the first graph? Paper is here: https://sci-
| hub.se/https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/hea00... (I haven't
| finished reading it) Seems the authors claim it's statistically
| significant, but does it matter if it's clinically significant?
| 1mm difference seems pretty small, and they conclude that it
| suggests that it 'can harnessed to improve treatment outcomes'.
| I'd have understood if the conclusion were that effects exist at
| all, but not if the claim is that it's useful for something else.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| This comment contributes nothing, but I find the title jarring.
| To make it more obvious, "All doctors are not men" vs "Not all
| doctors are men".
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