Before new drugs can be approved, they have to undergo
placebo-controlled tests, where some patients take the experimental
drug while others take lookalike pills with no active ingredient.
Neither researchers nor patients know who are given the real drug
and who are given the lookalike pill.
Research has shown that a fake treatment can sometimes improve a
patient’s condition simply because the person believes that it will
be helpful. It doesn’t work for everybody, but enough people have
experienced it for scientists to spend some time studying the
effect.
Beliefs and attitudes people hold in the privacy of their minds
influence their behaviours. This then controls whether people feel
good or bad about themselves and whether or not they succeed or
fail on a daily basis.
‘When we think we are smart, or stupid, or fat, or thin… we tend
to create this very reality. It’s just the way the mind works. It
is like a very powerful and complex computer that takes in whatever
we ‘type’ – whether it is helpful or harmful,’ Ms Norris said.
Quoted from Mind your Body in Straits Times.