The Placebo Effect

[JustARandomPanda]

Because of certain questions I've been ruminating on I am beginning to wonder if the Placebo Effect is actually Chi Healing or other energy healing work in disguise? If it is then in a way Western research has already shown it exists - so much so all valid research studies must be designed to take placebo into account. And from what I can tell researchers haven't been able to explain placebo.

 

I'm still unsure about this though. Placebo might have absolutely nothing to do with chi or energy bodies, etc.

[Ryan T.]

Because of certain questions I've been ruminating on I am beginning to wonder if the Placebo Effect is actually Chi Healing or other energy healing work in disguise? If it is then in a way Western research has already shown it exists - so much so all valid research studies must be designed to take placebo into account. And from what I can tell researchers haven't been able to explain placebo.

 

I'm still unsure about this though. Placebo might have absolutely nothing to do with chi or energy bodies, etc.

 

I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with chi. I feel it has more to do with the power of our bodies to heal. If we believe in something(placebo effect) we let our bodies do what they do naturally, heal.

 

Our own minds are our biggest impediment to health, happiness and success.

[Josh Young]

Neat question.

The placebo effect is very interesting.

It is not only healing, but can damage.

It can intoxicate or strengthen or weaken.

 

I believe it has to do with the power of suggestion and the role of mind.

It surely must involved chi at some point, because chi is energy and mind is Yi and where the yi goes the chi will follow. But it does not seem to be a function of chi per say.

[de_paradise]

Because of certain questions I've been ruminating on I am beginning to wonder if the Placebo Effect is actually Chi Healing or other energy healing work in disguise? If it is then in a way Western research has already shown it exists - so much so all valid research studies must be designed to take placebo into account. And from what I can tell researchers haven't been able to explain placebo.

 

I'm still unsure about this though. Placebo might have absolutely nothing to do with chi or energy bodies, etc.

 

As qi is a conduit of consciousness and also related to the immune system, I would wager yes. The placebo effect has become so acknowleged and yet scientists cannot explain why it works. It just shows how advanced our modern science really isnt.

[Martial Development]

I think that if you spend some time with advanced "qi" healers, or read their stories, you'll find they operate through an "information" vector as much as through an "energy" vector.

[goldisheavy]

Because of certain questions I've been ruminating on I am beginning to wonder if the Placebo Effect is actually Chi Healing or other energy healing work in disguise? If it is then in a way Western research has already shown it exists - so much so all valid research studies must be designed to take placebo into account. And from what I can tell researchers haven't been able to explain placebo.

 

I'm still unsure about this though. Placebo might have absolutely nothing to do with chi or energy bodies, etc.

 

Placebo effect is the mind's natural healing effect. Unfortunately the scientists dismiss it as "unreal", since most of the scientists hold to hard physicalism as their view of reality.

 

It's actually deeper and more profound than Chi. Chi is one type of placebo effect, but placebo effects can cover an infinite range. One can even say that all effects are placebo effects. I mean ALL effects of any kind anywhere. Try to understand this implication.

[thaddeus]

Because of certain questions I've been ruminating on I am beginning to wonder if the Placebo Effect is actually Chi Healing or other energy healing work in disguise? If it is then in a way Western research has already shown it exists - so much so all valid research studies must be designed to take placebo into account. And from what I can tell researchers haven't been able to explain placebo.

 

I'm still unsure about this though. Placebo might have absolutely nothing to do with chi or energy bodies, etc.

Check out this book when you have some time:

Fooled by Randomness: http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hi...6277&sr=8-4

 

 

The problem with placebo effect is that it is difficult to determine what exactly was due to placebo. Say you are testing a drug that grows hair. So you have 30 people in the study. 20 grew hair and 10 didn't. When you analyze the result, you find out that of the 20 that grew hair, 5 didn't really get the drug, they got an inert substance. It's tempting to say all 5 grew hair from the placebo effect, but you just can't. They could have grown hair for a bunch of reasons completely unrelated to the study. When you read results of these scientfic studies, you will find that placebo is the term used to describe those people that saw a result from the inert substance. Logically, you can't assume it was really from placebo effect. I picked a hair loss example, because that's exactly what you'll find if you look at the studies on Rogaine.

To throw more complications in, say in the above study, it's tempting to say the 15 people grew hair as a result of the drug. You really can't until you repeat the study several times to rule out a Random result from the one study. That's why the book I'm suggesting above is a great read, it explains this much better than I can.

T

[JustARandomPanda]

Check out this book when you have some time:

Fooled by Randomness: http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hi...6277&sr=8-4

The problem with placebo effect is that it is difficult to determine what exactly was due to placebo. Say you are testing a drug that grows hair. So you have 30 people in the study. 20 grew hair and 10 didn't. When you analyze the result, you find out that of the 20 that grew hair, 5 didn't really get the drug, they got an inert substance. It's tempting to say all 5 grew hair from the placebo effect, but you just can't. They could have grown hair for a bunch of reasons completely unrelated to the study. When you read results of these scientfic studies, you will find that placebo is the term used to describe those people that saw a result from the inert substance. Logically, you can't assume it was really from placebo effect. I picked a hair loss example, because that's exactly what you'll find if you look at the studies on Rogaine.

To throw more complications in, say in the above study, it's tempting to say the 15 people grew hair as a result of the drug. You really can't until you repeat the study several times to rule out a Random result from the one study. That's why the book I'm suggesting above is a great read, it explains this much better than I can.

T

 

 

Ah yes. A Nassim Taleb book. I like him. He has a lot of good things to say. Stuff people need to be reminded of. I really enjoyed his book The Black Swan although I've not read Fooled by Randomness.

 

I can at least in one instance think of a clinical trial which might demonstrate the kind of Placebo effect I was thinking of more directly than the examples you've stated. Though I agree most researchers sweep unknowns under the tidy word Placebo. In fact that is probably the norm and the examples I'm thinking of are the rare exception.

 

But anyhoo...to get back to one example I was thinking of.

 

Several years ago there was a physician who wanted to run some clinical trials for a certain type of surgical procedure on the knees of patients with degenerative arthritis. So he applied to NIH and got it approved. Half the enrollees would receive the actual operative repair to their knees. The other half would only believe they'd had it done to them. All the patients spent a real 3 hours in surgery. It's just that some got the real deal while others were just under anesthesia. The guy who was running the actual trial I think wasn't permitted to do any of the surgeries - probably as one of the conditions for it being double-blind.

 

I don't remember exactly how the physicians made it double-blind but I remember reading they did.

 

After the surgery all patients were treated identically. All had the usual post-operative care.

 

 

Here's the weird thing.

 

When the physician finally studied the results from the surgery the patients who had not received the actual surgical procedure (but thought they had) actually improved more dramatically than those who really got it. Many of these "Placebo Patients" had such striking improvement they were able to walk again where before the fake surgery they had been wheelchair bound. X-Rays confirmed the healing was real, not fake.

 

I remember reading how shocked the physician was by the results. He admitted he'd been expecting the exact opposite. He was really disappointed to see that the Placebo operations blew away the real ones.

 

And that is why I wonder if at least in a few instances if the Placebo Effect might be Chi doing some healing - just by another name?

[thaddeus]

Yes, I've heard this story and similar ones before. Some quick thoughts that come to mind..is this story/myth actually true..we have to consider the ethical issues with performing sham operations and consider how this ever got approved as an actual study with controls, etc. I'm glad you read Taleb and understand what I'm trying to say, Black Swan and Fooled By Randomness are very similar. I think FBR reallly drives the point home regarding randomness. In the study you mentioned, it really needs to be done a few more times to determine it wasn't just a fluke result. Otherwse we are 'fooled by randomness'. I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of examples of operations done incorrectly that produced no such miraculous result, or worse, but they are not making headlines anywhere. Because we often just look at and discuss these unusual results, we often make the mistake of not seeing the larger picture which in this case are the thousands of people who don't get better from wrong operations. Any scientist worth her salt wouldn't make a big deal out of something like this, I think the sensationalism is caused by journalists looking for a story or people pushing an agenda.

 

Causality is a huge topic. How do we know something happened as a result of something. These are great questions and I'm happy you started this thread.

T

[Meson]

I think that if you spend some time with advanced "qi" healers, or read their stories, you'll find they operate through an "information" vector as much as through an "energy" vector.

 

That's intriguing, do you have any more info on that or links etc? I'd be interested to hear what qi healers or TCM practitioners say about this point. Thanks!

[Martial Development]

That's intriguing, do you have any more info on that or links etc? I'd be interested to hear what qi healers or TCM practitioners say about this point. Thanks!

 

Yan Xin's stories in the book "Scientific Qigong Exploration" would be a decent place to start.

[Ya Mu]

Ah yes. A Nassim Taleb book. I like him. He has a lot of good things to say. Stuff people need to be reminded of. I really enjoyed his book The Black Swan although I've not read Fooled by Randomness.

 

I can at least in one instance think of a clinical trial which might demonstrate the kind of Placebo effect I was thinking of more directly than the examples you've stated. Though I agree most researchers sweep unknowns under the tidy word Placebo. In fact that is probably the norm and the examples I'm thinking of are the rare exception.

 

But anyhoo...to get back to one example I was thinking of.

 

Several years ago there was a physician who wanted to run some clinical trials for a certain type of surgical procedure on the knees of patients with degenerative arthritis. So he applied to NIH and got it approved. Half the enrollees would receive the actual operative repair to their knees. The other half would only believe they'd had it done to them. All the patients spent a real 3 hours in surgery. It's just that some got the real deal while others were just under anesthesia. The guy who was running the actual trial I think wasn't permitted to do any of the surgeries - probably as one of the conditions for it being double-blind.

 

I don't remember exactly how the physicians made it double-blind but I remember reading they did.

 

After the surgery all patients were treated identically. All had the usual post-operative care.

Here's the weird thing.

 

When the physician finally studied the results from the surgery the patients who had not received the actual surgical procedure (but thought they had) actually improved more dramatically than those who really got it. Many of these "Placebo Patients" had such striking improvement they were able to walk again where before the fake surgery they had been wheelchair bound. X-Rays confirmed the healing was real, not fake.

 

I remember reading how shocked the physician was by the results. He admitted he'd been expecting the exact opposite. He was really disappointed to see that the Placebo operations blew away the real ones.

 

And that is why I wonder if at least in a few instances if the Placebo Effect might be Chi doing some healing - just by another name?

 

Can you reference this study?

I have serious doubts about it. One obvious thing is did the people who did not get the surgery have puncture wounds inflicted on them? Otherwise they would absolutely know they did not have the surgery. Can't imagine anyone agreeing to that.

 

Placebo as qi? Sure, since everything is composed of life-force energy.

However, qigong healing as placebo? Yes and No.

Could some forms of qigong healing that are body-mind oriented be considered placebo? Sure. If the person believes he is being healed then placebo effect can certainly be there and would be inseparable from the qi. And from the healers viewpoint that is fine. But non body-mind qi healing that works on animals eliminates this possibility. And I have had extremely positive results from a whole bunch of people who were absolutely convinced that medical qigong was the biggest bunch of bull they ever heard of.

[thaddeus]

Here's the study, it was published in 2002:

http://www.vaccinationnews.com/dailynews/j...urgerysham9.htm

 

"After they recovered from the procedures, most patients said their knee pain had improved, and they continued to say they were better for the two years that the researchers followed their progress. But Dr. Nelda P. Wray, who is chief of the section of health services research at Baylor, said, "On the objective scale, no one was better at any time point.""

 

I think it's a stretch to say the patients who got the sham operation were 'healed'. I think the point of the study was to show that the surgery was ineffective.

And yes, the participants agreed to have fake surgery.

T

[Ya Mu]

Here's the study, it was published in 2002:

http://www.vaccinationnews.com/dailynews/j...urgerysham9.htm

 

And yes, the participants agreed to have fake surgery.

T

 

I sometimes forget how dumb people are.

[JustARandomPanda]

Edited July 24, 2009 by SereneBlue

[Meson]

Yan Xin's stories in the book "Scientific Qigong Exploration" would be a decent place to start.

 

Ok thanks for that, I'll check it out.

[thaddeus]

I'm about to read another book that sounds interesting that would relate to research studies.

 

It's called The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives

Let me know what you think of that book and if it's worth reading!

Thanks,

T

[Qigongaddict]

Very interesting topic!

I was confused by this placebo vs qigong for while but now I can certainly tell you they are 2 seperate things. Both have healing power, no one can deny that. The only different thing is how they work. Placebo works with pure faith. You will get what you believe in. And the effect also varies. Sometimes, it can be large but also very insignificant sometimes (that's why researchers don't know how exactly it works). On the other hand, the healing power of qigong is created with constant practice (and a little faith of course). The effect is the same every time, you can expect such thing. The more you go on with your practice, the more its power be enhanced. And one more thing is (just my personal thought though) qi sensation. Occasionally, during a rest or when I'm relaxed, I suddenly feel warm, light, some of my muscles twitching, etc... Those feelings don't seem to have anything to do with faith/belief I guess.

 

P.S Has someone ever experienced such a thing like me?

[thaddeus]

Very interesting topic!

I was confused by this placebo vs qigong for while but now I can certainly tell you they are 2 seperate things. Both have healing power, no one can deny that. The only different thing is how they work. Placebo works with pure faith. You will get what you believe in. And the effect also varies. Sometimes, it can be large but also very insignificant sometimes (that's why researchers don't know how exactly it works). On the other hand, the healing power of qigong is created with constant practice (and a little faith of course). The effect is the same every time, you can expect such thing. The more you go on with your practice, the more its power be enhanced. And one more thing is (just my personal thought though) qi sensation. Occasionally, during a rest or when I'm relaxed, I suddenly feel warm, light, some of my muscles twitching, etc... Those feelings don't seem to have anything to do with faith/belief I guess.

 

P.S Has someone ever experienced such a thing like me?

I hate to confuse you more but..consider this. Let's assume qigong is real. Now, someone sets up an experiment to test a new qigong that relies on a special breathing technique plus a special arm movement. To test this, he breaks up a thousand people into four different groups of 250 people each--1 learns the arm movement only, 1 learns the breathing technique only, 1 learns the arm movement and the breathing technique, and the last group is simply observed for 1 year. If the people that only learn the arm movement or just the breathing technique report benefits, that is considered placebo effect. So, how do you know your qigong experiences are not "placebo"?

How do you know you learned correctly and are not fooling yourself? Everyone who is under the placebo effect believes it's 'real'.

 

T

[Qigongaddict]

You confused me though but... yup, you're right . So how can I distinguish my sensations/experiences from placebo effect? That's because those things occur spontaneously occasionally without my thinking "There's gonna be something good happening." I don't even know about them because I haven't heard them before.

I don't think I'm the only case though, some people told me they also experienced the same thing.

Anyway, your experiment is a really good example but I think it may not be clear enough. Say, how about an experiemnt like this: 2 groups of people, 100 each. The 1st group is taught a qigong that can boost the function of heart but they are told that it help elevate the liver. The 2nd group (control group) is taught the same qigong while knowing it really works for the heart. Later, they are examined for the effect. In the 1st group, if the effect on their livers is not impressive and insignificant, then qigong is no placebo. If the effect is so so, average, then even I don't know if qigong is placebo or not. But... if somehow, there is only improvement on the liver, not the heart, I will immediately stop my qigong training and start to read the Bible or some Buddhist philosophies instead .

[tianshixian]

Because of certain questions I've been ruminating on I am beginning to wonder if the Placebo Effect is actually Chi Healing or other energy healing work in disguise? If it is then in a way Western research has already shown it exists - so much so all valid research studies must be designed to take placebo into account. And from what I can tell researchers haven't been able to explain placebo.

 

I'm still unsure about this though. Placebo might have absolutely nothing to do with chi or energy bodies, etc.

 

Given that everything is Qi and Qi is everything, I don't see the confusion.

 

Only people that see Qi as some external "life force" or one of the forces in physics would have any doubt that the placebo effect isn't Qi.

 

In TCM it is quite clear: the mind or Yi, as an aspect of Shen guides the Qi. Thus the placebo effect is invariably Qi. Aside from that the disease it heals is Qi, the cells are made of Qi and Jing combined, the blood is born of Qi, guided by Qi, and is ultimately Qi. the whole process of healing is Qi. The ATP used is Qi.

 

In TCM there are infinite Qi, but we speak of only 19 or so. About five of them are sufficient to explain anything important. The placebo effect is a joke, how can the mind be separate from the body?

Scientists are quite confused: they don't think the mind and body should influence each other in experiments, and yet have you ever met a person outside the body?

 

The two go hand in hand. Any doubt? Ask a person to cut you or starve you and see if you don't get unhappy and then unhealthy. Then heal and see if you are happy again. It's all so simple and straight forward.

 

What need is there to experiement? In TCM the "placebo" is just as viable a healing tool.

 

If you could cure 80% of diseases with sugar pills, I ask why don't you give all your patients sugar pills? Clearly that is the correct thing to do for any case, just in case it might work.

 

As for is Qi involved... it is always involved.

 

e=mc^2, how can Qi not be involved? It's the very fabric of Yin and Yang and the Universe itself.