
You can train your body into thinking it’s had medicine - elorant
http://mosaicscience.com/story/medicine-without-the-medicine-how-to-train-your-immune-system-placebo
======
mariodiana
I'll share a funny story that's on topic, if you don't mind.

Years and years ago, I worked as a house painter. One of the guys on the crew
was a guy who went by the name Mugsy. Mugsy had a bit of a cocaine habit.
Since he was a lifelong friend of the boss, this was tolerated. In any case,
Mugsy worked off and on.

The boss told me once about what would happen with Mugsy on payday. The boss
would pay Mugsy at the end of the day, and then they would all get in the van
for the ride home. The boss told me that cocaine is often cut with baking
soda, which can act as a laxative. Mugsy would be in the van on the ride home,
with a pocket full of money, just dreaming about being able to spend some of
that money on cocaine. The boss reasoned that Mugsy's body must have
associated money with cocaine with the laxative effect of the baking soda —
because every payday, Mugsy would be farting for the entire ride home. He
couldn't help himself!

~~~
sandworm101
Cocaine is also a stimulant for the digestive system. While not a laxative per
se, it can have a similar effect. So Mugsy's symptoms may be more directly
related to his body expecting the cocaine.

~~~
agumonkey
And the digestive system is extremely sensitive to emotional state. As a kid,
anything stressful would make me feel like running to the toilets.

~~~
sandworm101
That's normal. There is a reason people literally crap themselves with terror.
It's a great way to dissuade a predator bent on eating you.

~~~
Jedd
Is that the (sole) reason? More than one martial arts trainer has told me that
if you are definitely about to be involved in a fight -- and you can't run
away (number one preference) -- if you have a full bladder you should
consciously empty it. Wet trousers are far preferable to having your bladder
rupture, so it's a sensible pragmatic (or instinctive) action. I'd imagine
there'd be similar benefits in evacuating your bowels.

~~~
johnchristopher
For what it's worth I heard birds do that to get lighter and faster in order
to flee a danger.

------
narrator
Wim Hoff [1] is a great example of someone who can turn a lot of the knobs on
his metabolism that aren't available to most of us. Apparently, he says it's
something you can learn to do. If these researchers got more concrete about
how patients can learn to do this and to get physiologically measurable
effects, it would actually certainly lower health care costs.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof)

~~~
iamcurious
Interesting. There has been at least one study about him and his techniques:

 _Healthy volunteers practicing the learned techniques exhibited profound
increases in the release of epinephrine, which in turn led to increased
production of anti-inflammatory mediators and subsequent dampening of the
proinflammatory cytokine response elicited by intravenous administration of
bacterial endotoxin. This study could have important implications for the
treatment of a variety of conditions associated with excessive or persistent
inflammation, especially autoimmune diseases in which therapies that
antagonize proinflammatory cytokines have shown great benefit._

Full paper:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7379.abstract](http://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7379.abstract)

~~~
lukev
If I read the methods correctly, then how does this fall into the category of
"learned behavior"?

Exposing the body to these temperature extremes, which are far outside the
norms most of us experience and which must induce borderline hypothermia,
surely has its own physiological effect.

I don't doubt the effect can be beneficial, but that seems squarely in the
camp of physical treatment as opposed to "thinking" yourself into a different
bodily state.

~~~
mettamage
To avoid confusion read my answer on cognitive science stack exchange. While
it is just an opinion, it is quite an informed one. I participated in the
study above. Our final challenge was walking on a ski mountain for 2.5 hours
-7 degrees celsius with shorts and shoes. You could bring a hat for style
points (I did :) ) but no shirt. Once in a lifetime experience: hugging people
in ski-suits who were on vacation while I was dressed like I'd go to a summer
pool party.

[http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/10651/does-wim-
hof...](http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/10651/does-wim-hof-really-
consciously-control-his-autonomic-nervous-systemx)

I agree with you on the idea it's not classical conditioning. The WHM has 3
components: cold exposure, breathing technique and the right mindset (mindset
is akin to optimism but it is more stereotypical game-shaman like, e.g. "the
cold is your friend."). IMO the breathing technique produces the biggest
effect, then cold exposure itself and the mindset acts like an amplification
of what you learned. In my _subjective_ experience I'd ratio the effects as
41/39/20 (breathing,exposure,mindset).

~~~
iamcurious
Impressive. Can you point to some references regarding the breathing
technique?

------
glynjackson
Quote: "By the end of the year, she had received just six doses of the drug
instead of the usual twelve. Marette responded just as her doctors would have
hoped from the full drug amount."

I'm sorry, at this point I stopped reading. The Doctors don't know how she
would have responded to the full drug, because it didn't happen! The word
'hoped' is not testable! Where was the control (Quasi-experiment)? There is
just not way to tell if she would have responded better, for all we know she
was 50% better than she could have been if she'd taken the full 12 doses. Or
maybe 6 doses was just the right amount for her.

I do believe that the brain is a powerful tool and have read research that
shows we can change things like body heat, pain and more with mind, but this
story did not have anything that evaluated the impact and cannot be used as
evidence of such!

~~~
sweden
Hmm I'm pretty sure that 'hoped' in this case means something like: "Well, in
a normal case we would have recommended 12 doses of the medicine in order to
get a full recovery."

This is not like testing stuff with a computer program, you can not reset the
human to a known state and replicate the experiment all over again.

Following your logic, even all vaccines are a lie, how can we know that the
vaccines that we take every year are doing anything?

~~~
_Wintermute
> Following your logic, even all vaccines are a lie, how can we know that the
> vaccines that we take every year are doing anything?

By having a basic understanding of the scientific method and control groups.

------
kdamken
Anyone who is interested in mind over matter should check out Dr. Sarno's work
- [http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-
Body...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-
Body/dp/0446675156)

Similar to the vomiting poster, I had/have a longtime chronic nerve pain issue
in my arms and legs that this book was tremendously helpful in managing. While
fixing bad posture and a variety of other things helped, this book helped me
get to the point where most days I'm in no pain.

~~~
mgmeyers
I highly recommend Sarno's work as well. I had severe tendinitis in my wrists
for about 4 years. I was only able to work about 3 hours a day and was getting
pretty desperate, so I decided to give what I thought was Sarno's "crackpot
theory" a try. 4 weeks later my tendinitis was completely gone.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
This is interesting. What kind of techniques does he advocate?

~~~
glibgil
[http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-
Body...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-
Body/dp/0446675156)

------
madaxe_again
You can do a lot just by deciding that's what's happening. Spent years with a
mystery vomiting illness. Wallowed in my misery. One day, decided "I'm better
now" \- and lo and fucking behold I've been fine for a year.

Anecdotal, sure, but either the illness or the cure was in my head.

Also... Rasputin and the Romanovs - he could stop Alexei's bleeding
(haemophilia) with a _phone call_ , when physicians had had no joy - the boy
took after his father and was deeply devout.

Anyway. Interesting stuff.

~~~
macawfish
Instead of thinking about the illness being in your head, why not think of the
decision being in your body?

~~~
madaxe_again
If there's even a difference!

~~~
macawfish
Like it or not, 90% of the body's serotonin is produced by gut microbes...
Dopamine, GABA and other lovely chemicals are also contributed by the endless
sea of creatures within.

:)

~~~
madaxe_again
Yup - which may have been where my problems started, as I inadvertently
radically modified my intestinal flora with a brutal and strict diet - for a
long time put it down to having fundamentally screwed up my digestion, but
towards the point when I decided to think of it differently, I had been
wondering if I'd screwed up neurotransmitter levels via microbiota genocide,
and was trapped in a vicious cycle - hence the decision to go "no, you don't
feel nauseous, you're hungry".

~~~
macawfish
Something similar happened to me when I was fighting some (likely chronic)
yeast and staph infections last year. I got pretty strict with my diet and was
underweight by about 10 pounds. Even though I was eating very healthy, I
wasn't letting myself eat stuff I was hungry for. Eventually I decided I
couldn't restrict myself anymore, and started eating regular again. I bounced
back pretty well after that.

Sounds like you decided to reinterpret a bodily cue that you'd been
interpreting as nausea to mean hunger. That's awesome. Reminds me of hearing
that many people misinterpret thirst for hunger, and are dehydrated because of
that. Also reminds me of my grandpa, who never took pain medication, even at
the dentist. He said that it didn't hurt, it just felt intensely warm.

~~~
madaxe_again
I do similar with pain - break it into its component parts, and you can
experience it as a warm tickling, or pressure, if you've really managed to do
a number - although some things one can't map, like having finger nails torn
off - although maybe that's because it's an uncommon pain one doesn't usually
get a chance to examine.

------
aaron695
>If used widely, advocates say, substituting some of the drugs we take for
placebos could save billions of dollars in healthcare costs.

Drugs are not the 'cost' per pill. It's all in development, so this is a silly
point. Cost will go up, or part of the population will get slammed.

Placebo's are over rated. As such you have to be very sceptical of this
article, it screams of alternative medicine. I wouldn't base much on this
article alone.

[http://www.dcscience.net/2015/12/11/placebo-effects-are-
weak...](http://www.dcscience.net/2015/12/11/placebo-effects-are-weak-
regression-to-the-mean-is-the-main-reason-ineffective-treatments-appear-to-
work/)

>In 1975, a psychologist in New York was studying taste aversion in a group of
rats and got an utterly mystifying result.

I'd be very interesting if this was reproducible.

~~~
sandworm101
Reminds me of the story of the Vatican official sent to judge the miraculous
healing properties of a shrine. He looked at the pile of crutches, canes and
wheelchairs left by "cured" people. "What? No wooden legs?"

Placebos can work in some narrow circumstances, but they cannot fix some basic
problems. Pain relief? sure. But in place of an antibiotic? Expect a lawsuit.

~~~
salgernon
I hadn't heard of the Vatican official story, but certainly many religiously
minded people will use prayer as a self-regulated placebo.

[http://whywontgodhealamputees.com](http://whywontgodhealamputees.com)

Which makes me wonder if some of the more faith healing type of religions end
up being sued when the prayer doesn't actually produce results.

~~~
sandworm101
The story is meant to have come from Lourdes, which I believe the Vatican has
failed to recognize as a legit miracle despite the location being a pilgrimage
for many Catholics.

------
tbabb
My bullshit detectors are leaping off the charts.

There are so many completely uncontrolled experiments described there, and the
article just jumps to the conclusion that they demonstrate an effect. Add on
top that the theory makes not a fleck of sense, and you have no credibility
left.

~~~
vorotato
People get their kick from caffeine the moment they start their drink even
though it obviously takes much longer for caffeine to actually work. There's a
little something there, but I don't know how MUCH of something.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
I experimented with decaf beans once. Normally I need my normal coffee, or I
get a headache.

I knowingly substituted decaf and went a few days with no headache. Good decaf
is hard to come by though.

------
harrumph
Interesting stuff indeed, and it comes with a giant implication that few want
to face. In the US, a country that so embarrassingly struggles with the
finance of health care, preferring to insert inessential insurance and bloated
pharma industries between patients and decent health outcomes, we have to
expect that the news that treatment itself may be optional will be most
eagerly received by those industries. It is not good to hand a fig leaf such
as this idea to industries that profit from withholding care.

------
_bdog
I was very sick as a child: I had neurodermitis (Lichen simplex chronicus) so
I was constantly scratched bloody. I also had asthma and countless plant,
animal and food-allergies, so I couldn't eat most things (dairy-products,
sugar in every form except honey, salt, chocolate, white flour, eggs, nuts,
citrus-fruits, the list goes on and on). Spent a lot of time in hospital.

When I was about 9 or 10 years old I got to a point where I was completely
fed-up by all the rules I had to follow: Eat this. Don't eat this. Be careful
during sports because of your asthma. There's ozone in the forest.

So I decided to ignore every single symptom until it got so strong that I'd
have to go to hospital again. I also started showering cold every day and
trained myself to sleep without a blanket, so I wouldn't sweat, which would
irritate my skin.

I don't know when it happened, but all my problems completely disappeared over
time. I'm 30 now, tests I do now and then, say my allergies and asthma are
still there, but i'm more or less symptom-free.

Whenever I feel bad I consciously use the placebo-effect, for example by
drinking a large glass of water and telling myself that THIS glass of water is
EXACTLY what my body needed right now and will make everything better.

Note that I'm not advocating to reduce medicine: When I have a headache, I'm
the first to take an aspirin. All I'm saying is that there's definitely a
large cognitive component in health and feeling well, which can be trained.

------
vorotato
So I'm not sure if this article is a hunk of lies or true, but when I want to
induce the placebo effect, I just google some random ingredient in the
beverage I'm drinking with "{ingredient} Cures Virus".For example "Manganese
Cures Virus". You're inevitably going to find someone who says yeah it's
pretty effective, and I just kinda say sure why not, I believe it. This way
you know it's not expensive I mean you were already drinking it, but now that
you KNOW it's there helping you it helps. You're like I'm going to feel better
I've got "INGREDIENT" on my side! Additionally because it was a drink you'll
probably drink some more fluids.

~~~
rokhayakebe
The thing about the internet is that you can find evidence to support your
theory 100%, and evidence that does the exact opposite. The internet is not
always a source of knowledge, but it can always be a source of reinforcement
for one's belief.

------
tokenadult
The claims made in the article kindly submitted here (which does, by the way,
come from a pretty good source publication) far exceed what reliable evidence
on the issue has shown, and is characteristic of the exaggerated
misunderstanding of similar study results by the article author, Jo Marchant.
Marchant writes in this vein in other publications, most timed to promote her
new book _Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind over Body_ , but careful
researchers who have examined the evidence disagree that the reported effects
are real and meaningful.[1] A review of the book[2] agrees with me and with
the whole planet that current medical care could emphasize empathy with
patients more, but finds much to disagree with in Marchant's book after
commenting on many things the reviewer liked about the book. The overall
review summary is

"I can’t wholeheartedly recommend the book. Overall, it gives the impression
that we know much more than we do. The studies described are very preliminary
and far from ready for prime time; we know that preliminary studies are often
overturned by larger, better-designed studies. I found some things in the book
disturbing. I don’t condone her use of the term “Western medicine;” there is
only one medicine. I was appalled that after a C-section she had a VBAC at
home, giving birth to her second baby underwater with the assistance of a non-
NHS midwife who she believed was less likely to transfer her to a hospital if
something went wrong. In my opinion, that showed very poor judgment. She
misrepresents the safety of home births. She even trots out the old “death by
medicine” canard. She claims that statins may only benefit 1 in 50 patients
(true, but misleadingly alarmist when taken out of context as statins do save
lives).

"Conclusion: Marchant has interesting ideas, but a bad title"

[1] David Gorski, 11 January 2016, "Is 'harnessing the power of placebo'
worthwhile to treat anything?"

[https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/is-harnessing-the-
power...](https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/is-harnessing-the-power-of-
placebo-worthwhile-to-treat-anything/)

[2] Harriet Hall, 26 January 2016, "Cure Is About Caring, Not Curing:
Placebos, Alternative Medicine, and Patient Comfort"

[https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/cure-is-about-caring-
no...](https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/cure-is-about-caring-not-curing-
placebos-alternative-medicine-and-patient-comfort/)

------
zyxley
> He hit on strawberry milk mixed with green food colouring and essential oil.
> Its bright colour and overwhelming lavender flavour creates a bewildering
> mix of sensory cues, like drinking a violent, bittersweet battle between
> green and purple.

> So far, Schedlowski has shown that after being associated with CsA, the
> drink reliably induces immunosuppression in healthy volunteers, creating on
> average 60–80 per cent of the effect of the drug.

Interesting.

------
nickpsecurity
I used to be able to create a variety of physiological effects by focusing on
them long enough. Especially in terms of heart rate, temperature, or even a
mental high. Been out of practice for a long time. I will say that two I
really wanted to do nearly on demand were equivalents to caffeine and good
sleep. To this day, I can't eliminate the need for or problems following lack
of either. ;)

~~~
viewer5
> out of practice

What's practice for that like?

~~~
nickpsecurity
Meditation is vague word. There's guides for how to do this online and in
books. I tried a bunch until some worked. Basic thing was just letting go of
most thoughts, focusing on one thing, intending it to happen, and letting it
happen without forcing it. You need feedback like a monitor showing you
numbers and paying attention to feel of your own body. Eventually, some part
of brain delivers. It delivers better over time.

Best I can describe. The breathing tricks were most valuable as breathing and
mental state are so interconnected. Comes in handy for calming down or pumping
up. Also helpful in forms of meditation.

~~~
reitanqild
Any specific techniques/pointers for pumping up? It seemed to me meditation
was all about relaxation, and my problem is it seems I can easily calm down
but anything that would increase alertness without needing chemistry, that
would be much appreciated.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Lost most memory to a brain injury in an accident. I'm coming up blank on this
one unfortunately. The thing I remember was that it was about association. You
associate certain songs, words, thoughts, actions, etc with emotional states.
So, just as you can calm down to some, you can pump up to some faster.

Little things like walking around or even a proper warm up can help. I do
remember repeating the same songs during key phases of a workout. I still have
to avoid listening to those songs as I go to sleep at night as my brain gets
wide awake.

~~~
reitanqild
Thanks a lot! Guess I might try.

------
csours
Along the same lines, I have asthma, and sometimes funky smells trigger my
asthma. I've often wondered how much of that was psychological. It would be
really freaking awesome to suppress the psychological portion of my asthma and
boost the effects of my inhalers.

------
macawfish
Let me just remind everyone that "mind" and "body" are constructs. (I'm
looking at you, "skeptics".)

for example: [http://news.wisc.edu/study-reveals-gene-expression-
changes-w...](http://news.wisc.edu/study-reveals-gene-expression-changes-with-
meditation/)

If unspecified "mindfulness" can have such fundamental physical effects, I'm
having a hard time seeing how direct psychosomatic engagement is so far
fetched. Truly, while the Wisconsin studies are lumping participants'
psychosomatic experiences into a broad category of "mindfulness meditation",
every participants experience of "mindfulness meditation" was a unique journey
into the depths of their inner world, mentally, emotionally, physically and
spiritually; these categories are different angles on one thing: the
experience of the human animal.

------
saulrh
So, the immediate followup: drugs out there that I could preemptively
condition myself for that would be particularly useful in the future. Like,
could I condition an epinephrine response so I have a more reliable response
to an unknown allergy than hoping someone has an epipen?

~~~
vorotato
Just bring your own epipen. I would not risk not being able to "believe".

------
david_shaw
This is very similar to what Wim Hof
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof))
is now verifiably able to do. He's made headlines recently with his ability to
control his immune response, which was previously thought impossible.

Tim Ferriss has a pretty interesting interview with him, minor language
barrier notwithstanding: [http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/09/07/the-iceman-
wim-hof/](http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/09/07/the-iceman-wim-hof/)

------
smanuel
It's called Homeopathy.

