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Pinpointing the Placebo Effect
All over the world, people say they are healed by things that turn out to be placebo. So it's easy to think that they must have been faking in the first place if all it took was a little sugar pill to assuage their ailments. But keep your scoffing at bay. That little white pill may be inducing some very real effects. We talk to placebo experts Fabrizio Benedetti and Tor Wager who tell us about the well-stocked pharmacy in our brains, just waiting to be unlocked.
Then pain expert, Dr. Daniel Carr, takes us to the WWII Battle of Anzio, where a puzzled young medic sees that the same bullet can create very different experiences of pain. And Daniel Moerman tells us how the color of a pill effects how well Italians sleep.
Why Dennis and Denise are Dentists
Benedetti's work on Medical Mimicry
Meaning, Medecine, and the Placebo Effect by Dan Moerman
Tor Wager sees the placebo effect in the brain
Narrative, Pain, and Suffering by Daniel B. Carr
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I love Radio Lab. I stumbled on it one day and can't wait to hear it again. It is one of the best shows on radio.
I've been waiting for new episodes for too long! I can't express the excitement I felt when I first saw the release dates. My near feature will revolve around this.
Every Radio Lab episode from season one and two can be used as a benchmark for perfection, even beatuy, on radio shows. We can, no doubt, expect this measure to be surpassed in the coming weeks.
The program on placebos was fascinating as a subject, but in addition, it was a model of effective teaching strategies -- the use of repetition, the variety of examples, the previewing of a subtopic, the various voices and music. I want my students to research a topic and model their class presentations on your style. Kudos!
My favorite episode so far this season has been Sleep. But Placebo is a close second. Amazing stuff. Bravo WNYC!
I agree with the previous commenters. Radio Lab is, by far, my favorite NPR program. I've posted some of my reflections on this portion of the program and that is available here:
http://dixieyid.blogspot.com/2007/06/why-there-is-no-pain-when-dying-al.html
-Dixie Yid
This was the best show I ever heard on
public radio. Thanks, and keep it up!
I tried listening to "Placebo" for a few minutes but the annoying way it was edited, which was apparently supposed to be cute or entertaining, was so annoying I had to give up. PLEASE if you want people to listen to your programming, don't play silly games with it.
I very much enjoy the sound effects and the way you play with the human voice. Please keep it up!
-Dixie Yid
GREAT!!!
If you want to hear something else amazing about the placebo effect, check out this story from Morning Edition on research by Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer involving placebo and exercise.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17792517
How can one induce the "placebo effect" on oneself?
In other words how can one instill faith in oneself to treat oneself using the "placebo effect"?
If not, does one have to try to "trick" oneself into a "self-belief" mindset to produce the "placebo effect", and if possible how would one accomplish that? Tom.
In answer to your comment Tom, we have been interested in this phenomena of self healing with placebos, and have been following the placebo debate over the last 2 years.
As conscious purveyors of placebos, we are concerned with the potential for the placebo effect to inspire self- healing. . . there is some evidence to suggest that ingesting a placebo *in the awareness that it is a placebo* may still gain some benefit.
There are some stories on our website www.universalplacebos.com.au which illustrate some different ways in which knowingly taking a placebo has been effective.
We are the original suppliers of placebos to the general public. We welcome your comments and feedback on your *placebo experiences*
Just a quick question:
I am trying to figure out how to spell the name of the Shaman described in the beginning on the show. He's from the Kwakiutl tribe of British Columbia, his name sounds like "qe-so-lid", and he was studied by Franz Boas...
I'm currently enrolled in the Marriage & Family Therapy graduate program at Saint Mary's University in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and this episode is an assignment from my Statistics teacher. I haven't listened to the episode yet, but the comments about it have piqued my interest. Thanks.
Very touched to hear an interview with A A Mason, whose article "A Psychoanalyst Looks at a Hypnotist: A Study of Folie À Deux" in the Psychoanalytic Quarterly of 1994 I consider essential reading.
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