What do you all think of the (Link): Placebo effect? Personally, I find it amazing, and key to somthing beyond being "fooled" by sugar pills and false medication.

I've always thought of the stories about God healing people had some validity. Not, of course, that it was "God" in my point of view, but the fact that someone can believe somthing so much, or even just enough to think it would help them, it actually does. What are your thoughts on it?

I'm going to leave this topic here, and not move it until I get a better guage of where discussion is going

I personally think it's amazing that so much of humans health has to do with their outlook on situations. The human mind is such a powerful thing. So powerful that it over-powers actual illnesses by simply telling the body that it's fine. That's why I try to be an optimist in life. It's hard when I have such little to live for, but nevermind that.

I actually believe that optimistic people do live longer than people who try to find the bad in everything. I couldn't explain why, scientists can't even explain why, it's such a deep, mental to physical connection. Which is exactly what the placebo effect is, it's where the the mental condition of a person meets up with the physical condition of a person and they affect each other.
The way I look at it is, if someone's physical condition can hurt or help their mental condition (for instance, if someone is sick, they'll feel like crap mentally) why can't their mental condition do the same to their physical condition? Someone feels bad about a sickness, then mentally they might feel bad. If someone feels good about a sickness, and truly believe their sickness is getting better, then that could litterally alter whether or not that sickness truly does get better. It can work the oposite way too, which as stated in that wikipedia document, is the nocebo effect. If someone is sick and they feel that they won't get better, they are less likely to get better than someone who feels that they will.

The human mind is so complicated. So complicated infact, that it can't even figure itself out.

The placebo effect is indeed something absolutely amazing. The might of the human mind is extraordinary.

In another forum, we had a debate about whether or not God existed, and I said that I believed in God because of many things that nature alone could not create, like intelligence. But another member, an atheist, replied that what made the human mind was merely the electric connections between brain cells, and that it would one day be possible to create computers that are able of imagination, philosophical thinking, etc. But I do not believe that: I think the human mind is much too complex to be the result of an electric or chemical phenomenon.

The placebo effect is yet another of the awesome powers of the human mind that show us that our brain is something much more complicated than cells that exchange electricity.

Something I was wondering about was this:
One's brain would naturally be trying to overcome any illness they had, otherwise it would not be a very good brain, really. And, when given placebo medication, I would have thought it would stop trying to overcome the illness, for fear of either getting in the way or messing up how it works. However, the brain seems to heal the illness more quickly under placebo treatment.
I there something I've overlooked or misjudged?

Because I actually think that a placebo will have an effect, even through the above, which is why I thought I had probably missed something.

Truism: Things percieved as real, are real in their consequences. As in if you beleive something is true, you are likely to make decisions based in that beleif regaurdless of its actual validity.

This is my explanation for the Placebo effect. Beleiving that one is recieiving treatment for an illness, changes the way that one might behave if they were not being treated. When we take pills that fight decongestion, or any other symptom or illness, we behave based in the belief that we are really getting or feeling better. I beleive that our "mood" (which is sometimes based on beliefs) is part of a mind/body feedback loop. If we are getting "better" then we feel better. But perhaps, if we feel better, then we also get better! It is a phenomena of the mind/body dichotemy.

Now, I'm a practical guy, I think this is a rare phenomena. People are not just healing themselves everywhere we look, but it apparently happens from time to time. Doctors will call it "mis-diagnosis", and say the disease was never really there, becuase they don't want to look like idiots. But medical miracles do happen, people get better for no reason, or at least no scientific reason.

But maybe, this is a denial of our true abilities. We have all heard the cliches about the "power of the mind", and its mystical qualities, but I think in an age of neuroscience that we shouldn't just shove off these mystical occurences, "Holistic" medicine has a long history in many cultures around the world, and I think its way past time that these human abilities were acknowledged.

"think positive"

One reason of doing placebo testing in clinical trials is to establish whether the medicine actually does have an action, or if any results are due to a placebo effect. There is major stats involved, all I know is to check for p-values and confidence intervals.

The bottom line is, there is a real difference between results for patients on placebo vs the real thing. These tests are "double blind", neither the doctor nor the patient knows if the medicine is real or placebo.

Maybe the placebo effect vs real medicines may proof that the mind is not always as strong as we think....

How would one test faith healing? Tell two groups of people they are being prayed for, but only one is actually prayed for? I think most faiths would not like the idea, and would consider it as unethical.

I believe in divine healing, but will admit that there a malpractices. Some people will be better due to positive thoughts and feelings, but others are healed in spite of their feelings.

To voice any more thoughts will result in a religious war.