Saturday, March 15, 2008

Benylin and the Mind Body Problem

Having, so it is said, established that drugs and counselling don't work against depression, we now learn that anti-oxidants are powerless against cancer and antibiotics are useless against sinusitis. I don't know whether these things are true or not, but the mere fact that the efficacy of these treatments can be seriously challenged indicates a problem. The problem is a combination of excessive faith in the possibility of a cure and the placebo effect. Placebos work very well as long as the patients don't realise they are placebos. I would guess almost everything sold over the counter of the average pharmacy is a placebo, but they make people feel better because the context - pharmacist, packaging, names of obscure ingredients on the box - is so convincing. Any honest doctor will tell you that 90 per cent of prescriptions are useless, primarily because most conditions clear up of their own accord. But, feeling unwell, we just like to think something is being done and that should be enough to sustain the placebo effect and the pharmaceutical industry. This, of course, raises the question of how, exactly, the placebo effect works - how can the mind affect the body in this way? These are ancient, deep waters on which we float, unaware, every time we buy a bottle of Benylin.

14 comments:

  1. Mind and body: same thing. Nuff said.

    I have occasionally noticed ageing taking place in quantum jumps. When a particular mind-set has, for better or worse, borne me through a period in my life and has become stagnant, holding back the tide… when I finally give up, relinquish control and accept my fate, to move on: FLUMP the visage changes, imperceptibly probably to others but not to me. I settle into my new self again.

    Not the regeneration of a Timelord but a development nonetheless.

    I went grey overnight when I sold my electric guitar.

    ReplyDelete
  2. People don't OD on placebos Bryan. Ask Heath Ledger.

    ReplyDelete
  3. (Or maybe this is about seeing. Turning the editing off.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Vicks seems to work. Thank God since its profits have funded a huge conservative think tank called the Richardson Foundation. [I've managed to start blogging at the end of a busy week]

    ReplyDelete
  5. "honest"..."doctor"
    That will be about 25% of them, then.
    "seriously"..."overpaid"
    That will be about 75% of them, then.

    Benylin may not cure the illness, it is a bloody good cure for insomnia.

    I gave up believing anything any "expert" says years ago, after one of them told me "don`t be stupid, its Rolls Royce for gods sake, it will never go bust"

    Ex..as in has been.
    Spurt..as in drip of water.

    Malty, turning a deaf ear to has been drips

    ReplyDelete
  6. Snakepit - I have a theory (entirely untested and unscientific but hey I like it) that this does indeed happen, roughly every seven years. I've noticed it in my life, tho the intervals are rather longer (maybe that means I'll live longer, maybe I'm just slow). Seven seems good for a cycle - like a week...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Then y'get sick of the whole thing and transfigure.
    See the light.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh, to be caught by that breath!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Actually, Bryan, it was noted in one of the recent commentaries about placebos for depression that, for anxiety at least, a placebo works even if the patient knows it's not medicine. (This was a very small study, though.) I guess it helps explain why vitamins and such have such a following.

    http://www.badscience.net/?p=620

    As to the mind/body problem, it does seem easy to imagine how brain affects mind (we see the effect of damaged brains at any nursing home), but it is much harder to imagine how "mind level" events feed back to the brain and body. Isn't it odd that hearing a few words can cause a flood of tears? Or that hypnotism can work well against warts?

    ReplyDelete
  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Snakepit,

    That'll be the opposite of QUANTUM then. Quantum means the smallest measurable unit. But you're right on your point. It's only a couple of weeks ago that I was a gay and vital young blade: now I'm turning into a sagging middle-aged has-been.

    ReplyDelete
  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Aye, Recusant, 'jump' alone would have done it like 'shell' can cope perfectly well without having to be 'shocked' all the time.

    ReplyDelete
  14. HA! Shock shelled not t'other way round! Karma of a
    cocky cnut.

    ReplyDelete