The Power of the Placebo — Is Healing All in Your Mind?
A recent survey of U.S. doctors found that nearly two out of three believe it is permissible to use placebos. Fully 50 percent of U.S. doctors prescribe placebos to their patients. Surveys of physicians in Israel, Denmark, and Great Britain all had similar findings.
This research has prompted well-known author Dr. Sally Satel to denounce the use of placebos as “disquieting, even unethical.”
However, studies have indicated that placebos are effective up to 70 percent of the time. A review of many prescription drugs reveal efficacy rates that are in fact much lower than that of the placebo. Placebos provide an opportunity to integrate the mind-body connection into the practice of medicine, and to harness its health benefits.
Integrative medicine has been dismissed time and again as “the placebo response.” Yet patients now flock to the doors of integrative physicians. They know that the mind-body connection is vital to health. Treating patients by merely “following the numbers” of cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, and PSA readings, appears to be significantly less effective and fails the test of scientific scrutiny more often than does a more holistic, integrative approach.
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