The Placebo Effect - How to Treat Diseases Without Drugs

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Renowned physician and scientist Lissa Rankin gave a TED talk about what she has learned over the years of researching the placebo effect. She seriously believes that our thoughts affect our physiology. And that with the help of the power of thought alone, we are able to cure any disease.

Rankin found concrete evidence that our bodies have their own innate self-care and repair system.

She conducted a study involving 3,500 people who were diagnosed with an incurable disease: cancer, HIV, cardiovascular disease, etc. They all had nothing to lose. All of them mentally have already said goodbye to life.

Lissa started giving them placebo pills. Only the volunteers did not know this: they thought they were being given a new, ultra-effective medicine for their disease. And many of them managed to recover!

In this lecture, she talks about Mr. Wright, who used a placebo pill to cut the size of his cancer in half!

It decreased only because he himself believed that it should decrease!

Can people heal themselves with the help of consciousness? Here's a video that proves they can:

Here are the main thoughts from her 18-minute lecture

Can consciousness heal the body? And if so, is there any evidence that could convince skeptical doctors like me?

I have been researching placebos throughout the last years of my scientific career. And now I am sure that, before me, research has proven over the past 50 years: consciousness can really heal the body.

The placebo effect is a thorn in the body of a medical practice. This is an unpleasant truth that can deprive doctors of the opportunity to produce more and more new drugs, try more and more new methods of treatment.

But I think the effectiveness of the placebo is good news. For the sick, not for doctors, of course.

Because this is an iron proof that a unique mechanism of self-healing is hidden inside each body, so far unknown to us.

If you find it hard to believe, you can study one of 3500 stories about how people themselves, without medical assistance, got rid of "incurable" diseases. This is about medical facts, not beautiful journalistic stories.

Stage 4 cancer disappeared without treatment? HIV positive patients become HIV negative? Heart failure, kidney failure, diabetes, hypertension, thyroid disease, autoimmune disease - they all disappeared!

An excellent example from the medical literature is the case of Mr. Wright, studied in 1957

He had an advanced form of lymphosarcoma. The patient was not doing very well, and he had little time. He had orange-sized tumors in his armpits, neck, chest and abdomen. The liver and spleen were enlarged, and the lungs collected 2 liters of turbid fluid every day. They needed to be drained so he could breathe.

But Mr. Wright did not lose hope. He learned about the wonderful medicine Krebiosen and begged his doctor: "Please give me Krebiosen and everything will work out." But this drug could not have been prescribed under research protocol by a doctor who knows the patient has less than three months to live.

His attending physician, Dr. West, could not do this. But Mr. Wright was persistent and did not give up. He continued to beg for medicine until the doctor agreed to prescribe Krebiosen.

He assigned the dose for the next Friday of the next week. Hoping Mr. Wright won't make it to Monday. But by the appointed hour he was on his feet and even walked around the ward. I had to give him medicine.

And after 10 days, Wright's tumors were halved from their previous size! They melted like snowballs in a hot oven! Another couple of weeks have passed since the start of taking Krebiosen, they have completely disappeared.

Wright danced like a madman for joy and believed Krebiosen was the miraculous medicine that cured him.

He believed this for two whole months. Until the full medical report on Krebiozen came out, which stated that the therapeutic effect of this drug had not been proven.

Mr. Wright became depressed and the cancer returned. Dr. West decided to cheat and explained to his patient: "That Krebiosen was not cleaned well enough. It was of poor quality. But now we have an ultra-pure, concentrated Krebiosen. And this is what we need!"

Wright was then injected with pure distilled water. And his tumors disappeared again, and the fluid from his lungs was gone!

The patient began to have fun again. Two months until the Medical Association of America messed things up with a nationwide report that definitely proved Krebiosen was useless.

Two days after he heard the news, Wright died. He died, despite the fact that a week before his death he himself flew his own light-engine plane!

Here is another case known to medicine that looks like a fairy tale

Three girls were born. The midwife delivered the baby on Friday the 13th. And she began to assert that all children born on this day are subject to corruption.

“The first, - she said, - will die before her 16th birthday. The second - before the age of 21. The third - before the age of 23”.

And, as it turned out later, the first girl died the day before her 16th birthday, the second - before the age of 21. And the third, knowing what happened to the two previous ones, the day before her 23rd birthday, she went to the hospital with hyperventilation syndrome and asked the doctors: "I will survive, won't I?" She was found dead that night.

These two cases from the medical literature are excellent examples of the placebo effect and its opposite, the nocebo.

When Mr. Wright was cured with distilled water, it's a good example of the placebo effect. You are offered inert therapy - and it somehow works, although no one can explain it.

The nocebo effect is the opposite. These three girls who were "jinxed" are a prime example of this. When the mind believes that something bad can happen, it becomes reality.

Medical publications, journals, The New English Medical Journal, the Journal of the Medical Association of America are all full of evidence of the placebo effect

When people are told that they are being given an effective medicine, but are instead given injections of saline or sugar pills, it is often even more effective than actual surgery.

In 18-80% of cases, people recover!

And it's not just that they think they are feeling better. They actually feel better. It's measurable. With the help of modern devices, we can observe what happens in the bodies of patients who have taken placebo. Their ulcers heal, the symptoms of intestinal inflammation diminish, bronchols expand, and the cells begin to look different under a microscope.

It's easy to confirm that this is happening!

I love Rogaine's research. There is a bunch of bald guys, you give them a placebo and their hair starts growing!

Or the opposite effect. You give them a placebo, you call it chemotherapy, and people start to vomit! Their hair is falling out! This is really happening!

But is it really just the power of positive thinking that produces these results? No, says Harvard scientist Ted Kaptchuk.

He argues that nursing and caring for patients by health workers is even more important than positive thinking. In other words, any sick person can recover only if not only he himself, but also his family and his doctor believes in victory over the disease (let him lie rather than tell the bitter truth). Research proves this, too.

How it works? What happens in the brain that changes the body?

The brain communicates with the cells of the body through hormones and neurotransmitters. The brain defines negative thoughts and beliefs as a threat.

You are lonely, pessimistic, something is wrong at work, problematic relationships … And now, your amygdala is already screaming: "Threat! Threat!" The hypothalamus turns on, then the pituitary gland, which, in turn, communicates with the adrenal glands, which begin to release stress hormones - cortisol, noradernaline, adrenaline. Harvard scientist Walter Kenneth calls this a "stress response."

This includes your sympathetic nervous system, which puts your body in a fight-or-flight state. It protects you when you run away from a lion or a tiger.

But in everyday life, in the event of a threat, the same rapid stress response arises, which should be turned off when the danger has passed.

Fortunately, there is a counterweight. It was described by Herbert Benson of Harvard University. When the danger is gone, the brain fills the body with healing hormones - oxytocin, dopamine, nitric oxide, endorphins. They fill the body and cleanse every cell. And the amazing thing is that this natural self-healing mechanism is activated only when the nervous system is relaxed.

In a stressful situation, the body has no time for this: it needs to fight or flee, and not heal.

When you think about it, you ask yourself: how can I change this balance? One report states that we are faced with about 50 stressful situations every day.

If you are single, depressed, unhappy with your job, or have a bad relationship with your partner, that number at least doubles.

So, when you take a pill, not knowing that it is a placebo, your body starts a relaxation process. You are convinced that the new medicine will help you, a positive attitude is right there, and you are properly looked after by a medical professional … It relaxes the nervous system. It is then that the wonderful mechanism of self-healing turns on.

Research shows that there are several effective ways to relax and get it up and running:

- Energy practices, work with the subconscious;

- Creative expression of yourself;

- Massage;

- Water procedures, sauna;

- Physical exercise;

- Walk with friends;

- Doing what you love;

- Sex;

- Playing with an animal;

- Music.

In general, all you need to do to heal yourself is to just relax. It's really good to relax. Do you have the courage to accept this truth that your body already knows? Nature can be better than medicine! And, as you already know, there is evidence for this!