How Can Science Explain the Placebo Effect?

By Michael Youn

Must we consume natural medicine over prescription remedies? There is a huge range of thought out in the world, a large portion of it somewhat dubious. But there's one thing we can be positive about: natural products are not substitutes for prescription remedies. You are not going to get your cancer treatment from a natural product, so don't expect the world.

Observe every natural remedy, and you will see that they are described as not medicine and not to be taken as such. But that's not fundamentally what were chatting about here.

The All-Important Placebo Effect.

In basically every medical experiment ever, participants are handed a placebo, or a pill that does nothing. They are not told that the pill they are using is useless. Every time, researchers observe that the placebo has a measurable effect.

This strange result has been checked dozens of times: it is one of the most important instances of the brains power over the human body; the talent of the mind to fundamentally effect physical change.

How You Can Use the Placebo Effect

If a proper M.D. told you to eat a pomegranate every day, because it would have a specific effect on some sort of medical problem you had, you would probably do it. And quite possibly, your mind could convince your body (how this happens is still basically a scientific mystery) to work on that problem.

In general, many natural cures function on a similar premise. They have not been fully examined in laboratory situations, so knowledge about the fundamental characteristics in each natural product comes from experience. Claims are not put forward that any natural product will fix a disease or malady, but in a general sense, many properties of these natural products have been known to work on such an area before.

And if they don't always work, it doesn't really matter--you are taking a pill, in much the same method as a placebo, that is affecting your problem. But the fact that there is a great big history of non-scientific, general knowledge about this medicine (like, for example, that grapefruits are generally excellent for your body), has a very big effect on how your brain treats that process of consuming the medicine. When you take the product and think about what it claims to do, you are starting a process inside your body that science itself still does not comprehend.

Why You Can't Just Swallow a Sugar Pill

Taking a placebo alone isnt going to do anything. If it did, we'd all be using that method for many issues, especially when we dont want to take an actual drug. We need a pill that is occupying the place between an actual prescription (and its potential side effects) and a placebo that does squat.

Natural products fill this demand. They are not pharmaceuticals, they are simply natural extracts, from plants and fruits and so on. They have some medical qualities, but the fact that they will 100% alleviate your mild illness has not been scientifically proven in a lab. No bother there, though.

What is important is that you are commencing the sugar-pill effect, which is way, way more powerful than you might expect. If you are weary about taking a pharmaceutical for a milder symptom of something (gas, for example), why not sample a natural remedy? - 29929

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