November 14, 2005
The Mysterious Placebo Effect
Doctors are finding that many people manage to get cured when they are given fake medication, called placebos, which usually consist of nothing more than sugar pills or distilled water, and then told by their doctors that they were taking real medication.
There is no explanation for why the placebo effect works, except that somehow, the patient’s belief that they are getting cured triggers some sort of self-healing ability within the patient. The placebo effect is probably the best-documented way in which the mind is known to affect the body.