The Power of Placebos
How the Science of Placebos and Nocebos Can Improve Health Care
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
The history, philosophy, ethics, and science behind the placebo and nocebo effects.
Placebos are the most widely used treatments in the history of medicine. Thousands of studies show that they can be effective and make us happier and healthier. Yet confusion about what placebos are and how to measure their effects prevents some doctors from using them to help patients. Meanwhile, damage caused by the nocebo effect—the negative effect of expecting something bad—is not widely recognized.
In The Power of Placebos, Jeremy Howick provides an interdisciplinary perspective on placebos and nocebos based on more than twenty years of research and data from over 300, 000 patients. This book, the culmination of that research, offers practical ways for researchers, policymakers, and doctors to put placebo and nocebo research into practice to improve health outcomes.
In addition to providing an overview of placebos and nocebos and explaining how belief systems and context can create physiological effects in the body, Howick advocates for a number of controversial positions, including why it may be unethical to include placebos in most clinical trials in which there are already established therapies and why physicians should consider using placebos regularly in their practices. Howick also underscores the importance of the therapeutic effects of interactions between health care practitioners and patients, in the context of care. The Power of Placebos dispels the confusion surrounding placebos and paves the way for doctors to help patients by enhancing placebo effects and avoiding the pitfalls of nocebos.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1. A Manifesto for the Next Revolution in Nocebo and Placebo Studies
- Part I. The Troubled Story of Placebos and Nocebos
- Part II. How Big are Placebo and Nocebo Effects?
- Part III. Why Every Doctor Needs to be a Shaman and why Placebo Controls Need to be Controlled
- Appendixes: 1. Adolf Grünbaum’s Model and a Reply to Its Critics
- 2. Binary Outcomes May Underestimate Placebo Effects
- 3. Additivity versus Interaction: A Formalization
- 4. Balanced Placebo Design
- 5. The Nocebo Effect as a Smokescreen in the Great Statin Debate
- 6. The Many Faces of Blinding: Clarifying the Terminology
- 7. An Open Letter to the World Medical Association
- 8. More on Noninferiority Trials
- References
- Index