Liverpool FC Forum

[Ben Patrick]

Don't try this at home. Several times a day, for several days, you induce pain in someone. You control the pain with morphine until the final day of the experiment, when you replace the morphine with saline solution. Guess what? The saline takes the pain away.

This is the placebo effect: somehow, sometimes, a whole lot of nothing can be very powerful. Except it's not quite nothing. When Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin in Italy carried out the above experiment, he added a final twist by adding naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of morphine, to the saline. The shocking result? The pain-relieving power of saline solution disappeared.

So what is going on? Doctors have known about the placebo effect for decades, and the naloxone result seems to show that the placebo effect is somehow biochemical. But apart from that, we simply don't know.

Benedetti has since shown that a saline placebo can also reduce tremors and muscle stiffness in people with Parkinson's disease. He and his team measured the activity of neurons in the patients' brains as they administered the saline. They found that individual neurons in the subthalamic nucleus (a common target for surgical attempts to relieve Parkinson's symptoms) began to fire less often when the saline was given, and with fewer "bursts" of firing - another feature associated with Parkinson's. The neuron activity decreased at the same time as the symptoms improved: the saline was definitely doing something.

We have a lot to learn about what is happening here, Benedetti says, but one thing is clear: the mind can affect the body's biochemistry. "The relationship between expectation and therapeutic outcome is a wonderful model to understand mind-body interaction," he says. Researchers now need to identify when and where placebo works. There may be diseases in which it has no effect. There may be a common mechanism in different illnesses. As yet, we just don't know.

[Red-er-Dare]

A biochemical reaction which is an induced placebo which too replaces the pain effect of a sporting nature could be known as Rafa Benitez.

[andy_g]

i liked their first album best

[dawson99]

is it the same as my mate told me when you got a headache you.. knock one out.. as the blood will leave one head, go to the other.. apparently works for toothache as well

[metalhead]

i liked their first album best

watched them in a concert once..

[RED BEERGOGGLES]

Oh you mean what prisoners like to call the "Fuck off tablet

[maypaxvobiscum]

be running up the road, be running up that hill, no problems.

[maypaxvobiscum]

anyone wants to be my labrat?

[burjennio]

will it work on my f*cking foot? kee-rist its like a never ending cramp thats been hyped on steriods

[rocky29]

is it the same as my mate told me when you got a headache you.. knock one out.. as the blood will leave one head, go to the other.. apparently works for toothache as well

ye i heard when benny got a migraine you helped him out good on you!

[Ben Patrick]

not happy with the responses in this thread, it was meant to be serious 

The placebo effect is spectacular.

[laza]

I thought it was very interesting Ben

Never underestimate the power of mind whether it be the will to live, voodoo or living in a total state of denial

[maypaxvobiscum]

not happy with the responses in this thread, it was meant to be serious 

The placebo effect is spectacular.

serious question - can it be used on any type of pain? like if somebody has pain at the calf which prevents them from walking fast or running?

[SouthCoastShankly]

not happy with the responses in this thread, it was meant to be serious 

The placebo effect is spectacular.

It's nothing new Ben.

Homeopathic remedies have relied on the placebo effect for years. How else would water sell as medicine and produce people who swear by it?

[Judge]

not happy with the responses in this thread, it was meant to be serious 

The placebo effect is spectacular.

perhaps when loads of has been written ben (aka ace ventura), and then somone writes something godd - no one will notice

voila - the placebo effect