Die Einnahme einer einfachen Zuckerpille kann sowohl die körperliche als auch die geistige Gesundheit älterer Erwachsener verbessern, selbst wenn sie wissen, dass die Pille keinen Wirkstoff enthält. Die Ergebnisse deuten auf eine höchst ethische und nebenwirkungsfreie Möglichkeit hin, alternden Bevölkerungen dabei zu helfen, ihre Alltagsfähigkeiten aufrechtzuerhalten.
Fake medicine yields surprisingly real results for older adults’ memory and stress
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Taking a simple sugar pill can boost both the physical and mental health of older adults, even when they know the pill contains no active medicine. Research published in the International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology shows that these transparently fake treatments can reduce stress and elevate short-term memory just as well as pills given under deception. These results point toward a highly ethical and side-effect-free way to help aging populations maintain their everyday capabilities.
Medical science frequently relies on the placebo effect to understand how new drugs work. A placebo is an inactive substance, such as a sugar pill or a saline injection. In typical clinical trials, researchers give some people the real medicine and others a placebo without telling them which one they received. The mere expectation of getting better often causes a real physical or psychological improvement in the patient.
For many years, doctors assumed that patients had to believe they were taking real medicine for a placebo to work. Deception seemed like a mandatory requirement for the mind to trigger the body’s internal healing responses. Recent studies have challenged that old assumption by testing entirely transparent treatments. Medical researchers refer to these transparent treatments as open-label placebos.
When a doctor hands a patient an open-label placebo, they clearly explain that the pill has no active medical ingredients. The doctor also explains that the human brain can still produce a healing response just by going through the familiar motions of taking daily medicine. Acknowledging this mind-body connection can activate automatic biological responses that improve a patient’s symptoms.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1697260026000104?via%3Dihub
I mean, we have a clear way to elicit this and it’s meditation and mindfulness, but sure let’s take a sugar pill instead.
Just got that always sunny ep in my head where Charlie takes a placebo /placeeby/placebo Domingo pill and thinks he can speak fluent mandarin
We give that already. It’s called memantine.
A simple sugar pill is sugar… “sugar can boost the physical and mental health of older adults” – ya, it’s great pick me up after lunch.
Results of multiple studies across multiple backgrounds, for numerous decades is still true! Wowsers
That horse was a diabetic!!!
I feel like there is something we are missing here. Might the beneficial effects actually come from social contact with the worker administering the “pill”? From my experience old people are often isolated and that causes their mental health to decline. And from previous studies we know mental health is linked to physical health.