Drop Dead Healthy by A. Jacobs (books to read to increase intelligence .TXT) 📕

my meridians. I’m too entrenched in Western thought to agree with number one.

2. The body does have pressure points that respond to needles, but science hasn’t found the mechanism that makes them reduce pain.

3. Sticking needles into almost any part of the body (not including the eyes) relieves pain. Perhaps by causing a surge in opioids.

4. It’s all a placebo effect.

My guess? And it’s only a guess: a combination of three and four. And by number four, I don’t mean to be dismissive.

Placebo Nation

The more I learn about placebos, the more I’m in awe. Humans are masters of self-delusion. It’s one of our greatest gifts, right up there with speech, math and the ability to make soft-serve ice cream.

Placebo—which comes from “I shall please” in Latin—is any fake treatment that gives patients real or imagined results. The placebo has probably been history’s single most effective medical tool so far. It’s cured more pain than aspirin, opium, and ice packs combined.

Placebos work on dozens of diseases and conditions. Pain, of course. But also coughs, depression, ulcers, and many others. They’re effective about 30 percent of the time.

Though in the case of my children, the rate is much higher. It’s amazing how a strip of sticky plastic will make my kids’ pain vanish. Lucas will be howling about a stepped-on finger, but as soon as the SpongeBob Band-Aid touches his pinkie, he’s all smiles. My sons are so convinced of the magical healing powers of Band-Aids, they think they can solve almost any problem. A couple of years ago, when our Sony TV blew a fuse, Jasper stuck a Band-Aid on the screen hoping to revive it.

If you looked inside my sons’ skulls, you’d see that the placebo makes deep changes to their brains, the same changes that would occur if they ingested real painkillers. Here’s how Thernstrom describes it in The Pain Chronicles: “In a 2005 study led by Dr. Jon-Kar Zubieta at the University of Michigan Medical School, the brains of men were imaged after a stinging saltwater solution was injected into their jaws. The men were then each given a placebo and told that it would relieve their pain. The men immediately felt better, and the screen showed how: in the image, the parts of the brain that release their own opioid-like substances (endorphins, enkephalins, and dynorphins) lit up. In a sense, fake painkillers caused the brain to dispense real ones.”

You could view placebos as depressing, I suppose. So much of medicine is a sham. Your brain is a three-card monte dealer running cons on the rest of your body. But I don’t see it that way. I find placebos uplifting and exhilarating. It means that taking action—no matter what that action is—might help you feel better. The key is just to get your aching butt off the couch.

I’m such a big placebo fan that I asked my general practitioner—a no-nonsense woman—to prescribe me some.

“Half the time I want real medicine, and half the time I want sugar pills,” I told her. “Just don’t tell me which is which.”

“I can’t do that,” she said.

“Why not?”

“For ethical reasons,” she said.

A shame. I blame the woman who successfully sued her doctor in 1890 for injecting her with water instead of morphine, even though the placebo worked.

It should be noted that not all placebos are created equal. Studies show the mere shape and size of the dummy pill can make a difference in how people react. Capsules are more effective than tablets. Blue pills are better at mimicking soothing tranquilizers, apparently because blue is associated with nighttime. Pink pills are better fake stimulants. (Except among Italian men, where it’s the opposite. The researchers’ theory? Blue is the color of the Italian soccer team, and the color gets pill takers excited.) Syringes dull pain more than pills.

In short, the more elaborate the fake treatment, the better it works. Which is, I think, the secret to a lot of alternative medicine. Consider cupping. This is the practice of using a candle to heat the air inside an empty cup, then placing the cup facedown on the body. The lack of oxygen creates pressure that sucks the skin into the cups, causing flesh mounds to pop up all over your body. This supposedly draws out the toxins. With all that rigmarole, cupping has to do something, right?

The same logic could apply to acupuncture, explaining at least part of its efficacy. Turning yourself into a human pincushion is an extreme measure; the brain expects it to work.

Which brings up a question: Does the brain have to believe in the placebo for it to work? Do you need faith? Most studies have said yes. I still remember the sad day when I read that my favorite cold remedy, Airborne—those orange pills that dissolve in water—has little scientific data behind it. I believed in Airborne, and because of that, I’m convinced it stopped many runny noses. My faith evaporated after reading that wet blanket of an article. Airborne became useless.

On the other hand, one 2010 Harvard Medical School study purports to show that placebos work . . . even when patients know they’re fake. Patients with irritable bowel syndrome improved when given pills they were told were dummies. Taking pills twice a day creates a “self-healing ritual,” said the study’s author.

I’ve experienced this so-called honest placebo effect as well. Though not with irritable bowel syndrome, thankfully. A few months ago, my glasses frames snapped during a wrestling match with my four-year-old. The lenses popped out. Lazy and stubborn, I wore the empty frames for a few days before getting them fixed. And here’s the thing: I swear my vision was sharper when wearing my empty frames than without them.

If the “honest placebo” effect turns out to be true, I’m going to start a pharmaceutical company and market my new blockbuster drug, Plazibo.

The Cursing Cure

Today, I ran across the park again to visit my grandfather. He was napping in his trusty recliner when I got there,