mdawg wrote:Lady of Mystery wrote:Ted wrote:Then he gave up his stressful job in IT and started his own IT business. The day he quit the IBS went away.
I wonder if this is how and why aromatherapy, reflexology, acupuncture, crystal healing etc. can help. So many heath conditions can be traced back to stress, things like migranes, muscle aches and pains, ulcers and all sorts. Perhaps its just down to the fact that these sorts of complimentary treatments help to relax the patient and relieve stress and it's that stress relief and relaxation that's the real help.
placebo Is a very powerful effect. It's why in professional medical trials it must be accounted for.
I've got to jump in here, the "placebo effect" is a misnomer and not a single entity. The improvements seen in individuals who are given a placebo in clinical trials are the result of a number of different things. The changes may be due to (not comprehensive list) regression to the mean, changes in perception of symptoms, changes in behaviour because of being seen by a practitioner, errors in measuring, direct psychosocial effects of the consultation. None of these are specific to placebo and also occur when someone is having active treatment.
Also for what it's worth the stress causation of ulcers has been pretty much disproven and that is why triple therapy for helicobacter pylori is now used so effectively in the treatment of most ulcers.
There are quite a number of studies looking into the effectiveness of aromatherapy/acupuncture etc which show pretty much no difference from the placebo groups when the amount of therapist time and other variables are the same. This does sugest some validity to Lady of Mystery's hypothesis. The other cofounder is that chronic conditions tend to be variable in their presentation and improvements tend to be attributed to whatever intervention someone is having and relapses to the course of the illness rather than seeing that both are attributable to the course of the illness.