BioChem: Week 2

Placebo / Nocebo

“Placebo and nocebo effects have been overlooked for too long and treated as nuisance factors to be controlled for. It is time to find ways to harness placebo effects and minimise nocebo effects in routine medical care, and that is what we are working on here.” - Daily Mail 

I am resonating with this quote from the article, specifically the first sentence. First of all, I hadn’t heard of the “nocebo” effect and until 2014, when the article was written, it’s likely not many people had. At the very least, it doesn’t appear that many people were considering the “back side” of the placebo effect. In other words, we have looked at the positive effects of a placebo, which we’ll call the “front,” but hadn’t thought to look at the other side. I think the placebo / nocebo question is really about investigating the power of the mind (and Mind) on effecting physiology.

Honestly, I feel quite excited that a path could be opening to normalize the power of human dynamics (the demeanor of the doctor administering the placebo, for example) and the power of our belief systems. Perhaps, we will eventually normalize tending to mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being equal to our physical form.

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“Clearly something has gone wrong, very wrong, with Venus. It’s the victim of a runaway greenhouse effect.”

I got to discuss this article in the breakout room in class Wednesday and this quote stuck out to us, as well. My thoughts are that perhaps this exclamation as it pertains to Venus is a foreshadowing of what folks will one day say when looking at Earth from some other corner of the Universe.