安慰剂被证明有真实效果

龙血树

Sugar pills relieve pain for chronic pain patients
Placebo benefits can be predicted by brain anatomy and psychological traits
Date:
September 12, 2018
Source:
Northwestern University
Summary:
Someday doctors may prescribe sugar pills for certain chronic pain patients based on their brain anatomy and psychology. And the pills will reduce their pain as effectively as any powerful drug on the market, according to new research. Scientists have shown they can reliably predict which chronic pain patients will respond to a sugar placebo pill based on the patients' brain anatomy and psychological characteristics.
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Doctors should consider treating chronic pain patients with sugar pills, new research suggests. Placebo pills relieve pain as effectively as drugs for half of chronic pain patients.
Credit: © 18percentgrey / Fotolia
Someday doctors may prescribe sugar pills for certain chronic pain patients based on their brain anatomy and psychology. And the pills will reduce their pain as effectively as any powerful drug on the market, according to new research.

Northwestern Medicine scientists have shown they can reliably predict which chronic pain patients will respond to a sugar placebo pill based on the patients' brain anatomy and psychological characteristics.

"Their brain is already tuned to respond," said senior study author A. Vania Apkarian, professor of physiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "They have the appropriate psychology and biology that puts them in a cognitive state that as soon as you say, 'this may make your pain better,' their pain gets better."

There's no need to fool the patient, Apkarian said.

"You can tell them, 'I'm giving you a drug that has no physiological effect but your brain will respond to it,'" he said. "You don't need to hide it. There is a biology behind the placebo response."

The study was published Sept. 12 in Nature Communications.

The findings have three potential benefits:

Prescribing non-active drugs rather than active drugs. "It's much better to give someone a non-active drug rather than an active drug and get the same result," Apkarian said. "Most pharmacological treatments have long-term adverse effects or addictive properties. Placebo becomes as good an option for treatment as any drug we have on the market."
Eliminating the placebo effect from drug trials. "Drug trials would need to recruit fewer people, and identifying the physiological effects would be much easier," Apkarian said. "You've taken away a big component of noise in the study."
Reduced health care costs. A sugar pill prescription for chronic pain patients would result in vast cost savings for patients and the health care system, Apkarian said.
How the study worked

About 60 chronic back pain patients were randomized into two arms of the study. In one arm, subjects didn't know if they got the drug or the placebo. Researchers didn't study the people who got the real drug. The other study arm included people who came to the clinic but didn't get a placebo or drug. They were the control group.

The individuals whose pain decreased as a result of the sugar pill had a similar brain anatomy and psychological traits. The right side of their emotional brain was larger than the left, and they had a larger cortical sensory area than people who were not responsive to the placebo. The chronic pain placebo responders also were emotionally self-aware, sensitive to painful situations and mindful of their environment.

"Clinicians who are treating chronic pain patients should seriously consider that some will get as good a response to a sugar pill as any other drug," Apkarian said. "They should use it and see the outcome. This opens up a whole new field."

Story Source:

Materials provided by Northwestern University. Original written by Marla Paul. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

Etienne Vachon-Presseau, Sara E. Berger, Taha B. Abdullah, Lejian Huang, Guillermo A. Cecchi, James W. Griffith, Thomas J. Schnitzer, A. Vania Apkarian. Brain and psychological determinants of placebo pill response in chronic pain patients. Nature Communications, 2018; 9 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05859-1

龙血树

大意：

有一部分慢性疼痛病人，安慰剂会产生和强力止痛药一样的作用，这种作用是生理性的，即使医生告诉患者他们吃的是糖豆，但是只要告诉病人他们的大脑会起作用，也照样产生效果。

研究者发现，这一部分病人的大脑结构有共同的特征：右脑更大，皮层感觉区更大。心理也有共同特征：自我察觉能力，以及对于环境的察觉能力强。

研究者建议见到这样的病人，就以糖豆为药就好，因为所有真的药都存在副作用， 而且昂贵。

研究者同时建议取消安慰剂实验， 降低新药测试成本，提高效率。

龙血树

@jellobean 你成了药方了

qyangroo

我平时给家里老人买各种营养品，也是因为相信安慰剂效果，尤其是老人本来就信，信则灵。

jellobean

龙血树 发表于 2018-9-14 21:56
@jellobean 你成了药方了

也又副作用

燕庐敕

jellobean 发表于 2018-9-15 00:10
也又副作用

难道豆豆长胖了？