Room Attendants Study: In a study testing whether the relationship between exercise and health is moderated by one’s mindset, 84 female room attendants working in seven different hotels were measured on physiological health variables affected by exercise. Those in the informed condition were told that the work they do (cleaning hotel rooms) is good exercise and satisfies the Surgeon General’s recommendations for an active lifestyle. Examples of how their work was exercise were provided. Subjects in the control group were not given this information. Although actual behavior did not change, 4 weeks after the intervention, the informed group perceived themselves to be getting significantly more exercise than before. As a result, compared with the control group, they showed a decrease in weight, blood pressure, body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and body mass index. These results support the hypothesis that exercise affects health in part or in whole via the placebo effect.
Nocebo vs Placebo:
Negative placebo effect called the nocebo effect. It’s what happens when you’re given a sugar pill, are told it’s a drug that has terrible side effects, then start to exhibit those symptoms. The nocebo effect can also occur when a doctor tells you a surgery or procedure could have negative results.
For example, in one study, 50 people who suffered from chronic back pain were given a flexibility test. Half were told beforehand that the test might cause some pain, while the others were not. Afterward, the first group reported a significantly higher amount of pain, despite enduring the exact same procedure.
In another experiment, the drug finasteride was administered to help relieve symptoms of prostate disease, and half the participants were told that it could cause erectile dysfunction, while the other half was kept in the dark. Forty-four percent of the first group reported that they’d experienced ED, compared with just 15 percent of the uninformed group.
The nocebo effect might even be powerful enough to kill. In one case study, researchers noted an individual who attempted to commit suicide by swallowing 26 pills. Although they were merely placebo tablets without a biological mechanism to harm the patient even at such a high dose, he experienced dangerously low blood pressure and required injections of fluids to be stabilized, based solely on the belief that the overdose of tablets would be deadly. After it was revealed that they were sugar pills, the symptoms went away quickly.
Egality migraine ad, look at statistics; it works on 60% vs 39% of those on placebo!:
So, if you give out suger pills and claim its a brand new migraine relief medicine, 39% will say yay it worked!!take my $$$
