Does the Placebo Effect Apply to Allergies and Other Disorders?

A young doctor once had a patient who lay helpless in bed, day after day, with strange symptoms. Every possible investigation was performed in search of an underlying cause but none was found. One morning, the doctor approached his patient and told her that he had finally figured out a cure. He injected her with sterile water. Later that day, the patient told the ward round that she hadn't felt so well in weeks, and that the injection, whatever was in it, had a great effect. This was a placebo response. The patient improved because the doctor told her she would, and she believed him. The doctor now thought that he had discovered the true nature of her symptoms, namely that they were 'all in her head'. Apart from the highly questionable ethics of such a deception, he couldn't have been further from the truth. He didn't understand the manifold facets of the placebo effect. He knew, of course, that any improvement felt by the patient would have to be a placebo effect, for there is nothing pharmacologically active about sterile water. But he was wrong to conclude that the symptoms were imaginary. He failed to appreciate the full extent of the power which mind can have over body, and those very real physical symptoms (as well as imaginary ones) can also be improved by placebo.

He didn't know, for example, that 30 per cent of postoperative patients will experience pain relief when given a placebo, and no one would suggest for a moment that these patients were not in pain! Their pain was as real as it gets. Their response to an inactive placebo (colored sugar tablets) simply demonstrates the power of suggestion. If I take something which I believe will kill my pain, it has a good chance of killing my pain ?not because it is a painkiller, but because I believe it is a painkiller, and my belief has a direct and measurable biological effect in my brain. Once again, the thought processes become encoded into the biochemical processes of the brain. In this placebo mental state, I produce my own opium-like substances. They're called endorphins (endo, from within, and orphins, referring to morphine-like). If I am given a drug which blocks my endorphin receptors, the placebo effect will fail. So, the placebo effect is just another manifestation of the indivisibility of mind and body. Another famous example of the placebo effect is the amazingly low level of painkillers required by soldiers injured in battle. They are happy to be alive and homeward bound. Their overwhelming sense of relief lifts them far above their pain.

Placebos are used in research to tease out the psychological benefits of treatment from the active ingredients of a drug being tested. Patients with a particular condition are randomly divided into two groups. One receives the active drug; the other receives a placebo, usually a sugar tablet. A double-blind trial is one in which neither doctor nor patient knows active from placebo; a single-blind trial is one in which only the doctor knows what the patient has received. These trials are greatly promoted as the only method of validating whether a particular treatment is of any real use. If it is more effective than the placebo, it is effective; if it is no better than the placebo, it is not. Placebos are also used to compile an accurate profile of drug side effects. Patients taking placebo during drug trials do complain of side effects! It can be assumed, then, that patients taking the active drug will also experience side effects, not only because of the drug itself, but because of their anxiety about the drug.

The question must now be asked about the placebo effect in the allergic and related disorders. We know that it can and does occur. In fact, it can occur in any branch of medicine and with virtually any condition. The skeptic will ask about your improvement on the Low Allergy Diet. Does it really mean that you have food intolerance? Similarly, your improvement on chemical avoidance or on gut fermentation regimes does not necessarily prove that these were the cause of your symptoms. The only real 'proof, if you need one, is that placebo effects are not lasting. They fizzle out! It may take days, weeks or even a few months, but fizzle out they will. That's why the cases in this or any other literature will be published only when they have been tested by the passage of time. The very fact that this book is so full of such cases is a testimony to the reality of the disorders described herein, and the efficacy of appropriate treatment. As doctors, we would like to subject our theories to the double-blind trials mentioned above; but you will appreciate that the conditions are too complex, and the responses to treatment too individual, for such reductionism. We are content therefore to continue working with clinical observation and experience.

Source: My House Is Killing Me! The Home Guide for Families with Allergies and Asthma by Jeffrey C