Results for: non-specific effects
A Nuanced View on Breast vs Formula
While there is strong evidence that breast is best, a new study suggests that the benefits have been overstated, and may be mostly due to non-specific factors such as better education and overall health care.
Facilitated Communication Rears Its Ugly Head Again
Facilitated communication is pure pseudoscience that was debunked almost 30 years ago, but it keeps coming back, creating new victims.
Can mind-body practices “reprogram” our DNA?
A recent systematic review has been touted as demonstrating that "mind-body" practices like yoga can reprogram our DNA. There are several reasons to doubt these claims, not the least of which is the history of bias in past studies on this topic.
Can the mind really heal the body? The false narrative of placebo “healing” revisited
Placebo effects are inextricably bound to the question of whether the alternative medicine modalities that are being “integrated” into medicine actually have any useful therapeutic effects or not; i.e., whether they are merely placebos. Here, I examine an article in National Geographic that peddles the false narrative that placebo effects have real "healing" powers against diseases like Parkinson's disease.
Are Placebos Getting Stronger?
A new study looked at clinical trials for neuropathic pain over the last 23 years and found that the response of subjects in the placebo group has been increasing over time, but only in the United States. The cause of this increase is unknown, and has provoked a fascinating discussion about the nature of placebos and their role in medical research. What...
Whole Body Vibration Therapy
When skeptics hear the term “vibration” a red flag goes up, because that is a common term used in pseudoscientific jargon. Vibrations are often used to refer vaguely to energy or some physical or even spiritual property that cannot be detected, and is used in a hand-waving manner to explain extraordinary claims. Vibrations, however, are also a real thing, referring to physical...
Should placebos be used in randomized controlled trials of surgical interventions?
Trials of new experimental drugs frequently compare them to placebo, particularly when there is a large subjective component to the disease being treated, such as pain. In contrast, placebo-controlled trials are rarely undertaken in surgery, mainly because it's been considered ethically dicey to do sham surgery on one group. Should this change? Should we be more open to doing randomized, placebo-controlled surgery...
Placebo, Are You There?
By Jean Brissonnet, translation by Harriet Hall Note: This was originally published as “Placebo, es-tu là?” in Science et pseudo-sciences 294, p. 38-48. January 2011. It came to my attention in the course of an e-mail correspondence with the editors of that magazine, where one of my own articles was published in French translation in January 2015. I thought this was the...
Is Mindfulness Meditation Science-Based?
Existing research has not yet clearly defined what mindfulness is and what effect it has. The hype clearly has gone beyond the science, and more rigorous research is needed to determine what specific effects there are, if any.