Potential Mind Power-The Placebo Effect

Heated battles on the placebo effect have erupted since two Danish medical scientists Hrobjartsson, A. and Gotzsch, P.C. published an article entitled 'Is the placebo powerless?' in the special article of The New England Journal of Medicine (N Engl J Med). They meta-analysed the clinical trials comparing placebo with no treatment. Their results astonished the lay public as well as many medical professionals. They concluded in the article that they found little evidence placebos in general have powerful clinical effects. It was a revolt against a Harvard anesthetist Henry Beecher who had formed a placebo's scientific common sense half a century ago. In his one of major articles he wrote a third patients had improved by administered placebos.

Many medical scientists and specialists criticized the Danish article from the viewpoints of the methodology and data quality they used in the Correspondence of N Engl J Med of October 25, 2001. A new evidence encouraged pro-placebo scientists. The journal 'Science' reported dopamine release by the placebo was detected in Parkinson's Disease patients' brain by the advantage of PET (positron emission tomography).
Now, solving the mystery of the placebo effect has become one of the hottest scientific issues in the medical and psychological world.