New Study Indicates New Understanding of Placebo Efficacy
Can a sugar pill help you feel better, even when you know it’s just a placebo? Groundbreaking new studies indicate just that.
A placebo is defined as an “inert preparation prescribed more for the mental relief of the patient than for its actual effect on a disorder.” It has been used in most modern clinical studies, to measure the effects of a drug against what has been deemed “no treatment.” However, starting in the 1950s, researchers started to see the power of the placebo in healing the body, and today cutting-edge science is showing just how.
Former organic chemist David Hamilton has been researching the placebo effect for years. He wrote about it in his book “How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body.”
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Stimulating This Nerve May Reduce Chronic Stress in the Body
A flurry of new research has been pointing to one nerve that just may be the key to true health and wellbeing.
The vagus nerve, which comes from the Latin word for “wandering”, is the longest and most complex nerve in the human body, traveling from the brain stem all the way down to the colon.
Dr. Donese Worden is a Naturopathic Medical Doctor who has been closely following the research. “The vagus nerve is like an information superhighway, and it goes back and forth from the brain to the organs, and now we know it communicates with the microbiome,” she said.
“It specifically really works on talking to the heart, the lungs, the gut, and the brain. And the feedback goes both ways. So when we’re upset about something, if you feel hungry, you’re short of breath, your heart is beating fast, it’s because of that information traveling back up to the brain from the nervous system saying ‘something is up and we need to take care of it.'”
