this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
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Science Memes

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[–] xxce2AAb@feddit.dk 103 points 5 days ago (1 children)

"Then I might be in need of actual medication to address my headaches, sweating and nausea."

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 40 points 5 days ago (2 children)

It's actually not uncommon. People expect and manifest symptoms all the time.

What side effects a drug would be likely to cause, the pharmacologist likely knows long before ever giving it to a human. When the human reports side effects that the drug is unlikely to cause...that human was probably a placebo.

[–] Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 23 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (4 children)

So i can get a headache only by placebo?? Wait, can it happen in reverse? Like, i have an headache and i convince mysef that i took a cure for it

[–] affenlehrer@feddit.org 45 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, that's the placebo effect as far as I know. Side effects are the nocebo effect.

[–] RustySharp@programming.dev 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

If I remember my biology classes correctly, placeo - "to please", vs. noceo - "to harm"

[–] GandalftheBlack@feddit.org 4 points 5 days ago

Yeah, placebo and nocebo are future tense "I will please" "I will harm"

[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 18 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Placebo can work even if you're aware it's a placebo.

[–] Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 3 points 5 days ago (2 children)

That's peak, i'il def use it

[–] shneancy@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

important note:

placebo is caused by a strong belief, even if logically you know it's not real it can still work

but

you first need the strong belief. how do you get such a strong belief? with a ritual of course. not necessarily one with bubbling cauldrons during the full moon (though if you believe in that kind of magic that'd work as well) but one that has you going to a place you associate with health, and talking to a person in a special outfit that you believe will fix you, then going to a secondary health place, and getting the health ~~potion~~ pills from someone in a special outfit. also called - going to a doctor and picking up meds from a pharmacy.

this entire process sets up the right environment for strongly believing you're going to feel better now, and then the sugar pills supercharged with placebo will work like magic.

they will also work if at some point either the doctor or the pharmacist whispers to you "btw that's just placebo". that's because the belief you've already established is much stronger than your logic

but if you just go out and buy tictacs at a gas station then chant to yourself "this will cure my headache this will cure my headache" it won't work, because you didn't have an opportunity to establish any emotional belief about them ie. you didn't manage to convince the emotional part of your brain that it'll work

this is also why homeopathy, essential oils, charging crystals, and other purely belief bases approaches work despite the thing itself not doing anything. the rituals surrounding those things simply manage to build a strong enough belief that causes the placebo effect

the same is true for the opposite - nocebo - if you strongly believe something is going to make you feel bad - it's going to

[–] Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 1 points 5 days ago

Mh i see, interessing

[–] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 3 days ago

Most people believe red painkillers work better than other colours. Because of that when painkillers are tested, red ones work better (and red placebos also). You might find the placebo effect of red painkillers effective

[–] Hope@lemmy.world 19 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Yes, and there's actually some interesting results from this too. Pain medicine marketed as targeting specific pains, such as headaches or toothaches, are often just generic ibuprofen or acetaminophen, but there is some evidence that the pain medicine will be more effective if you believe it is targeting your specific pain. So whenever my wife wants an Advil I always tell her that it's a special Advil that is for whatever specific thing she complained about.

[–] Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 3 points 5 days ago

That's gonna be useful

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Well...Excedrin stacks Aspirin and Caffeine too. I'd always thought the caffeine was because caffeine withdrawal can cause headaches.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

I think caffeine also supresses certain kinds of headaches on its own, without the addiction. I had headaches before starting my caffeine habit and I also had them like half a year into quitting caffeine completely, and IME the caffeine definitely helps with them even when I wasn't years into a habit of drinking several cups of coffee every day.

[–] Honytawk@feddit.nl 1 points 5 days ago

The reverse is only possible if you are a time traveler or critically insane.

[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That's why when I saw the long list of side effects of the medication for quit smoking I never read it, I gave it to a friend and ask her if whatever was one of the possible side effects.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 50 points 5 days ago (1 children)

And that's why we do them double blind, so the scientist can't mock the participants. That is the only reason.

[–] schema@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago

It's only real double blind if you never check who got what.

[–] logicbomb@lemmy.world 72 points 5 days ago (1 children)

"I don't know why you guys are happy. The gold standard is double-blind, and you couldn't even do that."

[–] anzo@programming.dev 9 points 5 days ago

That would be great answer. Make them retract their paper!! Science & revenge, my two favorite things to have in this cruel world :')

[–] FundMECFS@quokk.au 30 points 5 days ago

This is kind of unfair because in properly done trials patients are told to report all symptoms they experienced in the period whether or not they think it was caused by the drug. Then you compare possible side effect incidence between the placebo and treatment group. And any statistically significant difference is very likely the side effect of the drug. (Humans are pretty bad with causality, so it works a lot more accurately this way, especially in well powered studies).

[–] Tehdastehdas@piefed.social 33 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Maybe he's allergic to what the placebo was made of.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 25 points 5 days ago

Turns out it was a giant sugar pill, and he is diabetic.

[–] JamesBoeing737MAX@sopuli.xyz 9 points 5 days ago

Maybe he is sick and dying from poisoning while they do experiments on him. As usual.

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 3 points 5 days ago