Re:Telling the Bees
by philwelch on Tuesday September 28, 2021 @03:33PM
(#28686509)
There are multiple factors that contribute to the placebo effect. The psychosomatic response is one of them. "Optimistic interpretation/collection of data by people wanting to see the medicine work" is another factor, but one that's typically removed by double-blinding. With some conditions, just plain reversion-to-the-mean is also part of the placebo effect--if you take a pill to cure your headache and your headache goes away, who's to say the headache wouldn't have gone away of its own accord anyway?
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Hmmm nit picking but I think regression to the mean is different from placebo.
Regression to the mean: most headaches go away within a few hours.
Placebo: your favourite brand of paracetamol seems to cure headaches quicker than the unbranded version.
They can interact, of course.
Re:Telling the Bees
by tsimionescu on Wednesday September 29, 2021 @02:50AM
(#28690936)
Placebo refers to any effect where a patient's outcomes seem to improve for reasons not related to the specific intervention attempted. Regression to the mean, incorrect data collection, psycho-somatic effects etc are all elements of placebo, in various degrees in various instances.
Well, fair enough. To split hairs ever finer, though...
Placebo is present in all circumstances, as is nocebo.
Regression to the mean is a statistical phenomenon. It can help aid understanding of the size and role of placebo effects, but it isn't a part of the placebo effect. Ditto data collection and analysis.
But yeah, I'm probably splitting hairs :)