Placebo Effect

The placebo effect is a beneficial effect, produced by a placebo drug or treatment, that cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient's belief in that treatment. The patient believes the placebo is a normal pharmacological substance that will cure their pain and because they believe it will in some cases it does even if it is a tablet without effect. This idea was presented by H.K. Beecher who evaluated 15 clinical trials with different problems and found that 35% of the people he tested were cured by a placebo alone and 66.7% of the patient’s conditions were improved. Since then, many studies have been done with higher results. These placebos have been effective for people with any pain, depression, heart ailments, gastric ulcers and other stomach issues. Many other studies were done concerning the efficiency of the placebo effect and some discuss it does not really work. Before real pharmaceutics medicine was used, there were only placebos. The limitations of the placeboes are that sometimes doctors don’t know if maybe the placebo is not going to be effective and may worsen the patient’s health. I think that for minor health problems such as a cold or depression the placebo effect might be efficient but for major diseases it should not prescribed. The placebo effect can also have many beneficial results so it should not be discarded because it can still be very cheap and easier for many people but it should also me accompanied by other medicines so that it is not risky.