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The Power of Placebos

How the Science of Placebos and Nocebos Can Improve Health Care

Jeremy Howick

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The history, philosophy, ethics, and science behind the placebo and nocebo effects.

Placebos are the most widely used treatments in the history of medicine. Thousands of studies show that they can be effective and make us happier and healthier. Yet confusion about what placebos are and how to measure their effects prevents some doctors from using them to help patients. Meanwhile, damage caused by the nocebo effect—the negative effect of expecting something bad—is not widely recognized.

In The Power of Placebos, Jeremy Howick provides an interdisciplinary perspective on placebos and nocebos based...

The history, philosophy, ethics, and science behind the placebo and nocebo effects.

Placebos are the most widely used treatments in the history of medicine. Thousands of studies show that they can be effective and make us happier and healthier. Yet confusion about what placebos are and how to measure their effects prevents some doctors from using them to help patients. Meanwhile, damage caused by the nocebo effect—the negative effect of expecting something bad—is not widely recognized.

In The Power of Placebos, Jeremy Howick provides an interdisciplinary perspective on placebos and nocebos based on more than twenty years of research and data from over 300,000 patients. This book, the culmination of that research, offers practical ways for researchers, policymakers, and doctors to put placebo and nocebo research into practice to improve health outcomes.

In addition to providing an overview of placebos and nocebos and explaining how belief systems and context can create physiological effects in the body, Howick advocates for a number of controversial positions, including why it may be unethical to include placebos in most clinical trials in which there are already established therapies and why physicians should consider using placebos regularly in their practices. Howick also underscores the importance of the therapeutic effects of interactions between health care practitioners and patients, in the context of care. The Power of Placebos dispels the confusion surrounding placebos and paves the way for doctors to help patients by enhancing placebo effects and avoiding the pitfalls of nocebos.

Reviews

Reviews

Jeremy Howick is a rare thing in healthcare—a genuinely interdisciplinary thinker. In this book exploring the placebo and nocebo effects, he demonstrates why that breadth of knowledge is crucially important to advance discussion. 

Dr. Howick presents compelling evidence for harnessing the mind's healing potential as a clear, actionable, and proactive agent of change. This concise and insightful book challenges conventional views of medicine and offers a compelling argument for embracing the power of the mind in healing.

Dr. Howick tackles the crucial issues surrounding the use of placebos and nocebos in clinical practice and trials. This book is an essential read for anyone seeking to understand the nature and the potential of utilizing the placebo effect for healing. Highly recommended for those with a thirst for knowledge and a desire to push the boundaries of conventional medicine.

This is a wonderful book. Using clear, honest sentences and paragraphs, Dr. Howick reviews the vast and fascinating literature on the effects of placebos, and shows how to engage that effectiveness in ordinary medical care.

This masterful synthesis of the scientific, philosophical, and historical literature on placebo effects is rigorous, yet accessible. Although I disagree on some points, Dr. Howick makes a bold and compelling case that the scientific knowledge gleaned from placebo studies should radically transform healthcare to improve patients' lives.

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About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
320
ISBN
9781421446387
Illustration Description
9 line drawings
Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. A Manifesto for the Next Revolution in Nocebo and Placebo Studies
Part I. The Troubled Story of Placebos and Nocebos
Chapter 2. Please Me, Please: Placebos and Nocebos in

Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. A Manifesto for the Next Revolution in Nocebo and Placebo Studies
Part I. The Troubled Story of Placebos and Nocebos
Chapter 2. Please Me, Please: Placebos and Nocebos in Practice
Chapter 3. Placebo Components and Meaningful Contexts: What Makes Inert Things Effective
Chapter 4. It Depends: The Relativity of Placebos and Nocebos in Clinical Trials
Part II. How Big are Placebo and Nocebo Effects?
Chapter 5. How (Not) to Measure Nocebo and Placebo Effects
Chapter 6. Missing the Forest for the Trees: Incomplete Stories about the Inner Workings of Placebos
Chapter 7: Placebo and Nocebo Effects Don't Add Up
Chapter 8: Blinding: Stopping People from Peeking through Masks
Part III. Why Every Doctor Needs to Be a Shaman and Why Placebo Controls Need to be Controlled
Chapter 9. The Ethical Requirement to Prescribe More Placebos and Avoid Nocebo Effects in Practice
Chapter 10. Fewer Placebos and Nocebos in Trials: A Plea to Return to the Original Declaration of Helsinki
Chapter 11. Public Health, Surgery, and Alternative Medicine: Special Topics
Chapter 12. The Next Placebo Revolution: Helping Dad
Appendices
1. Adolf Grünbaum's Model and a Reply to Its Critics
2. Binary Outcomes May Underestimate Placebo Effects
3. Additivity versus Interaction: A Formalization
4. Balanced Placebo Design
5. The Nocebo Effect as a Smokescreen in the Great Statin Debate
6. The Many Faces of Blinding: Clarifying the Terminology
7. An Open Letter to the World Medical Association
8. More on Noninferiority Trials
References
Index

Author Bio
Jeremy Howick
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Jeremy Howick, PhD

Jeremy Howick (LEICESTERSHIRE, UK), PhD is the director of the Stoneygate Centre for Excellence in Empathic Healthcare and a senior researcher at Oxford University. He is the author of Doctor You and The Philosophy of Evidence-Based Medicine.