The placebo effect
I have been reading another flawed piece of journalism in the Daily Mail on the placebo effect of antidepressants. I have to say I’m getting tired of this newspaper putting out their daily scare stories and conflicting advice which people like me have to sort out. Please people stop reading and believing the health pages of the Daily Mail.
To say anti-depressants are nothing more than placebo is actually quite dangerous. Pretty much anything we take could be said to have a placebo effect. Who’s to say chemotherapy, painkillers etc don’t have an element of this? If someone tells you it will help, your mind is already half way there. Homeopathy has recently come in for a bashing regarding this very subject.
To assess if something is placebo it needs to be tested on babies or animals which of course is impossible for most drugs, however Homeopathy has excellent results in both.
Sugar pills throughout the ages have also proved to work. This is mind/body medicine and complicated stuff it is to, but for those out there whose lives have/are improving on anti-depressants please do not take this article seriously.
