Power Of Placebo

August 18, 2011

Interview with Dr. Richard Kradin, author of the book The Placebo Response and the Power of Unconscious Healing

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Mike Carruthers:
What you think of a medication you are taking can actually impact how well that medication works.

Richard Kradin, M.D.:
Placebo researchers have looked at these things - that the colors of pills, the size of pills, the root of administration of medications - all of these things have an effect on efficacy.
 

Dr. Richard Kradin, author of the book The Placebo Response and the Power of Unconscious Healing...

So for instance, I think that most people who live in our culture have a sense that medication that's delivered intravenously for example is going to be a stronger type of medication than something they get via a pill. And when people have actually looked at these studies with placebos they've seen that size of the pill, color of the pill, root of administration (as I've already mentioned) - all of these things have an effect on how people interpret their likely response.

So consciously or unconsciously we believe a larger pill must be stronger and in some cases believing it makes it so.

The simple kind of child-like ideas that people have that are retained: the more you take it, the bigger the pill, a red pill for some people seems to be associated with something that's stronger than for instance a blue pill (probably because blue pills tend to be more calming). And in addition I think the pharmaceutical industries are aware of some of these.