HI MD,
I am not dissing the power of prayer or the effect of internal forces of spirituality as an adjunct to drugs/treatments. I, in fact, used denial for several years in dealing with my disease and it worked.....until symptoms could no longer be ignored. Denial was my placebo and I used it for as long as I could.

I do have a problem with research studies that us placebo as a control. Yes, the mind can "find" positive effects from nothing but a sugar pill. Conversly, someone who thinks that they are getting placebo when in fact they are getting the drug, may diminish or discount their response. If you carry out the study for an extra time period, where all the subjects got the drug, the outcomes will be more accurate as a natural process. IMHO. This can weed out drugs that have minimal effect - such as Azilect which is a horribly expensive drug and majority of folks are taking it as a neuroprotective drug which at this point is purely speculative because there is no system of measurement except maybe this speech anaysis.

As for sham surgeries, why set yourself up for the risks for no chance at a gain.

So, MD, I think we are talking about 2 different issues, and I think we all have to have faith in ourselves to fight this disease. hugs

TG

Hello TG,

yes - but. one has to ask what are the true implications of the placebo effect? its the one and only factor that can only be controlled by eliminating any possibility of it.

so for me, the question becomes ...what beliefs both personal and cultural lay in my subconscious that impact my physical body? also..the sinemet helps me to meditate....to breathe (bridging the conscious to the subconscious) -but ultimately inmho it (the sinemet..or any other drug or surgical intervention) can only serve as training wheels because the placebo effect will always be a factor as long as we are human! Is it even possible to do an experiment without placebo whether placebo is used as a "control" or not because who knows what lurks in the subconscious of the experimenters and experimentees? its the perverbial x factor isn't it? well..in homeopathy the method used to mitigate this x factor was to test drug effects on healthy people.

thanks TG for your good natured and thoughtful posts - i'm so glad you joined the forum and read your thoughts with interest!

md