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Spontaneous Cures thanks to the Placebo Effect

Last update: 04/03/2012

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In Spanish this site can be read at:
http://www.canceryotrasenfermedadesgraves.blogspot.com/


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General Coordinator of this Site, and responsible for the selection of the texts in which numerous physicians’ concepts are set forth: Naum Kliksberg*


DO YOU KNOW... Why do unexpected improvements in health and even “spontaneous cures” occur, even in people who have a serious disease?
In these cases doctors generally say that it is thanks to the “Placebo Effect”.


DO YOU KNOW.... What is the “Placebo Effect”, and why it has the ability to improve health?

If you do not know, you should learn by reading the texts of this site.
When it comes to health, having as much information as possible can save your life or that of someone you love.


When someone is told that he has a serious disease that threatens his life, the generally most distressing time of his life begins.


Under such circumstances, it will be very useful for him to have updated information about the subject of unexpected improvements in health and spontaneous cures, and the “Placebo Effect” that can cause them.


At this site, medical texts selected from world literature are set forth free, wherein cases of unexpected, surprising and rapid improvements in health, and of “spontaneous cures”, even in people with very serious diseases, are set forth.


People who see with happiness that in spite of the negative prognosis their health improves in an unexpected way for their physicians, use to attribute that fortunate event to their religious faith, or to the powers of healers and quacks, to whom they ask for advice generally when they have a serious disease, such as cancer.


Physicians say that the “unexpected improvements in health” and the “spontaneous cures” (called by physicians “spontaneous remissions”) occur thanks to the “Placebo Effect”.




1. Information about the news that occur worldwide about this subject.


2. What is the “Placebo Effect”?


3. Some of Naum Kliksberg researches about: unexpected improvements, spontaneous cures, and the “Placebo Effect”.


4. Selection of texts from worldwide literature, wherein numerous physicians’ concepts about the “Placebo Effect” are set forth.


- 4.1. Some concepts taken from the article: “Placebos and nocebos”.


- 4.2. Some concepts taken from the article: “The physician’s attitude as a placebo”


- 4.3. Some concepts taken from the article: “Placebo, the imaginary medicine. Therapeutic benefits”.


- 4.4. Some concepts taken from the article: “The placebo effect”


5. Naum Kliksberg professional background. Coordinator of this Site.


6. Summary of concepts to inform your relatives and friends.


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1. Information about the news that occur worldwide about this subject.


Soon, in order to be able to be informed about the news that occur worldwide about this subject, so important for everybody, digital Magazine.


The main subject shall be about the progress made in science on how the “Placebo Effect” can be caused to occur, and thus obtain that contribution to the treatment that the patient is making with his physician in order to improve health, and even in some cases cause the spontaneous cure.


In this Magazine, scientific researches made worldwide, on thousands of patients, in medical centers and in universities, shall be set forth, which show that when someone suffers a serious disease, in spite of the worst diagnoses and prognoses, there is still place for hope, to believe that what happened to other thousands of patients in the world, who having the prognosis of an inevitable death lived much more time than that expected by their doctors, and even in a number of them spontaneous cures occurred, can happen to him. Scientific grounds shall be set forth, on which patients who suffer a serious disease can be based to hope, supported by serious elements, produced in the scientific field.


Live more time than that predicted, potentializing the factors that the researches indicate that make it easy that in some cases health improves and even that the “spontaneous cure” occurs thanks to the “Placebo Effect”.


This Magazine, unique in its type in the world, shall be of special interest for millions of people, for physicians, psychologists, and for those who suffer a serious disease, for them it shall be useful to comment the contents of the Magazine with their doctors.


The Magazine shall be directed by Naum Kliksberg, who shall coordinate a team that shall: evaluate, select, research, and comment the most important scientific information that occurs worldwide about these subjects. He shall have the collaboration of physicans from several countries.


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2. What is the "Placebo Effect"?
By: Naum Kliksberg

The “Placebo Effect” occurs in some cases when the person believes that something will improve his heath, whether it is a medicine, a ritual, etc. and his health actually improves, even if physicians say that in that case the improvement by that medicine or ritual cannot be explained.


The “Placebo Effect” is considered by scientists as one of the most astonishing mysteries. It is not known how the psychophysical system that causes improvements in health thanks to the “Placebo Effect” acts.


The “Placebo Effect” is in the first place in a list of the 13 most inexplicable phenomena for current science. That is, the “Placebo Effect” is considered as the greatest mystery that exists in nature. That list was published on March 19, 2005 in one of the most renowned scientific magazines of the world: New Scientist. That list can be seen on Internet at:
www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524911.600


In spite of the mystery around the “Placebo Effect”, it is suitable that all those who work with health, especially physicians and psychologists, get informed on how they can cause the psychophysical system that produces the “Placebo Effect” to be activated and potentiated easily in their patients. In that way they shall increase the chances that the patient’s health improves, whichever is the disease he has and the treatment being applied by the physician.


One example that shows that this must be done is the famous case referred to at many sites on Internet, the story of Mr. Wright. It happened in California in 1957. He was diagnosed with cancer with a very negative prognosis, he was told that he had only two weeks of life left. In those days he read that experiments were being made with a medicine against cancer, “krebiozen”, he asked Dr. Philip West to administer it to him, and he agreed to do so. In only three days his improvement was spectacular, the tumors disappeared. He had a very good health during several months, until Wright read that this medicament was actually not effective, this worsened his health rapidly. His doctor, realizing the importance of the placebo in this patient, assured him that it was a mistake, that the medicament was very efficient, and gave him an injection of only water, saying that it was a stronger dose of krebiozen. The tumors disappeared again. Wright had an excellent health during some months, until he read a report that categorically said that “krebiozen” gave no results, this influenced very destructively his psyche, his doctor did not know how to manage the situation and the patient died after only two days.


This case shows the importance of using the right word in producing the “Placebo Effect”, since it influences the construction of beliefs and the latter influence the evolution of the disease by little known psychophysical means. That is why words must be administered as if they were medicaments, based on knowledge about how the “Placebo Effect” works.


This patient would have had more chances of saving his life if his physician were better trained in the subject of “Placebo Effect”, or if he had had a psychological support by a psychologist with good knowledge of the “Placebo Effect” dynamics, a training that psychologists do not usually have. The account of the case of this patient is at many sites on Internet (1).


Before selling a medicament, one of the researches laboratories do consists of trying its effectiveness by administering it to a group of patients, another group of people who suffer the same disease are told that they are being given that same medication when actually they are given only a tablet or injection which does not contain any medication, however, in a large number of these patients there is an improvement in their health that is greater than if they were not given anything, the “Placebo Effect” has occurred. The physicians who administer these medicaments do not know either to which patients they give the true medicament and to which they do not.


How does a tablet or injection that contains nothing improve health? Which psychological system can be deceived, and thinking that it is a true medicament is able to develop an intelligent action, organizing and activating those biochemical processes which that body needs to fight better that disease and cause a true improvement of its health, and in some cases healing?


The difficulty to understand this phenomenon is increased by the fact, shown in scientific researches, that the “Placebo Effect” occurs with a greater or less healing effect depending on the conditions under which patients receive the false medicament, such as for example: the color and the size of the tablet, the greater or less advertisement that was made of that medicament, the physician’s words when he prescribed or gave the placebo. Why do these factors influence improving health more or less when it is a placebo? Why do those circumstances also potentiate or reduce the effectiveness of a true medicament?, that is, they add a “Placebo Effect” to the true beneficial effect that a medicine that contains active elements can produce? These questions that physicians ask themselves currently do not have a satisfactory explanation by medicine.


One of the cases of “Placebo Effect” that was most known worldwide was created by physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1734 – 1815). He used as the placebo a therapy based on an alleged and undetectable magnetism. In Viena, Paris and Germany, thousands of people with all kinds of diseases asked for his advice, even many people from the most cultivated levels. A great number of them said that their health was improving, and even many of them asserted that they had spontaneous cures. King Louis XVI appointed a commission of great scientists so that they would study the case (among them there were scientists of the level of chemist Lavoisier and Benjamin Franklin, who was in Paris holding office as ambassador of the United States). Later, the commission gave its opinion and asserted that this magnetism did not exist.


In today’s physicians opinion those cures occurred thanks to the “Placebo Effect”. Patients who improved their health were not interested in knowing how they succeeded, they wouldn’t have minded knowing that it was thanks to the “Placebo Effect” and not to magnetism. The same think those who feel that their health improved for their religious belief, or because they visited quacks or healers. People who ask for these advices must know that only in a minority of those who make them the desired “Placebo Effect” occurs, and that when they resort to these individuals they must never stop complying with the treatment indicated by their doctor.


The patients who wish to ask for help from religious leaders and/or quacks, with alleged powers of healing, would benefit if their physicians had knowledge on how to help to create the best psychological conditions in their patients so that, in asking for such advice they may have more chances that self-healing occurs thanks to the “Placebo Effect”.


The “Placebo Effect” is a phenomenon that can be studied from various disciplines, especially from: medicine, psychology and from learning sciences (for the relevance of the process of construction of people’s system of beliefs in the occurrence of the “Placebo Effect”).


The scientific researches about the “Placebo Effect” open very promising therapeutic paths. The matter is controversial, not only because of the different scientific opinions that exist about how the “Placebo Effect” occurs, but also because of the different confronted economic interests, for example:


- The physicians who criticize other physicians who offer alternative medicines (acupuncture, homeopathy, Reiki, etc.) maintain that the healings attributed to them actually do not occur because of the efficiency of their methods but thanks to the “Placebo Effect”.


- A number of those who offer miraculous healings, such as quacks and other alleged healers, for an economic interest attribute improvements in health to their alleged powers, hiding from the diseased that they could occur thanks to the “Placebo Effect”. Other healers act in that way for ignorance, they were not suitably informed about the “Placebo Effect”.


- The therapeutic use of the “Placebo Effect” does bring economic benefits to the companies who sell medical products: medicaments, devices, etc. The development of a therapeutic line based on the “Placebo Effect” damages them economically, like any therapeutic current by psychological means, since it lowers the sale of medicaments.


- The sale of a medicament to the public is approved when research has previously shown that more people improve thanks to it than to the “Placebo Effect”. In order to protect the significant economic investments that are made in order to be able to develop a new medicament, there is a possibility that in many occasions in the reports designed for the physicians the true percentage of improvements that occurred in the research thanks to the “Placebo Effect” is lowered. Thus probably the number of people who improve their health thanks to the “Placebo Effect” is much higher than that usually estimated.


For these reasons, in the matter of the “Placebo Effect” it is not easy to distinguish the “scientific” opinions influenced by economic motivations from objective opinions.


People who believe in God, shall see in the self-healing power of the “Placebo Effect”, and in the “Intelligence II” system that makes it possible (it is explained later in item 3), the most convincing demonstration of the existence of the divine essence in each human being, and shall understand that God’s will and hand to heal is acting through those mechanisms. Those who think that way, shall increase the value of the advances that science can make about the “Placebo Effect”, for them they shall be significant contributions of science to their religious beliefs.


Non-believers and scientists cannot see God’s hand in the occurrence of the “Placebo Effect”, but they do see a new and very interesting therapeutic path in which medicine is advancing.


It is suitable that all those who work with health (especially physicians and psychologists), train in how they can facilitate through psychological methods the activation of the psychophysical system that produces the “Placebo Effect”, thus achieve to have more chances of improving health, and in some cases achieve the spontaneous cure.


The treatment that the physician may be applying is always potentialized when he knows what to do to cause the “Placebo Effect” to occur, the patient gets a benefit when this happens, whichever is the disease that he is suffering and the treatment that the physician is applying. Many people with serious diseases, thanks to the “Placebo Effect”, succeed in living much more time than their physicians thought.


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(1) The account of the case of patient Wright, is at many sites on Internet, in English and in Spanish, some of them are as follows:


In English:
http://www.wrf.org/alternative-therapies/power-of-mind-placebo.php


At this site, in the article: “The power of mind and placebo possibilities”, many scientific researches are also mentioned about the healing power of the “Placebo Effect”.


In Spanish:
http://www.buenasalud.com/lib/emailorprint.cfm?id=3373&type=lib


http://www.servisalud.com/elpensa/nutricion28.htm


http://www.dsalud.com/numero18_4.htm


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About the Placebo Effect an interesting film (it lasts only one minute), can be watched, about a research done in a University. At a ball room youths were told that they were being given alcoholic beverages when they were alcohol-free beverages, however they had the same symptoms as if they had drunk alcohol, it can be watched at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgYlX_qsKvg (in Spanish)


Another interesting video about the “Placebo Effect”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HAU4a9LnBo (in Spanish)


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Those who wish to find more information about the “Placebo Effect”, additionally to requesting the News Multimedia Service that we are offering about this subject, by entering in web searches the terms: “cancer and placebo effect”, “psychoneuroimmunology”, “placebo effect”, shall find a great number of scientific texts, in many of them physicians comment cases of patients who improved their health, and even that they cured from serious diseases, thanks to the “Placebo Effect”.


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3. Naum Kliksberg researches about: spontaneous cures, unexpected improvements, and the “Placebo Effect”.
- Naum Kliksberg started researching the deepest mechanisms of human intelligence related to learning processes, in that work he gave advise to universities and governments on pedagogical methods for the best development of intelligent and creative thinking of university students.


He is researching more than 20 years ago the deepest mechanisms of human intelligence related to pychophysical health, to the system that makes it possible to carry out the biochemical processes in the body that produce unexpected improvements in health in people with serious diseases.


- Continuing with his researches about the least known aspects of human intelligence, he studied the psychical role that he called “Intelligence II”, which he considers to be a psychological structure that everybody has and to be the one that causes the so called by medicine “Placebo Effect” in its most complex manifestations.


In Naum Kliksberg scientific conception, self-healing by the “Placebo Effect” in order to occur requires to be activated by Intelligence II, the latter unchains the biochemical process that makes self-healing possible, certain psychological conditions must occur in the individual.


- Understanding better the functioning of “Intelligence II” helps science not only to understand better the unexpected improvements in health and the spontaneous cures by the “Placebo Effect”, but also unknown aspects of: gifted children, dreams, hypnosis, creativity, intuition, psychical structuring of language, the “idiot savants” (so called by scientists), and of other enigmatic aspects of human mind.


The so called “idiot savants” present an extraordinary mystery that challenges science, difficult to understand without Naum Kliksberg’s concept of Intelligence II, they are people who without themselves knowing how, can solve, even being children, certain extremely complex mental operations, at a speed and with an accuracy that is impossible for other people, in every other aspect they are mentally retarded. Many texts can be found on Internet about this mystery, for instance in the internationally renowned Magazine “Selecciones” (“Selections”), an interesting article can be read on this subject at:
http://www.selecciones.com/acercade/art.php?id=116


“Intelligence II” works in a non-conscious way” (although it is NOT the unconscious of any of the psychological theories). Naum Kliksberg called it “Intelligence II” in order to distinguish it from Intelligence I, which is the intelligence known as voluntary and conscious.


When it is explained to then, all human beings can immediately see manifestations of “Intelligence II” in their everyday life, in their own behaviors and in those of other individuals. The manifestations of Intelligence II can be easily shown and verified by anyone, and this causes an important change in the person’s way of understanding many things that happen in his life.


- Sometimes, “Intelligence II” is also activated and produces the “Placebo Effect”, when certain collective psychological conditions appear. Some of these cases, studied by Naum Kliksberg, are told below:


CASE 1:


In 1993 in countries of the American continent, the television published that in Mexico people who suffered serious diseases, such as cancer, were being cured thanks to the water they drank that was taken at the locality of Tlacote.


That water began to be imported into several countries, many of those who drank it said that it actually cured them.


Every day the number of people who bought that water for its alleged “curative properties” increased, although the health authorities said that they had analyzed the water and that it had nothing special. We were before a “collective Placebo Effect”.


(In order to provide scientific information about this event, the magazine “Buena Salud” (“Good Health”), one of the most important and renowned in Latin America on health matters, asked for Lic. Naum Kliksberg’s advice in order to write an article about the “Placebo Effect”, that was published on January, 1994).


CASE 2:


Naum Kliksberg, together with other professionals, studied another case of “collective Placebo Effect”, that occurred around one of the most famous “Philipine healers”, Emilio Laporga. He asserted that he could heal, making “psychical” surgeries, that greatly impressed his patients and the relatives who accompanied them and saw the phenomenon.


Some aspects of this research were summarized and shown in the text: “The Philipine Psychical Surgeons. Lie or truth?, the laser-finger effect”, by Naum Kliksberg et al. It was published by several institutions, some of them are as follows:


- Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, New York, EEUU, April, 1990.


- University of New England and Australian Parapsychological Review, No. 17, under the heading: “The láser - finger effect”.


- In Brazil, it was published in Spanish and in Portuguese by Pesquisa PSI (Inquiry PSI) under the heading: “The Philipine psychical surgeons, lie or truth?: Emilio Laporga’s case in Argentina”.


We can frequently see people who, saying that they have got supernatural healing capacities, use misleading, theatrical methods, to impress patients. The interesting thing for science is that after these theatrical procedures, a number of diseased people say that they actually improve or get cured from their disease, even people who suffer serious diseases, that is to say that the self-healing “Placebo Effect” was beneficial for them.


It is important to emphasize that the “Placebo Effect” occurs only in a minority of those who ask the healers’ advice.


Which are the conditions that make it more possible for the “Placebo Effect” to occur?, since it is not a subject of economic interest for laboratories few scientists worldwide are studying it, one of them is Naum Kliksberg.


In some cases, “Intelligence II” receives in those theatricalizations a message that activates it causing a psycho-bio-chemical process that causes self-healing, the “Placebo Effect” has occurred.


This dynamics can be made easy and potentialized in the diseased person when there is a suitable psychological influence, made by the physician or the psychologist who gives a psychological support to the patient, or by a strong collective psychological suggestion. This was what happened with the Philipine healer mentioned above, that is why the more the newspapers and the television spread the news about the cures that this healer allegedly made, the more the number of people who went to ask for his advice and who said that they healed increased. It is interesting to emphasize that many of the hundreds of diseased people who went to ask for his advice, with varied diseases, even with cancer, went at their physicians’ indication.


The therapeutic “Placebo Effect”, in false surgeries made by people like the Philipine Emilio Laporga, could be studied in surgeries made by surgeons at universities, where they pretended that they operated patients, who improved their health believing that they were actually operated (at this site researches about simulated surgeries at Texas and Oxford universities can be read, see item 4. 2).


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4. Selection of texts from worldwide literature, wherein numerous physicians’ concepts about the “Placebo Effect” are set forth.


4.1. Some concepts taken from the article:

PLACEBOS AND NOCEBOS from the site:

http://www.elalmanaque.com/Medicina/index.htm


(At this site please click on the section: the wisdom of the diseased, by doctors Javier Martinez and Maria Jesus Clavera, then click on the article by those authors entitled: placebos and nocebos).


In this article the authors tell the story about the aforementioned Mr. Wright’s improvement of cancer, they also develop the concept that an injection or pill with only water has alleviated and healed diseases in patients who believed that they were taking powerful medicaments.


They also say that the belief or expectation does not always have benefits. If we believe that an action or substance will damage us this can happen, these negative effects, a fruit of imagination and of belief are called nocebos.


The authors say that placebos and nocebos can be very powerful, not only Vodou can cure with its blessings or kill with its curses those who believe in them, but also our doctors’ words and silences and the positive or negative advertising that the diseased receive can do so.


This does not mean that therapeutic actions and substances do not have an effect by themselves. They do have it in most cases, but this action of their own can be enlarged, reduced or, even, reverted powerfully, depending on the expectations that the patient associates to it.


The “Placebo Effect” or nocebo, whether it is only a question of faith or of suggestion, as Psycho-neuro-immunology has shown, has physical consequences. Jeanne Achterberg in 1985 and Solomon, Kemeny and Temoshok in 1991, showed that the production of endorphins, immunopeptides, many molecules of the so called stress cascade, as well as the defense level (neutrophils, lymphocytes, IgA, IgG, IgE, CD4, CD8 and NK) vary as a function of the concepts, emotional hues and expectations that we form about the effect of a treatment.


The authors finish this article saying that not only the physical or chemical action o the treatment acts, but also does the faith we have in what the treatment will do to us. That is why the way in which a treatment is explained is very important in the treatment.

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4.2. Some concepts taken from Dr. Wilfredo G. Santa’s article:

THE PHYSICIAN’S ATTITUDE AS A PLACEBO

Published in the MAGAZINE HEALTH from the site:

http://www.astrolabio.net/revistas/articulos/EEZZVFupFAmbBiqTzg.php


In this article the author presents the following studies about the “Placebo Effect”:


- A research done at Texas University is set forth, consisting of making an experiment with patients who had to be operated on the knees. One group was operated on, another group was anesthetized by the physicians, they were made three small cuts, and pretended to be operated on. Two years later, those who had been subject to this false surgery felt the same alleviation for the same time as those who had actually been operated on. The research was reproduced with the same results in England in Oxford University. (The researchers were physicians from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and from the Baylor College of Medicine, both in Houston, Texas. The patients were 180 people with knee osteoarthritis. The study was published on July 11, 2002 in one of the most renowned medical magazines of the world: The New England Journal of Medicine. This knee surgury consists of washing and polishing the cartilage in order to remove parts of it, it is made on 650,000 patients each year in the United States).


- The “Placebo Effect” creates an interaction among the neurological, immune and endocrine systems. In the treatment of pain between 55 and 60 percent of the cases of “Placebo Effect” show an effectiveness similar to that of most active medicaments.


- A study of the Mind/Body Medical Institute, of Harvard University, reveals that the “Placebo Effect” has clinical benefits on 60 to 90 percent of the diseases.


- A research of Wisconsin University (US) showed that in many cases the nurses’ behavior could give rise to a “Placebo Effect” that is favorable for the patient, or to a “Placebo Effect” that damages him.


- In a research done by the Cancer Research Center and by the Royal Marsden Hospital of London, it was shown that desperation and powerlessness feelings before cancer are statistically related to a worse prognosis of the disease.


- The so called “miraculous healings” are related to the “Placebo Effect”. A positive attitude can achieve spontaneous healings, even in cases of metastatic tumors, so says doctor Andrew Weil, who has studied hundreds of diseased who achieved unexpected healings.


- Another important study was developed by the University of Amsterdam, where it was shown:


That medicines produce greater or less therapeutic effect depending on the “Placebo Effect” caused by the color of the tablet.


Medicines in capsules add a “Placebo Effect” that makes them more effective than in tablets.


Some medicaments, if they are more expensive, produce a “Placebo Effect” that makes them more effective than the same medicaments if they have a lower cost.


Injected medicaments produce a “Placebo Effect” that allows them to have better results than oral ones.


Surgery, even if it consists only in opening and closing the patient, can cause a “Placebo Effect” that improves health.


The effectiveness of a therapy can increase between 25 and 75 percent depending on what the patient is told about it, because a word can put into motion the psychophysical mechanism required to produce the “Placebo Effect”.


Knowing the magnificent results of the “Placebo Effect”, which in many cases can be better than some medicaments, why aren’t clear medical bases and procedures established now, so that they can be used in many cases? (so states the author of this article).


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4.3. Some concepts taken from the article:
PLACEBO, THE IMAGINARY MEDICINE. THERAPEUTIC BENEFITS

from the site:

http://www.elmundo.es/salud/1998/321/00029.html
By: Myriam Lopez Blanco


In this article it is asserted that the “Placebo Effect” undoubtedly produces important therapeutic benefits that contribute to improve pharmacological treatments, the arguments set forth by the author are presented below:


The “Placebo Effect” is still a mystery for scientists, however the results of the controlled essays show that it is effective for many patients.


The “Placebo Effect” is one of the most fascinating phenomena of Medicine, and paradoxically, that in which less hours of study have been spent. Placebos are substances without any therapeutic action, that produce beneficial effects on the diseased if he believes that they can heal him.


In scientifically controlled studies, the benefits produced on health by the “Placebo Effect” are seen, but nobody tries to understand why it occurs, said to SALUD (HEALTH) doctor Irving Kirsch, teacher of Psychology of Connecticut University and author of one of the most controversial studies about the “Placebo Effect” that have been made until today. Kirsch et al recently revised a series of clinical essays designed to evaluate the effectiveness of drugs against depression. The conclusion of his work, published in Prevention & Treatment, was that 75% of the therapeutic benefits of antidepressants, of Prozac type, is due only to the fact that the patient believes that what he is taking shall make him feel better, that is the “Placebo Effect”.


The “Placebo Effect” is known many years ago. Before the arrival of drugs in the twentieth century it was the most powerful weapon of Medicine against disease: crocodile excrement, worm oil, alligator blood, and even being touched by the King, were medicines used between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, says doctor Frederick Foley, teacher of Psychology of Yeshiva University, who studies the relationship between mind states and the immune system in multiple sclerosis.


Since the publication, in 1955, of the book The Powerful Placebo by H.K. Beecher, it was accepted that 35% of patients with a wide range of diseases could be treated only with placebo. In subsequent studies, it has been seen that it can work in 100% of the cases. The effectiveness attributed in principle to active drugs has resulted to be, in many occasions, thanks to the “Placebo Effect”.


Nobody knows yet what mechanisms are involved in the “Placebo Effect”.


The healing “Placebo Effect” can occur in any therapy, including surgery and/or medication.


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4.4. Some concepts taken from the article:

THE PLACEBO EFFECT

from the site:

http://www.elmundo.es/salud/1996/187/01149.html
From the Health supplement of the newspaper EL MUNDO


In this article the following concepts are set forth:


- Nicholas Voudouris, an Australian psychologist of La Trobe University of Melbourne (Australia), and Milton Cohen, rheumatologist of the Scottish Hospital of Sydney, say that in many cases “Placebo Effects” can occur by interposing capsules or injections without any medicine with others that do have a medicine, achieving excellent therapeutic results. The number of medicaments is thus reduced, whereby patients suffer less side effects, and economic expenses in medicaments are reduced.


His experiences in several studies show that patients conditioned in a certain way (although they know that they are taking a placebo) react favorably to placebos (but they must not be informed about the time when the true medicament is replaced by the placebo).


- Robert Ader, a psychologist of Rochester University, New York, says that there is little research about the therapeutic possibilities of the “Placebo Effect” since it does not produce economic profits for laboratories.


- Many physicians and diseased must still be convinced that the healing effect of the “Placebo Effect” is a powerful therapeutic tool that is the result of certain molecular mechanisms that are still unknown.
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5. *Naum Kliksberg professional background. Coordinator of this Site.


Psychologist and Sociologist. (He graduated in both courses from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina).


- Psychotherapist


- He was appointed as teacher at 8 (eight) universities, and advisor at 6 (six) Universities


- He was a member, in family, education and health matters, of the Board of Advisors of 15 (fifteen) Ministers of Executive Branch of 6 (six) governments.


- Advisor of international organisms: the United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization, the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education (OEI).


- Member of the Advising Board in Social and Health Matters of the CESAPAL, Regional Organism for Advising Deputies and Senators of the Latin American Parliament.


- Studying the deep relaxation states in learning and in health, he designed an electronic device, which he built in 1988. It was the first one that allowed people to turn on and turn out with their thought, as they wished, electrical objects: television sets, fans, etc. Thinking made changes in the body relaxation state that were sensed by sensors which were connected by wires to an electronic device that caused them to turn on or to turn out.


Eighteen (18) years later, in 2006, by applying a similar concept the first electronic video games started to be manufactured that make it possible to move with one’s mind, as one wishes, elements on the screen of a computer via wires and sensors.


- In a book that he wrote in 1983, “Pedagogical Crisis in Latin American Universities”, published by The Central University of Venezuela, he was a pioneer in calling scientists’ attention towards a little known aspect in the development of intelligent and creative thinking in human beings, years later other writers also conceived and spread that concept in the world under the name of “emotional intelligence”. Afterwards, this was greatly developed in numerous books that have been published about that concept.


- He advised government ministers and presidents of several countries about pedagogical methods for the development of intelligent and creative thinking in university students. For his advise on that matter to the president of Israel, Yitzhak Navon, to the Government Minister of Venezuela Dr. Luis Alberto Machado, and to the Rector’s Office of the University of Bar Ilan, in Israel, that institution approved the project submitted by Naum Kliksberg and created the first university chair in the world about the development of human intelligence. On November, 1980, it was inaugurated with an international symposium about the matter at Bar Ilan University, it had the joint support of the governments of Israel and Venezuela. Hundreds of scientists from the whole world attended. Especially invited as speaker Naum Kliksberg gave the lecture: “Education of a Creative Professional at Universities”.


- He was a pioneer in the development of the concept of the need to create at each University a Center of Pedagogical Support to students, teachers, and authorities, one of its main purposes was to train teachers in the application of more suitable pedagogical methods for a better development of students’ intelligent and creative thinking. He founded and directed the first university pedagogical centers of this kind in several countries of Latin America. Then, many other universities in the world followed this way.


- He explained how the psychological mechanism that produces “self-censorship of intelligent thinking and creativity” works.


- He gave courses at universities to hundreds of university teachers in order to train them in specific psychopedagogical strategies so that they are able to solve at the classroom the aspects that limit the development of students’ intelligent and creative thinking.


- As a psychologist specialist in the field of the development of human intelligence, he was in 1989 at the Laboratory of Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) of Princeton University, US. There he could appreciate how an interdisciplinary team, made up of: expert engineers of NASA, physicists and psychologists, were doing the most advanced researches in the world, about the capacities of the mind to do surprising things. The Director of the laboratory Robert G. Jahn, former dean and emeritus teacher of the school of engineering of Princeton, asserted that the human mind can influence objects and the healing of diseases (the laboratory was doing those researches at Princeton University 28 years ago, since 1979).


- The University of Buenos Aires granted him the Honor Diploma.


- He was Director of Culture of an org in US (when he lived in that country).


- He gave lectures on scientific subjects invited by institutions and Universities from: United States, Israel, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia.


- His views about professional matters were required in many occasions, in television and radio shows, and in interviews in newspapers and magazines from: United States, Israel, Venezuela, Colombia and Argentina.


Naum Kliksberg also coordinates the following Sites:

In English:
In Spanish:
At this site the attention of educational institutions’ directors, teachers, students and parents is called, towards the importance that in educational effort the purpose of developing as much as possible students’ capacity to think intelligently and creatively is emphasized. This educates better professionals, and people who move away from violent religious fundamentalist groups’ way of thinking and attitude.
An educational institution, that wishes to develop intelligent and creative thinking in its students, requires using specific concepts and pedagogical techniques for that purpose, in which it should train teachers.
What can teachers at the classroom and parents at home do in order to develop more, in their students and children, the capacity to think intelligently and creatively? This site deals with this subject.
The texts offered at this Site are free.

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In English:

In Spanish:
At this Site the new hazard that shall appear in the next 20 years that can cause the extinction of human beings on the earth is analyzed, and the proposal that this world holocaust can be avoided from the United Nations is grounded.
The texts offered at this Site are free.

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In English:
In Spanish:
This site studies the particular problems and potentials of interfaith marriages (Jewish who married Christians, Catholics and Muslims, etc.) and intercultural and interracial marriages. The reasons why interfaith marriages and their children are discriminated against and rejected by religious fundamentalist groups that exist in all religions.
The texts set forth at the Site are free.

- For further information about Naum Kliksberg professional background, and to read some of the interviews he was made in newpapers and magazines:

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6. Summary of concepts to inform your relatives and friends.



If you consider that the information at this site can be of interest for your relatives and friends, then send them by email the following text, or give it to them printed.

DO YOU KNOW... Why do unexpected improvements in health and even “spontaneous cures” occur in people who have a serious disease? In these cases doctors generally say that it is thanks to the “Placebo Effect”.


DO YOU KNOW.... What is the “Placebo Effect”, and why it has the ability to improve health?

IF YOU DO NOT KNOW, YOU SHOULD LEARN BY READING THIS TEXT


When it comes to health, having as much information as possible can save your life or that of someone you love

When someone is told that he has a serious disease that threatens his life, the generally most distressing time of his life begins. Under such circumstances, it will be very useful for him to have updated information about what is the “Placebo Effect”.


The “Placebo Effect” is in the first place in a list of the 13 most inexplicable phenomena for science. That is, it is considered as the greatest mystery that exists in nature. That list was published in one of the most renowned scientific magazines of the world: New Scientist. It can be seen on Internet at:
www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524911.600
Before selling a medicament, one of the researches laboratories do consists of trying its effectiveness by administering it to a group of patients, another group of people who suffer the same disease are told that they are being given that same medication when actually they are given only a tablet or injection which does not contain any medication, however, in a large number of these patients there is an improvement in their health that is greater than if they were not given anything, the “Placebo Effect” has occurred. How can a tablet or injection that contains nothing improve health and in some cases cause healing?


The treatment being applied by the physician is always potentiated when he knows what to do to cause a “Placebo Effect” to occur, it is beneficial for the patient when this happens, whichever is the disease he has and the treatment being applied by the physician. Many people with serious diseases, thanks to the “Placebo Effect” succeed in living much more time than their doctors thought.
Learning more about this subject is of great use for everybody.
This text was taken from the Internet site about health coordinated by the Psychologist Naum Kliksberg, in Spanish: www.cánceryotrasenfermedadesgraves.blogspot.com.
In English: www.cancerandotherseriousdiseases.blogspot.com.


For those who suffer a serious disease, or have a relative under such conditions, it shall be of use to comment the contents of this site with their doctors. In it, texts selected from worldwide literature, where physicians tell cases of unexpected, surprising and rapid improvements in health, and of “spantaneous cures”, even in people with very serious diseases, thanks to the “Placebo Effect”, are set forth free.
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Publication and partial or total spreading of the texts at this site is authorized freely, provided that you mention its author, Naum Kliksberg, and the source:

In English:
http://www.cancerandotherseriousdiseases.blogspot.com
In Spanish:
http://canceryotrasenfermedadesgraves.blogspot.com


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