The Nocebo Effect with Charlotte Blease, PhD, and Cosima Locher, PhD: Rational Wellness Podcast 343

View the Show Notes For This Episode

Charlotte Blease, PhD, and Cosima Locher, PhD, discuss The Nocebo Effect with Dr. Ben Weitz.

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Podcast Highlights

1:45  The placebo effect is when a patient feels better after taking a sugar pill of some other treatment that is not thought to be able to help them, because they believe that it will help them.  When a scientific study is conducted they often have a placebo arm with one group getting the pill with the active ingredient and the other group getting a pill without the active ingredient, which is referred to as the placebo group.  And yet a significant percentage of the patients who get the placebo improve.  The nocebo is sort of the opposite of the placebo in that if the patient believes or has fears or expectations that they are likely to have side effects or a negative result from a medication or treatment, they may have such negative effects.  The book The Nocebo Effect: When Words Make You Sick is designed to bring awareness to the nocebo concept, which has been much less researched than the placebo effect. And this book also attempts to bring some solutions so that nocebo effects occur less frequently.

Charlotte Blease, PhD is a philosopher and health researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, and the Department of Women’s and Children's Health at Uppsala University, Sweden.  The book that Charlotte and Cosima helped write is The Nocebo Effect: When Words Make You Sick.

Cosima Locher PhD is a psychologist who has published in leading medical journals and is the co-founder of the Pain Net, an international network of researchers interested in chronic pain with a special focus on the placebo and nocebo effects.

Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure.  Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations and he uses DUTCH testing regularly.