Is FAITH the ultimate PLACEBO?

Is  FAITH the ultimate PLACEBO?

Medical fraternity is a much divided landscape when it comes to matters regarding faith. When confronted with scenarios which have thin line of demarcation between life and death, some medical practitioners stick unflinchingly to faith, to that governing supernatural force that drives the winds and rotates the earth while some rationalists turn into disbelievers and doubters and a few become outright atheists- trying to find the very essence behind the functioning of human life and its subsequent decadence leading  to death by the power of reasoning rather than leaving the burden of unanswerable questions on a figment of somebody’s imagination. 

In medicine the placebo effect plays a very important role. A placebo is a non medicated substance that has no therapeutic property but provides psychological benefit to a patient when prescribed as a medication. Studies have shown a remarkable improvement particularly in conditions involving pain management, gastric ulcers and irritable bowel syndromes when they were prescribed just placebos in the guise of a medication. The patient consumes it thinking it to be a drug, thereby tricking his brain to believe that it is a medicine and it works in helping relieve the patient’s symptoms without causing any measurable physiological effects on the body.

The American Cancer society in its article on placebo calls it the expectation effect. This means that the person taking the placebo may experience some effect as per his preconceived knowledge of what he or she expects to happen. If a person expects to feel better, that may happen. The placebo does not cause any of these effects directly. Instead, the person’s belief in or experience of the placebo helps change the symptoms, or changes the way the person perceives the symptoms.

Some people can have the placebo effect without even getting a drug or pill and may just feel better from visiting the doctor or doing something else they believe will help. This type of placebo effect seems most related to the degree of confidence and faith the patient has in the doctor or drug.

The placebo effect underlies the two most valuable lessons in the field of medicine- firstly that a human body has a natural ability to heal itself to a great extent which is highlighted even in the ancient Indian system of Ayurveda and secondly, how putting faith even in a non-pharmacological substance can go a long way in affecting the prognosis.

In theory it is often presumed that the patient always has the faith on the consultant and the medication he prescribes but in practices, a truly compliant patient is a rarity. Thanks to google, patients are becoming smarter and now have information at their fingertips but as they say, “Half knowledge can be dangerous”, to which some of my professors would spontaneously add, “...and at times, annoying!” Requests are often made from patient’s side for an X ray or a Sonography or any other investigative procedure which the consulting physician might find totally irrelevant but chances are high that the doctor might get himself labeled as ‘bad’ if he doesn’t pay heed to the patient’s demands. And thus many a times unnecessary investigations are conducted for patient’s satisfaction and to ensure that he doesn’t lose faith in the doctor.

In rural set ups as I have discovered during my rotation, it is a common practice to at least prescribe multi vitamin tablets when patient comes with a condition which has no anatomical or physiological relation with the body but rather is purely psychogenic in nature just to ensure patient that the doctor is not a fool and can prescribe medications! The whole idea is that patient’s faith should not be lost.

This is precisely how the profession works. Treating the patient is important but ensuring that his faith in the system is maintained, that he doesn’t become a doubter and atheist when it comes to following his journey from a hospital ward to home, is perhaps more important because it would usher into a more fruitful doctor-patient relationship which would ultimately lead to faster recovery from illness. So, google all you want but please have faith on the medical man and his drug! Perhaps, faith is the ultimate placebo!