Derek Thompson

It's amazing.

So Dr. Kapschuk gives his patients this bottle that says placebos.

He tells them, the phrasing is important.

He says, this is a placebo.

It has no active ingredients.

However, it has been shown to help some people with the symptoms of IBS.

That was a critical statement.

And it turns out that in this study, those placebos were as effective as the leading medication at relieving people's suffering.

So much so that after the study, some of his patients, some of the people in this study called Dr. Kaptchuk and said, Dr. Kaptchuk, I really need some more of those placebo pills.

They were incredibly effective.

How can I get some more?

And so why is this happening?

Well, it comes down to the power of anticipation.

That based on what the brain believes is going to happen, we talked about earlier how the brain sees reality through this prediction.

We call this predictive processing.

It doesn't see what is, it sees what it expects to happen.

And so not only is that with our sense of perception of the outside world, it's just as true based on what's happening inside of us, based on our interpretation of how we feel.

So placebos are highly effective at some things, not at others.

It's the difference between sickness and illness.

Those are two separate things.