Nir Eyal

And they take the pill jar that he brought to show them what medicine he took, and they look on the jar of antidepressants, and it doesn't say what brand of antidepressants.

It has a phone number.

They call the phone number.

They get the person on the line.

The person on the line tells them that Mr. A was enrolled in a clinical trial of antidepressants.

And in fact, he hadn't taken the antidepressants at all because he was in the placebo group.

And yet the idea that he had overdosed on antidepressants had caused these physical symptoms of dangerously low blood pressure, falling heart rate.

He was falling in and out of consciousness because he believed that something was happening in his body prompted from these antidepressants, which he hadn't taken.

He had taken placebo pills, which were completely inert.

They tell him this, that he'd taken just placebos.

In 15 minutes, Daniel,

He's off the gurney.

His heart rate is stabilized.

His blood pressure is fine.

He walks out the door completely healthy, maybe a little embarrassed.

So if the idea is,

that our biology is doing something, whether or not it is, is so powerful that it can make a man sick this way.

Are you telling me that putting in these notions of our labels, that we're this or that, also doesn't have similar effects?

Of course it does.

We know it does.