The Placebo Effect

Placebo

Latin - I shall please

For many years I have wondered about the mysterious phenomenon called

the Placebo Effect.  The term coined by Henry K. Beecher in 1955, describes an ability for the mind to initiate the process of healing without aid of pharmacological or surgical procedures.  Often viewed as a nuisance in modern medicine due to its masking of the true effectiveness of a drug or procedure, it is now gaining a new scrutiny in science.  Among the recent discoveries is a new subset of placebo effect called conditioning.  This new effect was observed in rats given a immune suppressive drug and saccharin sweetened water to condition the brain to associate the drug to the taste of the sweetened water.  When only the sweetened water was given later, the reaction was identical.[1]  In other words, the rat doesn't have the ability to consciously believe in the treatment but nonetheless receives the desired effect from just a placebo.  This shows that the placebo effect is biological rather than psychological, unless there is a rat psychologist out there to argue the point.  But even given this new discovery, it's still mind boggling to think the brain can assemble the resources the body needs to alleviate pain and even shrink tumors from... what?  Mimicking the effects of a drug even weeks after it was administered  is hard to explain simply in physical or biological terms given our limited knowledge of the processes in the brain we call 'belief'.  And just what are we 'conditioning' in the brain?  And, where are the lines crossed between biological and psychological?   Even if we do reduce the entire process down to a complex sequence of chemical and molecular interactions, we are still left with the awesome question of why does our body have this innate ability to heal itself?  Could it be a remnant of something from our distant past?
You know this implies those little molecules have some 'intelligence' built into them with an 'awareness' of their environment and the ability to carry out their little part in the big task of healing in coordination with other little molecules.  What do they make to mimic a compound that doesn't naturally occur in the body?  I suppose that will be discovered someday but it still will be incredible.  To the molecule, it wont be anything new in it's repertoire.  It goes about doing it's 'thing' all the time.  For, what is healing other than building or rebuilding or tearing apart and disposing?  The computer at it's most elemental level is just a whole bunch of switches turning on and off.  And yet look at what it can do even at a order of complexity far less than that of our own biology.  What initiated or commanded all those molecules to work on this project?  We can watch it all happening but it still doesn't explain why.  In other words, there has to be something outside the physical directing and coordinating these processes.  Whether we say that the system intelligence is innate or resides invisibly outside, it still has to be there. 
So it seems the more we learn of this uncanny phenomenon, the more questions arise.  At the same time however, it does give credence to the faith community which drives atheists crazy.  Which brings us to a story found in the Bible.  In the Pentateuch, Numbers 21:4-9, the children of Israel are in the wilderness after the miraculous deliverance from Pharaoh. 

And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. Numbers 21:4-9

Could it be the placebo effect is an echo of this miracle?  I find it ironic that the symbols of medicine such as that above,  the Caduceus, recall the event we just read in the Bible when medical science is about as far from it's roots in faith as it has ever been, but still uses the symbol of the serpent on the pole.  And the thorn in the proverbial side of medical science is the placebo effect.  Does God have a sense of humor or what?

Notes:

1.  Scientific American - February/March 2009 - Cure in the Mind

Available sources not noted or used in this article:
Placebo Effects: Understanding the mechanisms in health and disease
The Placebo Effect: An Interdisciplinary Exploration
The Placebo Response and the Power of Unconscious Healing
The Placebo Effect and Health: Combining Science and Compassionate Care
Extreme Healing - a National Geographic presentation