Harnessing the placebo effect for our benefit

I love Ted Kaptchuk’s research! Once again he stands assumptions on their heads and shows if we all relaxed and accepted the healing power of our minds, we could do better than by straining to invent the next new high-tech cure and then to cover up or mitigate its side-effects…Here he completely side-steps the fruitless debate about whether acupuncture is a “placebo” effect and shows that the medical/bedside rituals we associate with acupuncture have real, beneficial effects–even if the acupuncture is “fake!”. So with real acupuncture, we get placebo + acupuncture effects…better than waitlist or drugs! Read on:

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0329/opinions-placebo-harvard-health-medicine-ideas-opinions.html?boxes=opinionschannellighttop