You Are the Placebo

by Joe Dispenza, Dr.

  A “Miracle” Cure: Now You See It, Now You Don’t

  In 1957, UCLA psychologist Bruno Klopfer published an article in a peer-reviewed journal telling the story of a man he referred to as “Mr. Wright,” who had advanced lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph glands.4 The man had huge tumors, some as big as an orange, in his neck, groin, and armpits, and his cancer was not responding at all to conventional treatments. He lay in his bed for weeks, “febrile, gasping for air, completely bedridden.” His doctor, Philip West, had given up hope—although Wright himself had not. When Wright found out that the hospital where he was being treated (in Long Beach, California) just happened to be one of ten hospitals and research centers in the country that were evaluating an experimental drug extracted from horse blood called Krebiozen, he got very excited. Wright unrelentingly badgered Dr. West for days until the physician agreed to give him some of the new remedy (even though Wright couldn’t officially be part of the trial, which required patients to have at least a three-month life expectancy).

  Wright received his injection of Krebiozen on a Friday, and by Monday, he was walking around, laughing, and joking with his nurses, acting pretty much like a new man. Dr. West reported that the tumors “had melted like snowballs on a hot stove.” Within three days, the tumors were half their original size. In ten more days, Wright was sent home—he’d been cured. It seemed like a miracle.

  But two months later, the media reported that the ten trials showed that Krebiozen turned out to be a dud. Once Wright read the news, became fully conscious of the results, and embraced the thought that the drug was useless, he relapsed immediately, with his tumors soon returning. Dr. West suspected that Wright’s initial positive response was due to the placebo effect, and knowing that his patient was terminal, he figured he had little to lose—and Wright had everything to gain—by testing out his theory. So the doctor told Wright not to believe the newspaper reports and that he’d suffered a relapse because the Krebiozen they’d given Wright was found to be part of a bad batch. What Dr. West called “a new, super-refined, double-strength” version of the drug was on its way to the hospital, and Wright could have it as soon as it arrived.

  In anticipation of being cured, Wright was elated, and a few days later, he received the injection. But this time, the syringe Dr. West used contained no drug, experimental or not. The syringe was filled only with distilled water.

  Again, Wright’s tumors magically vanished. He happily returned home and did well for another two months, free of tumors in his body. But then the American Medical Association made the announcement that Krebiozen was indeed worthless. The medical establishment had been duped. The “miracle drug” turned out to be a hoax: nothing more than mineral oil containing a simple amino acid. The manufacturers were eventually indicted. Upon hearing the news, Wright relapsed a final time—no longer believing in the possibility of health. He returned to the hospital hopeless and two days later was dead.

  Is it possible that Wright somehow changed his state of being, not once but twice, to that of a man who simply didn’t have cancer—in a matter of days? Did his body then automatically respond to a new mind? And could he have changed his state back to that of a man with cancer once he heard the drug was purported to be worthless, with his body creating exactly the same chemistry and returning to the familiar sickened condition? Is it possible to achieve such a new biochemical state not only when taking a pill or getting a shot, but also when undergoing something as invasive as surgery?

  The Knee Surgery That Never Happened

  In 1996, orthopedic surgeon Bruce Moseley, then of the Baylor College of Medicine and one of Houston’s leading experts in orthopedic sports medicine, published a trial study based on his experience with ten volunteers—all men who had served in the military and suffered from osteoarthritis of the knee.5 Due to the severity of their conditions, many of these men had a noticeable limp, walked with a cane, or needed some type of assistance to get around.

  The study was designed to look at arthroscopic surgery, a popular surgery that involved anesthetizing the patient before making a small incision to insert a fiber-optic instrument called an arthroscope, which the surgeon would use to get a good look at the patient’s joint. In the surgery, the doctor would then scrape and rinse the joint to remove any fragments of degenerated cartilage that were thought to be the cause of the inflammation and pain. At that time, about three-quarters of a million patients received this surgery every year.

  In Dr. Moseley’s study, two of the ten men were to be given the standard surgery, called a debridement (where the surgeon scrapes strands of cartilage from the knee joint); three of them were to receive a procedure called a lavage (where high-pressured water is injected through the knee joint, rinsing and flushing out the decayed arthritic material); and five of them would receive sham surgery, in which Dr. Moseley would deftly slice through their skin with a scalpel and then just sew them back up again without performing any medical procedure at all. For those five men, there would be no arthroscope, no scraping of the joint, no removal of bone fragments, and no washing—just an incision and then stitches.

  The start of each of the ten procedures was exactly the same: The patient was wheeled into the operating room and given general anesthesia while Dr. Moseley scrubbed up. Once the surgeon entered the operating theater, he would find a sealed envelope waiting for him that would tell him which of the three groups the patient on the table had been randomly assigned to. Dr. Moseley would have no idea what the envelope contained until he actually ripped it open.

  After the surgery, all ten of the patients in the study reported greater mobility and less pain. In fact, the men who received “pretend” surgery did just as well as those who’d received debridement or lavage surgery. There was no difference in the results—even six months later. And six years later, when two of the men who’d received the placebo surgery were interviewed, they reported that they were still walking normally, without pain, and had greater range of motion.6 They said that they could now perform all the everyday activities that they hadn’t been able to do before the surgery, six years earlier. The men felt as though they’d regained their lives.

  Fascinated by the results, Dr. Moseley published another study in 2002 involving 180 patients who were followed for two years after their surgeries.7 Again, all three groups improved, with patients beginning to walk without pain or limping immediately after the surgery. But again, neither of the two groups who actually had the surgery improved any more than the patients who received the placebo surgery—and this held true even after two years.

  Could it be possible that these patients got better simply because they had faith and belief in the healing power of the surgeon, the hospital, and even in the gleaming, modern operating room itself? Did they somehow envision a life with a fully healed knee, simply surrender to that possible outcome, and then literally walk right into it? Was Dr. Moseley, in effect, nothing more than a modern-day witch doctor in a white lab coat? And is it possible to attain the same degree of healing when facing something more threatening, maybe something as serious as heart surgery?

  The Heart Surgery That Wasn’t

  In the late 1950s, two groups of researchers conducted studies comparing the then-standard surgery for angina to a placebo.8 This was well before the coronary-artery bypass graft, the surgery most often used today. Back then, most heart patients received a procedure known as internal mammary ligation, which involved exposing the damaged arteries and intentionally tying them off. The thinking was that if surgeons blocked the blood flow in this way, it would force the body to sprout new vascular channels, increasing blood flow to the heart. The surgery was extremely successful for the huge majority of patients who had it, although doctors had no solid proof that any new blood vessels were ever actually created—hence the motivation for the two studies.

  These groups of researchers, one in Kansas City and one in Seattle, each followed the same procedure, dividing their study subjects into two groups. On
e received the standard internal mammary ligation, and the other received a sham surgery; the surgeons made the same small incisions into the patients’ chests that they made for the real surgery, exposing the arteries, but then they just sewed the patients back up, doing nothing more.

  The results of both studies were strikingly similar: 67 percent of the patients who had received the actual surgery felt less pain and needed less medication, while 83 percent of those who had received the sham surgery enjoyed the same level of improvement. The placebo surgery had actually worked better than the real surgery!

  Could it be that somehow the patients who had received the sham surgery so believed that they’d get better that they actually did get better—through nothing more than holding that expectation for the best? And if that is possible, what does that say about the effects our everyday thoughts, whether positive or negative, have on our bodies and our health?

  Attitude Is Everything

  A wealth of research now exists to show that our attitude does indeed affect our health, including how long we live. For example, the Mayo Clinic published a study in 2002 that followed 447 people for more than 30 years, showing that optimists were healthier physically and mentally.9 Optimist literally means “best,” suggesting that those folks focused their attention on the best future scenario. Specifically, the optimists had fewer problems with daily activities as a result of their physical health or their emotional state; experienced less pain; felt more energetic; had an easier time with social activities; and felt happier, calmer, and more peaceful most of the time. This came right on the heels of another Mayo Clinic study that followed more than 800 people for 30 years, showing that optimists live longer than pessimists.10

  Researchers at Yale followed 660 people, aged 50 and older, for up to 23 years, discovering that those with a positive attitude about aging lived more than seven years longer than those who had a more negative outlook about growing older.11 Attitude had more of an influence on longevity than blood pressure, cholesterol levels, smoking, body weight, or level of exercise.

  Additional studies have looked more specifically at heart health and attitude. Around the same time, a Duke University study of 866 heart patients reported that those who routinely felt more positive emotions had a 20 percent greater chance of being alive 11 years later than those who habitually experienced more negative emotions.12 Even more striking are the results of a study of 255 medical students at the Medical College of Georgia who were followed for 25 years: Those who were the most hostile had five times greater incidence of coronary heart disease.13 And a Johns Hopkins study presented at the American Heart Association’s 2001 Scientific Sessions even showed that a positive outlook may offer the strongest known protection against heart disease in adults at risk due to family history.14 This study suggests that having the right attitude can work as well as or better than eating the proper diet, getting the right amount of exercise, and maintaining the ideal body weight.

  How is it that our everyday mind-set—whether we’re generally more joyful and loving or more hostile and negative—can help determine how long we live? Is it possible for us to change our current mind-set? If so, could having a new mind-set override the way our minds have been conditioned by past experiences? Or could expecting something negative to recur actually help to bring that about?

  Nauseated Before the Needle

  According to the National Cancer Institute, a condition called anticipatory nausea occurs in about 29 percent of patients receiving chemotherapy when they are exposed to the smells and sights that remind them of their chemo treatments.15 About 11 percent feel so sick before their treatments that they actually vomit. Some cancer patients start feeling nauseated in the car on the way to get chemo, before they even set foot inside the hospital, while others throw up while still in the waiting room.

  A 2001 study from the University of Rochester Cancer Center published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management concluded that expecting nausea was the strongest predictor that patients would actually experience it.16 The researchers’ data reported that 40 percent of chemo patients who thought they would get sick—because their doctors told them that they probably would be sick after the treatment—went on to develop nausea before the treatment was even administered. An additional 13 percent who said they were unsure of what to expect also got sick. Yet none of the patients who didn’t expect to get nauseated got sick.

  How can it be that some people become so convinced that they will get sick from chemotherapy drugs that they get ill before any of the drugs are even administered? Is it possible that the power of their thoughts could be what’s making them sick? And if that’s true of 40 percent of chemo patients, could it also be true that 40 percent of folks could just as easily get well by simply changing their thoughts about what to expect about their health or from their day? Could a single thought that a person accepts also make that person better?

  Digestive Difficulties Disappear

  Not long ago, as I was about to get off an airplane in Austin, I met a woman who was reading a book that caught my eye. We were standing and waiting to deplane, and I saw the book sticking out of her bag; the title mentioned the word belief. We smiled at each other, and I asked her what the book was about.

  “Christianity and faith,” she answered. “Why do you ask?” I told her that I was writing a new book on the placebo effect and that my book was all about belief.

  “I want to tell you this story,” she said. She went on to tell me that years ago, she had been diagnosed with gluten intolerance, celiac disease, colitis, and a host of other ills, and experienced chronic pain. She’d read up on the diseases and gone to see several different health professionals for advice. They had advised her to avoid certain foods and to take certain prescription drugs, which she had done, but she’d still felt pain throughout her entire body. She also hadn’t been able to sleep, had skin rashes and severe digestive disturbances, and suffered from a whole list of other unpleasant symptoms. Then, years later, the woman went to see a new doctor, who decided to do some blood tests. When the blood tests came back, all of the results were negative.

  “The day I found out I was really normal and there was nothing wrong with me, I thought, I’m fine, and all my symptoms went away. I immediately felt great and could eat whatever I wanted,” she told me with a flourish. Smiling, she added, “What do you believe about that?”

  If it’s true that learning new information that leads to a 180-degree turnaround in what we believe about ourselves can actually make our symptoms disappear, what’s going on in our bodies that’s supporting that and making it happen? What’s the exact relationship between the mind and the body? Could it be possible that those new beliefs could actually change our brains and body chemistries, physically rewire our neurological circuitry of who we think we are, and alter our genetic expression? Could we in fact become different people?

  Parkinson’s vs. the Placebo

  Parkinson’s disease is a neurological disorder marked by the gradual degeneration of nerve cells in the portion of the midbrain called the basal ganglia, which controls body movements. The brains of those who have this heartbreaking disease don’t produce enough of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which the basal ganglia needs for proper functioning. Early symptoms of Parkinson’s, which is currently considered incurable, include motor issues such as muscle rigidity, tremors, and changes in gait and speech patterns that override voluntary control.

  In one study, a group of researchers at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver informed a group of Parkinson’s patients that they were going to receive a drug that would significantly improve their symptoms.17 In reality, the patients received a placebo—nothing more than a saline injection. Even so, half of them who had no drug intervention, in fact, had much better motor control after receiving the injection.

  The researchers then scanned the patients’ brains to get a better idea of what had happened and found that the people who responded positively to the
placebo were actually manufacturing dopamine in their brains—as much as 200 percent more than before. To get an equivalent effect with a drug, you’d have to administer roughly a full dose of amphetamine—a mood-elevating drug that also increases dopamine.

  It seemed that merely expecting to get better unleashed some previously untapped power within the Parkinson’s patients that triggered the production of the dopamine—exactly what their bodies needed to get better. And if this is true, then what is the process by which thought alone can manufacture dopamine in the brain? Might such a new internal state, brought on by the combination of clear intention and heightened emotional state, actually make us invincible in certain situations, by activating our own inner storehouse of pharmaceuticals and overriding the genetic circumstances of disease that we once considered outside our conscious control?

  Of Deadly Snakes and Strychnine

  In parts of Appalachia exist pockets of a 100-year-old religious ritual known as snake handling, or “taking up serpents.”18 While West Virginia is the only state where it’s still legal, that doesn’t stop the faithful, and local police in other states are known to turn a blind eye to the practice. In these small and modest churches, as congregations gather for the worship service, the preacher enters carrying one or more briefcase-shaped locked wooden boxes with hinged, clear-plastic doors perforated with air holes, and places the boxes carefully on the platform at the front of the sanctuary or meeting room, near the pulpit. Before long, the music starts, a high-energy blend of country-and-western and bluegrass melodies with deeply religious lyrics about salvation and the love of Jesus. Live musicians wail away on keyboards, electric guitars, and even drum sets that any teenage band would envy, while the parishioners shake tambourines as the spirit moves them. As the energy builds, the preacher might light a flame in a container on top of the pulpit and hold his hand in the fire, allowing the flames to lick his outstretched palm before he picks up the container to sweep the fire slowly over his bare forearms. He’s just getting “warmed up.”