7. An eye-opener on double-blind studies

January 17, 2018 Health & Healing, Sticky Thoughts No Comments

The core of present-day scientific medicine is more and more boiling down to ‘evidence based medicine’ (EBM). The essence of EBM is double-blind studies: comparing a new supposedly-active substance to placebo whereby both prescriber(s) and patients are ignorant (‘blind’) in regard to whether they get placebo or the ‘active’ substance.

◊◊◊

Nice.

◊◊◊

Everything (really: everything in this matter) stands or falls with whether blind is blind. If it is, then so much the better. If it isn’t, then present-day scientific medicine is still at a low level of science and should evolve from this with extreme urgency.

◊◊◊

So: is blind very blind? I don’t think so.

◊◊◊

The point is that a placebo doesn’t work through conscious expectation. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t work through a conscious whatsoever. If a placebo for instance lowers the blood pressure, it’s not because you consciously lower your BP. Purely consciously, you’re not capable of doing so. Placebo (or better said: your own inner strength in this) works through the subconscious. Therefore the subconscious is what is important in all this.

◊◊◊

So the pertinent question is not whether you are consciously blind, but rather whether you are subconsciously blind. That is a question that has hardly at all entered into scientifically.

◊◊◊

Take the side effects of medication. Does the subconscious register consciously-felt side effects? To me there is no doubt about this. Can it also register not-consciously-felt side effects? Let me ask it like this: why shouldn’t it? One can be certain that the subconscious registers any bodily change. Therefore also the slightest side-effect of medication.

◊◊◊

Since medication (the ‘active substance’ in double-blind studies) always has lots of side effects, while a pure placebo has as good as none, to the subconscious at least the difference is always clear. This is: at this very important level, there is little or no double-blindness at all. Let me repeat this.

◊◊◊

There is little or no double-blindness at all!

◊◊◊

The same argument can be made not only for the side-effects, but also for the meant effect. This makes it even worse!

◊◊◊

Conclusion: a double-blind study compares an active substance, potentially having lots of placebo-activity, to a placebo with relatively little placebo-activity. While such a study is supposed to lead to a subtraction of placebo-activity, quite the reverse happens in reality. Scientists are beginning to become aware of this problem. All too slowly.

◊◊◊

As said, this is the essence of the core of present-day scientific medicine.

◊◊◊

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

Placebo and the Predictive Brain

The ‘brain as a predictive machine’ sheds an interesting light on the placebo effect. It shows that we are born with the wetware in place to experience the influence of placebo. Yet, the present-day may be the time to go beyond. Subconscious placebo Several explanations of the placebo effect have been put forward, such as Read the full article…

The Placebo Patchwork

In a placebo patchwork, contradictory elements are stitched together with no deeper ground. This is very different from a set of well-grounded and integrated elements. From the outside, it may be challenging to discern the difference. Unfortunately, placebo patchworks can be pretty tenacious. Much of this tenacity lies in their not being one thing, but Read the full article…

Hypnosis vs. Voodoo

Hypnosis has a scientific aura — journals, conferences, departments, and handbooks. Nevertheless, is the science valid? Or is it just a Western kind of unsubstantiated belief — a folie à multiple? As Galenic medicine has been for 1600 years in Europe before being debunked in the last two centuries. “The definition of hypnosis is an Read the full article…

Translate »