7. An eye-opener on double-blind studies
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.
◊◊◊
Related Posts
When to Cherish Your Symptoms
Mental and physical symptoms may carry crucially meaningful information. Getting to these is the gift you get for cherishing your symptoms. Not listening may lead to worse This isn’t always easy to investigate in experimental science, especially with chronic symptoms. With present-day scientific methods, it may even be difficult to investigate. On the other hand, Read the full article…
Tuberculosis and the Mind
Suspected since millennia, nowadays backed up with scientific data, the influence of the mind on tuberculosis is a fine example of the complexity, as well as the importance to take this seriously into account in many domains. Pertinently Despite modern treatments, tuberculosis is still one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and – at Read the full article…
Why Medicalization Sucks
Medicalization is the untoward appropriation of an issue by the medical field as if from now on, it’s part of the physician’s job description to manage this issue. From a satellite view, one can see that humanity wants to get rid of disease. Each culture considers health as one of the highest goods. So we Read the full article…