Something Weird Is Going On With Placebos

Hannah Fry (0:01)

Welcome to The Rest Is Science, I'm Hannah Fry.

Michael Stevens (0:03)

And I am Michael Stevens. Hannah, here's something really weird that we don't understand very well at the moment, and we haven't for like at least 12 years. Placebos are getting better.

Placebos are getting more and more effective. They are becoming effective drugs, even when people know it's a placebo. But here's the even weirder twist, it's only happening in America.

Hannah Fry (0:35)

This episode is brought to you by Cancer Research UK.

Michael Stevens (0:38)

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Hannah Fry (0:49)

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Michael Stevens (0:58)

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Hannah Fry (1:04)

But thanks to research, cancer treatment has advanced a lot. And Cancer Research UK is driving further innovations like cancer-sniffing robots and drugs made from gut bugs that could change the future of medicine.

Michael Stevens (1:17)

Over the past 50 years, Cancer Research UK's work has helped double cancer survival in the UK and today it's continuing to save and improve lives around the world.

Hannah Fry (1:27)

For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research and breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit cancerresearchuk.org/rest Is Science.

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Hannah Fry (3:39)

I beg your pardon. Are you trying to tell me American Placebos are better than our Placebos?

Michael Stevens (3:46)

American Placebos?

Hannah Fry (3:47)

You Americans and your patriotism, this has gone too far, Michael.

Michael Stevens (3:51)

Yeah. What does it mean about Americans that Placebo are becoming so good? There's all kinds of hot takes you could have about this, about magical thinking, about faith. It's a real phenomenon that was first brought into discussions back in 2012, 2013, when McGill University ran this study where they were just looked at Placebo across decades. So first of all, let's define what a Placebo is, and we might need to rework this definition as we go forward. But a Placebo is something, a treatment or a drug that has no known active pharmaceutical or biological or chemical effect. Sugar pill. A sugar pill. The opposite of a Placebo is called a Varum.

I didn't know this until this morning when I was just reading about Placebos.

And they started saying, well, compared to a Varum, a Placebo blah blah blah, and I'm like, what the hell is a Varum? Turns out Varum is what you call a real drug that has a known biological reason for working. So for example, if I get a cut on my arm and I pour rubbing alcohol all over it, that prevents infection in a Varum way. It's real. It really kills bacteria.