From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to. Now, Hey, everybody, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and I am then. And today we're gonna be talking about something that I've been doing since i was Oh, we tyke something my mom taught me. Um, whenever i feel like I'm getting sick and you know, we're in the cold season right now, and uh, and I tend to get one nice bout of sickness every year. And I have gotten the sickness ever since I was a little boy. And what my mom would do is give me a giant glass of orange juice and she would say, drink this, it'll make you feel better. And so now even you know, I'm thirty now, and this year, I've been drinking orange juice like a madman because I feel like it's gonna stave off this pickness that's coming on. I know it's coming. But what I've learned over the course of the past few months, so that this is the vitamin C isn't actually doing anything to my immune system. Huh. That our belief that vitamins. Really, yeah, aren't doing anything about that? Well, they're they're probably still good for you, even if even if it's true that they're not doing anything. It's good for my body, but it has no direct effect. Well let's take a more extreme example. UM, do you have asthma? Do you know anyone who has asthma? I did have asthma as a child. Oh yeah, I grew out of it. Huh. I had wimpy white boy syndrome. What the heck is that? And that's something that my wife has talked to me about. Uh, I don't know. It's something about our genes. Man, I got all these recessive genes in me allegedly. You know, a little little white boys, they tend to get a little sick. I used to be hooked up to one of those machines a respirator at night. Really I was a kid. Yeah wow, Well luckily this was you were not that person I was talking about. Then in a novel that I really enjoyed, it was pretty creepy, called it by Stephen King. Listeners, some of you may have read it already, UM, and I'm sure a lot of people have seen the mini series. UM read the book I hate to be that guy. But the book is crazy good and scary and freaky. Um. Anyhow, in it, there is a character named Eddie cass Brack or something like that, Eddie k will call it. Eddie is a bit of a hypochondriac and he has a very overbearing mother, and Eddie's mother is convinced that Eddie has asthma. Eddie himself is also convinced that he has asthma. And there's a spoiler alert here, and I feel like it's not too not too um crappy of me to say this because it's been out for a while. You're not really breaking the story, then, I'm not breaking Yeah, I'm not breaking a huge plot point in the story. Um. One thing that you find throughout the story is that Eddie Kay doesn't have asthma, and the entire time that he thought he did as a child, his pharmacist was trying to play kate his mother by giving him just an inhaler that had some stuff sprayed in it to give it a medicinal crappy taste. And despite the fact that this was pretty much foul tasting water, it cured Eddie's imagined asthma. Every time, ladies and gentlemen. What Matt and I are talking about today is the placebo effect. And a placebo effect is not just something that allows a a purported medicine to fix a psychological or psycho somatic disease. It can actually cure real conditions. And from what we've been learning when we did an episode on this, apparently the placebo effect is getting stronger. What do you think, Matt, Oh, that is so crazy to me. So what we're really talking about here is the power of the human brain and the mind and belief, the power of belief. And this is where it gets a little weird for me because I have a hard time really grasping some of this stuff because it seems so pseudo scientific. It seems almost almost spiritual in a way, um, where it kind of it bridges that mind body gap. Um. It's tough for me to wrap my head around really, but it's fascinating. My god, it's fascinating. Uh. What if I give you a pill that will help you wrap your head around it? See what that would probably work? I don't know, might have to be from a doctor least at least have All Right, well, let's start digging into this then, okay, so let's define it first. The placebo effect according to rational Wiki, which we wanted to check out here because we figured they would have the least spiritualized definition. Right, So, they say, it's a psycho somatic phenomenon in which symptoms of a disease or condition lesson or even appear to be comcured completely from the patient being merely exposed to a treatment. Now, this is important because it means symptoms might disappear, they might feel better, they might actually be better. Um, whether or not the treatment they were given had any real medicinal effect or or active chemical or pharmacological agent in there. That means just the idea that you are somehow being treated can affect your your mind such that your mind makes effects on your body. Imagine yourself. Well, it's so crazy. It just it's almost as though it's allowing it's allowing you to unlock your your immune system that already exists within you to fight off whatever the thing is that you're trying to beat. Right, and we know that we know that there are there are some measurable effects of the mental outlook on the human body mind over matter. If you will, right, um, and it's strange because you and I did an episode a while back that we rereleased recently asking whether or not the placebo effect is getting stronger. Now we dug into it with some more details in this podcast, and we have some interesting things to tell to tell all you lovely guys and ladies out there today. Um but before we get to that, let's just say some weird, maybe disturbing, maybe cool facts about the placebo effect. Um. One, the packaging matters. Yeah, the packaging on the pill matters. If it's flashy, it looks like they spend a lot of money creating this package, which means, hey, maybe they spend a lot of money creating this pill or whatever this solution is that I'm taking. That's crazy. Yeah, And it's it's an effect that also transcends medicine. People will judge wine that seems to come in a more expensive bottle as a better wine. Oh yeah, oh totally. Well. And here's another weird thing. Ben older drugs, the real drugs that actually have some kind of active agent in them, don't seem to work as well anymore because they're they're older. And I don't know this, this is really weird. There are a lot of things you can get into with this fact. But okay, so somebody's perception of it as less effective, well, because that's been around for a long time. UM, as opposed to this new drug that is essentially the same thing and possibly even has the same active ingredient in it, will be strong will have a stronger effect. And there's another thing. There's a huge debate between the medical communities, the respective little islands and the archipelago of medicine. There's this huge debate about how alternative medicine quote unquote or homeopathy works. Uh. Some people believe that it's entirely due to the placebo effect. That if you really believe you're drinking you know, energized water or you are having a your chakras aligned, that the simple belief that a patient might have that this is working is the engine behind the results. Now, we're not doing an episode right now on an alternative medicine or homeopathy or or any of that stuff. We will do an episode on it if you would like to hear it in the future. UM. Interesting other facts about the placebo effect. It has been observed in both animals and babies, and that's the weird thing about that, Ben, is that it usually requires some kind of conditioning, which basically just means someone telling you, hey, Ben, I'm giving you this pill and it's going to help with your prasides. Yeah, you have to know what is what the mechanism is. It's not learned, yes exactly, but but it's shown to work in babies and animals. And how the heck do you translate for let's say an orca whale that this medicine that you're giving it is going to help with its fin I don't know, but oreca whales are murderously intelligent, It's true, so they might. They might. They'll be able to pick it up. Maybe intelligent. Yeah right, Um, so we said placebos are more expensive, work better. We also know that if you if you have more of a placebo, then you will feel like it's more effective. You know, just like when you're taking real medicine, take two pills, then it'll have an increased effect. Apparently that even works when the medicine is fake. So if you take two sugar pills or you know, blue sky cough medicine doses or whatever, then it will it will have more of a dramatic placebo effect well, and it's also shown that more, the more dramatic, the way you get the medicine, the way it's given to you, the better it's gonna work. So what do you mean, So if I just give you a pill that you have to take, uh, it's gonna have a certain effect. But if I roll up with a syringe and give you an injection of just some sailine, then you know that's that's that's an intensive thing that I've just given you a drug that requires to go directly into your bloodstream. Yeah, it's gonna make you feel like I'm doing more and uh, and it's probably gonna work better. So we could also extend that maybe too when the doctor is talking with you. If the doctor sits you down and says, you know, Matthew, this is an astonishing new experimental treatment. This will cure you. Yeah, then you'll be more likely to feel the effects. Right. Yeah, we're coming from a place of authority. We've and you know, we've explored this before been but that authoritative voice of someone who seems at least seems to be an expert in something, that information comes off much more strongly. All you need is that subtitle at the bottom of the screen. Right expert on insert x here. Uh. Yeah, we also know that um placebos can overpower real pharmacological effects. So people, for instance, who were given drugs to induce nausea didn't develop symptoms when they were told the treatment would actually wait for it relieve nausea. That's what Yeah, Uh, I just need I just need to sit down for a second. Ben, I think I think my uh my anti nausea medication is working well. Now, we we can while while Matt's trying not to throw out we can we can skim over some of these because we've got a lot of facts that people have to get get too. But the primary thing we wanted to talk about is um that the placebo effect does appear to be getting stronger over time. And some of this is due to the idea that our expectations of medicine, not just what medicine treats, but what medicine is, have changed over time. So here's the question, Matt, is the placebo effect becoming stronger or are we measuring things differently? What what gives? That's an excellent question. So this goes to there are a couple things we're gonna be able to talk about here. Um, but wow, man, the most important one, I'm gonna we're gonna leave for the end because I think that's the most interesting. Um about how about how how wide the measurements are? Well, we'll go back to that. We go back to that one. The most interesting. Um. So, from two thousand two to two thousand six, the number of drugs that were axed after phase two clinical trials. That that's the volunteer trials. Okay, the poor college student trials exactly. Yes, Well, they increased because the drugs couldn't beat the placebos that they were being compared to, which is wild. It's wild, man, Yeah, and they're they're Also when we dug into this, we found that there were a few big factors that generated this appearance of an increase in the placebo effect. Um. The first one, and one of the big keys is powerful advertising. And it makes sense if you think about it, right, because advertising affects the mind, and the placebo effect is a product of mind. And man, that again, it's that mind body connection that it's so fascinating. We're gonna have to have some kind of large series just on this bend, just on the mind body connection. And you know what we need to do. We need to get uh, we need to get the people from stuff with blow your mind. Oh yeah, that'd be cool. That's what we should do. Maybe you and Robert and Julie and I can all take a vision quest. So the the other interesting thing here is that for anyone who doesn't know the at least the Western pharmaceutical industry, which is the vast majority of the international pharmaceutical industry, spends so much money on advertising. Now you would think that people would spend so much more money on research and design. How can we cure HIV? How can we cure insert disease here? But how can we sell more of my drug? Right? A lot of it is more. How can we how can we get people to take more ZR tech? Yeah, and not only sell it monetarily, but sell it to you that it works, that it's a real thing that is functioning and effective. And this goes to something else that I want to talk about. Now. We're saving the big one for the end, but not. Another reason for the increase in the perception of the placebo effect is that we have a much larger pool of diseases now, and psychological disorders have begun to be counted as something. You know, so, oh you're depressed, Oh you're you're you're you have O c D of some sort, you have a d h D for instance, and and and various things that would be qualified as psychological disorders rather than physical disorders. Sleep So well, sometimes you feel guilty. You should take this and look at this cute animation that we've created for it. See pay no attention to the fine prints about these terrible side effects and the weird dreams. Oh yeah, may cause vivid hallucinations, strange dreams, side urination, whatever that is. Uh yeah, Well, now, of course we're not saying this to in any way denigrade people who do suffer from psychological disorders. And we're not saying absolutely not, we're not saying that this that the medicine that these people might be taking isn't really real. But what we are saying is that the placebo effect is measurable in these psychological disorders as well. And it is no secret that psychological disorders are widely misdiagnosed. Oh yes, I've had many conversations with my wife, the school psychologist, about misdiagnosis, especially in younger people, right, and and some of us we you know, the behavior of a of a young human being, it can seem a ratic in comparison to an older human being. Um, Different disorders manifest at different times. There are a lot of factors at play. It's not a cut and dry thing. So pharmaceutical companies have spent a lot of money researching these diseases specifically, right, Oh yeah, absolutely, And just another thing here been that kind of it struck me as crazy, is that the attitude of the way a doctor comes at your disease and the way they basically whether or whether or not they give you a negative or a positive diagnosis initially is going to change, can change the way the outcome of whatever it is that you're suffering from. Okay, So just whether or not you have a positive or negative outlook on whatever it is that you're going through can change the way it affects you. Okay. So if a doctor comes in and says, you know, I've got great news, Mr Boland, your hammer toe will be completely solved by this operation that we're doing, or not operation that's important was solved by this pill or even better disinjection, right versus we've got terrible news, Mr Bolan, There's only one hope for your hammer toe. It's this amputate amputate placebo. That one back, all right, So now it's time for the largest reason. Maybe we'll do a drum roll and then that the honor is yours. So the most interesting reason that it seems the placebo effect is increasing is because our our range, our scope is getting much larger, and we're we're looking at many more developing nations um and getting data from developing nations that have access to drugs that they have never really had access to before. And it's Western medicine. And there's there's kind of this, uh, this thought that Western medicine is very powerful, and the belief in this medicine itself is very strong in a lot of developing nations. So when you give someone in a developing nation a let's say a handful of pills and you say this is going to cure x for you, the strengthen that belief of that medicine, even if it's a placebo, it's so great that it seems to be almost larger there. So the expectancy, which is key in in the effect of a placebo, means that placebos in developing or poor countries actually do better than they would in a developed country. Yeah, it's pretty pretty weird, isn't it. Yes, And so that's what you mean by scope, right, So since the I see what you're saying, Since we're measuring from a much larger sample size, we're bringing up the average. And you know, we'd be remiss if we didn't point it out. A lot of not a lot, but some of those conspiracy theories about the way that pharmaceutical corporations handle experimental trials and developing countries have a grain of truth to them. As a matter of fact, a few of them are absolutely true. Um, so there is there's a wealth of information that we could examine there in a in a larger context. And there's a lot here that we're not touching on too much about the the prevalence of organized medicine, the way it's organized. Does the A M A do more harm than good? That's one that we here brought up a lot. And uh, I don't know about you, man, but I'd love to examine those in the future and hear what our listeners think about this. But first, before we tell you how to contact us, let's hit one last thing. Then, okay, what's that. Let's talk about the power of belief and it's limitations. Good, yes, uh, sort of the the future, the going forward of the placebo effects. Now we've explained a couple of reasons why, um, the methodology or the sample size may have changed to affect the placebo We also talked about the expectations of medicine and disorder. So now it's time to talk about how we can use this information you me, everybody listening to UH to bring forth hopefully fruitful changes. Well, yeah, then, yes, here's here's the here's the thing. In some cases, even if you know you're taking a placebo effect, it still seems to have an effect. That's that's pretty crazy, right, So even if you're aware that you are just taking a sugar pill, you can convince yourself that it's not just a sugar pill and it may help you. Yes, that's true. So what we're saying is that it may be possible to construct psychological strategies that hack a patient h to to exploit the placebo effect for positive results. Now are better results rather? Now we know, of course, that if someone is, for instance, horrifically burned you can't give them a sugar pill and solve their problems. Absolutely not. They're they're definite limits to this. If there weren't, then everybody would just live forever. Right. But we we do know that there is We are in a pioneering age of exploration between the relationship between the human minds and the human body, and the placebo effect is much more likely to be the tip of the iceberg than it is the iceberg entire um. So although we know why it's increasing, we do know that there's something to it, and it's reminded me of a lot of other sort of placebo effect related things about the mind having power over the body. But before I get under rant, before we go too long, um, we've already built up our case for pharmaceutical shenanigans in the developed world, which we will return to, and we've already touched on some of the conspiratorial things that people say about alternative medicine versus western medicine, and we want to hear what you think about it, because all of our best ideas come directly from you, the listener, And to prove that, let's do some listener mail. Matt, what do you say absolutely let's get started with Kelly E. M. She wrote to us and said, Hey, guys, I'm really enjoying your podcast so far. You sometimes seem concerned that the episode is running too long, but in my opinion, the episodes are too short. Your conversations are really engaging and I want to hear more details and nuances about each topic. Keep up the good work, Kelly. Wow, well, then I feel bad that we're reading that at the end. Yeah. Well, Kelly, thank you so much for writing in. We really appreciate your input. And you know, sometimes the time constraints, we we just put them on our ourselves because we kind of have to get in and out of here quickly. There's so many people using this, uh, this recording studio. But you know what, I think we can make time. We'll see what we can do. Um. In some cases they may be a little longer. In other cases, maybe they may be a little shorter, but hopefully you'll enjoy them. Yeah. Hey, one interesting thing Kelly that you might want to know is that all of our podcast, probably about an hour and a half, we record them and they get heavily redacted. I'm so kidding. I'm kidding. We we do We are really excited to have a longer um show opportunity, and we're gonna see how how much we can fit into the audio episodes before the powers that be catch us down and tear it takes us down. Yeah. Um so in the meantime as we build this crazy house of cards in a windy room, wish us luck with the next level. Let us know what you think. Do Please find us on Facebook and become our friend on Facebook. We would really appreciate it. It makes us much less likely to be fired. And if you say, hey, Facebook is for the birds whatever, that's dumb. While speaking of birds, why not try Twitter. We are on there too. We are conspiracy stuff at both of these and guess what, you can always take a page from Kelly's book and send us an email directly. We are conspiracy at Discovery dot com. For more on this topic another unexplained phenomena, visit test tube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.

From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to. Now, Hey, everybody, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and I am then. And today we're gonna be talking about something that I've been doing since i was Oh, we tyke something my mom taught me. Um, whenever i feel like I'm getting sick and you know, we're in the cold season right now, and uh, and I tend to get one nice bout of sickness every year. And I have gotten the sickness ever since I was a little boy. And what my mom would do is give me a giant glass of orange juice and she would say, drink this, it'll make you feel better. And so now even you know, I'm thirty now, and this year, I've been drinking orange juice like a madman because I feel like it's gonna stave off this pickness that's coming on. I know it's coming. But what I've learned over the course of the past few months, so that this is the vitamin C isn't actually doing anything to my immune system. Huh. That our belief that vitamins. Really, yeah, aren't doing anything about that? Well, they're they're probably still good for you, even if even if it's true that they're not doing anything. It's good for my body, but it has no direct effect. Well let's take a more extreme example. UM, do you have asthma? Do you know anyone who has asthma? I did have asthma as a child. Oh yeah, I grew out of it. Huh. I had wimpy white boy syndrome. What the heck is that? And that's something that my wife has talked to me about. Uh, I don't know. It's something about our genes. Man, I got all these recessive genes in me allegedly. You know, a little little white boys, they tend to get a little sick. I used to be hooked up to one of those machines a respirator at night. Really I was a kid. Yeah wow, Well luckily this was you were not that person I was talking about. Then in a novel that I really enjoyed, it was pretty creepy, called it by Stephen King. Listeners, some of you may have read it already, UM, and I'm sure a lot of people have seen the mini series. UM read the book I hate to be that guy. But the book is crazy good and scary and freaky. Um. Anyhow, in it, there is a character named Eddie cass Brack or something like that, Eddie k will call it. Eddie is a bit of a hypochondriac and he has a very overbearing mother, and Eddie's mother is convinced that Eddie has asthma. Eddie himself is also convinced that he has asthma. And there's a spoiler alert here, and I feel like it's not too not too um crappy of me to say this because it's been out for a while. You're not really breaking the story, then, I'm not breaking Yeah, I'm not breaking a huge plot point in the story. Um. One thing that you find throughout the story is that Eddie Kay doesn't have asthma, and the entire time that he thought he did as a child, his pharmacist was trying to play kate his mother by giving him just an inhaler that had some stuff sprayed in it to give it a medicinal crappy taste. And despite the fact that this was pretty much foul tasting water, it cured Eddie's imagined asthma. Every time, ladies and gentlemen. What Matt and I are talking about today is the placebo effect. And a placebo effect is not just something that allows a a purported medicine to fix a psychological or psycho somatic disease. It can actually cure real conditions. And from what we've been learning when we did an episode on this, apparently the placebo effect is getting stronger. What do you think, Matt, Oh, that is so crazy to me. So what we're really talking about here is the power of the human brain and the mind and belief, the power of belief. And this is where it gets a little weird for me because I have a hard time really grasping some of this stuff because it seems so pseudo scientific. It seems almost almost spiritual in a way, um, where it kind of it bridges that mind body gap. Um. It's tough for me to wrap my head around really, but it's fascinating. My god, it's fascinating. Uh. What if I give you a pill that will help you wrap your head around it? See what that would probably work? I don't know, might have to be from a doctor least at least have All Right, well, let's start digging into this then, okay, so let's define it first. The placebo effect according to rational Wiki, which we wanted to check out here because we figured they would have the least spiritualized definition. Right, So, they say, it's a psycho somatic phenomenon in which symptoms of a disease or condition lesson or even appear to be comcured completely from the patient being merely exposed to a treatment. Now, this is important because it means symptoms might disappear, they might feel better, they might actually be better. Um, whether or not the treatment they were given had any real medicinal effect or or active chemical or pharmacological agent in there. That means just the idea that you are somehow being treated can affect your your mind such that your mind makes effects on your body. Imagine yourself. Well, it's so crazy. It just it's almost as though it's allowing it's allowing you to unlock your your immune system that already exists within you to fight off whatever the thing is that you're trying to beat. Right, and we know that we know that there are there are some measurable effects of the mental outlook on the human body mind over matter. If you will, right, um, and it's strange because you and I did an episode a while back that we rereleased recently asking whether or not the placebo effect is getting stronger. Now we dug into it with some more details in this podcast, and we have some interesting things to tell to tell all you lovely guys and ladies out there today. Um but before we get to that, let's just say some weird, maybe disturbing, maybe cool facts about the placebo effect. Um. One, the packaging matters. Yeah, the packaging on the pill matters. If it's flashy, it looks like they spend a lot of money creating this package, which means, hey, maybe they spend a lot of money creating this pill or whatever this solution is that I'm taking. That's crazy. Yeah, And it's it's an effect that also transcends medicine. People will judge wine that seems to come in a more expensive bottle as a better wine. Oh yeah, oh totally. Well. And here's another weird thing. Ben older drugs, the real drugs that actually have some kind of active agent in them, don't seem to work as well anymore because they're they're older. And I don't know this, this is really weird. There are a lot of things you can get into with this fact. But okay, so somebody's perception of it as less effective, well, because that's been around for a long time. UM, as opposed to this new drug that is essentially the same thing and possibly even has the same active ingredient in it, will be strong will have a stronger effect. And there's another thing. There's a huge debate between the medical communities, the respective little islands and the archipelago of medicine. There's this huge debate about how alternative medicine quote unquote or homeopathy works. Uh. Some people believe that it's entirely due to the placebo effect. That if you really believe you're drinking you know, energized water or you are having a your chakras aligned, that the simple belief that a patient might have that this is working is the engine behind the results. Now, we're not doing an episode right now on an alternative medicine or homeopathy or or any of that stuff. We will do an episode on it if you would like to hear it in the future. UM. Interesting other facts about the placebo effect. It has been observed in both animals and babies, and that's the weird thing about that, Ben, is that it usually requires some kind of conditioning, which basically just means someone telling you, hey, Ben, I'm giving you this pill and it's going to help with your prasides. Yeah, you have to know what is what the mechanism is. It's not learned, yes exactly, but but it's shown to work in babies and animals. And how the heck do you translate for let's say an orca whale that this medicine that you're giving it is going to help with its fin I don't know, but oreca whales are murderously intelligent, It's true, so they might. They might. They'll be able to pick it up. Maybe intelligent. Yeah right, Um, so we said placebos are more expensive, work better. We also know that if you if you have more of a placebo, then you will feel like it's more effective. You know, just like when you're taking real medicine, take two pills, then it'll have an increased effect. Apparently that even works when the medicine is fake. So if you take two sugar pills or you know, blue sky cough medicine doses or whatever, then it will it will have more of a dramatic placebo effect well, and it's also shown that more, the more dramatic, the way you get the medicine, the way it's given to you, the better it's gonna work. So what do you mean, So if I just give you a pill that you have to take, uh, it's gonna have a certain effect. But if I roll up with a syringe and give you an injection of just some sailine, then you know that's that's that's an intensive thing that I've just given you a drug that requires to go directly into your bloodstream. Yeah, it's gonna make you feel like I'm doing more and uh, and it's probably gonna work better. So we could also extend that maybe too when the doctor is talking with you. If the doctor sits you down and says, you know, Matthew, this is an astonishing new experimental treatment. This will cure you. Yeah, then you'll be more likely to feel the effects. Right. Yeah, we're coming from a place of authority. We've and you know, we've explored this before been but that authoritative voice of someone who seems at least seems to be an expert in something, that information comes off much more strongly. All you need is that subtitle at the bottom of the screen. Right expert on insert x here. Uh. Yeah, we also know that um placebos can overpower real pharmacological effects. So people, for instance, who were given drugs to induce nausea didn't develop symptoms when they were told the treatment would actually wait for it relieve nausea. That's what Yeah, Uh, I just need I just need to sit down for a second. Ben, I think I think my uh my anti nausea medication is working well. Now, we we can while while Matt's trying not to throw out we can we can skim over some of these because we've got a lot of facts that people have to get get too. But the primary thing we wanted to talk about is um that the placebo effect does appear to be getting stronger over time. And some of this is due to the idea that our expectations of medicine, not just what medicine treats, but what medicine is, have changed over time. So here's the question, Matt, is the placebo effect becoming stronger or are we measuring things differently? What what gives? That's an excellent question. So this goes to there are a couple things we're gonna be able to talk about here. Um, but wow, man, the most important one, I'm gonna we're gonna leave for the end because I think that's the most interesting. Um about how about how how wide the measurements are? Well, we'll go back to that. We go back to that one. The most interesting. Um. So, from two thousand two to two thousand six, the number of drugs that were axed after phase two clinical trials. That that's the volunteer trials. Okay, the poor college student trials exactly. Yes, Well, they increased because the drugs couldn't beat the placebos that they were being compared to, which is wild. It's wild, man, Yeah, and they're they're Also when we dug into this, we found that there were a few big factors that generated this appearance of an increase in the placebo effect. Um. The first one, and one of the big keys is powerful advertising. And it makes sense if you think about it, right, because advertising affects the mind, and the placebo effect is a product of mind. And man, that again, it's that mind body connection that it's so fascinating. We're gonna have to have some kind of large series just on this bend, just on the mind body connection. And you know what we need to do. We need to get uh, we need to get the people from stuff with blow your mind. Oh yeah, that'd be cool. That's what we should do. Maybe you and Robert and Julie and I can all take a vision quest. So the the other interesting thing here is that for anyone who doesn't know the at least the Western pharmaceutical industry, which is the vast majority of the international pharmaceutical industry, spends so much money on advertising. Now you would think that people would spend so much more money on research and design. How can we cure HIV? How can we cure insert disease here? But how can we sell more of my drug? Right? A lot of it is more. How can we how can we get people to take more ZR tech? Yeah, and not only sell it monetarily, but sell it to you that it works, that it's a real thing that is functioning and effective. And this goes to something else that I want to talk about. Now. We're saving the big one for the end, but not. Another reason for the increase in the perception of the placebo effect is that we have a much larger pool of diseases now, and psychological disorders have begun to be counted as something. You know, so, oh you're depressed, Oh you're you're you're you have O c D of some sort, you have a d h D for instance, and and and various things that would be qualified as psychological disorders rather than physical disorders. Sleep So well, sometimes you feel guilty. You should take this and look at this cute animation that we've created for it. See pay no attention to the fine prints about these terrible side effects and the weird dreams. Oh yeah, may cause vivid hallucinations, strange dreams, side urination, whatever that is. Uh yeah, Well, now, of course we're not saying this to in any way denigrade people who do suffer from psychological disorders. And we're not saying absolutely not, we're not saying that this that the medicine that these people might be taking isn't really real. But what we are saying is that the placebo effect is measurable in these psychological disorders as well. And it is no secret that psychological disorders are widely misdiagnosed. Oh yes, I've had many conversations with my wife, the school psychologist, about misdiagnosis, especially in younger people, right, and and some of us we you know, the behavior of a of a young human being, it can seem a ratic in comparison to an older human being. Um, Different disorders manifest at different times. There are a lot of factors at play. It's not a cut and dry thing. So pharmaceutical companies have spent a lot of money researching these diseases specifically, right, Oh yeah, absolutely, And just another thing here been that kind of it struck me as crazy, is that the attitude of the way a doctor comes at your disease and the way they basically whether or whether or not they give you a negative or a positive diagnosis initially is going to change, can change the way the outcome of whatever it is that you're suffering from. Okay, So just whether or not you have a positive or negative outlook on whatever it is that you're going through can change the way it affects you. Okay. So if a doctor comes in and says, you know, I've got great news, Mr Boland, your hammer toe will be completely solved by this operation that we're doing, or not operation that's important was solved by this pill or even better disinjection, right versus we've got terrible news, Mr Bolan, There's only one hope for your hammer toe. It's this amputate amputate placebo. That one back, all right, So now it's time for the largest reason. Maybe we'll do a drum roll and then that the honor is yours. So the most interesting reason that it seems the placebo effect is increasing is because our our range, our scope is getting much larger, and we're we're looking at many more developing nations um and getting data from developing nations that have access to drugs that they have never really had access to before. And it's Western medicine. And there's there's kind of this, uh, this thought that Western medicine is very powerful, and the belief in this medicine itself is very strong in a lot of developing nations. So when you give someone in a developing nation a let's say a handful of pills and you say this is going to cure x for you, the strengthen that belief of that medicine, even if it's a placebo, it's so great that it seems to be almost larger there. So the expectancy, which is key in in the effect of a placebo, means that placebos in developing or poor countries actually do better than they would in a developed country. Yeah, it's pretty pretty weird, isn't it. Yes, And so that's what you mean by scope, right, So since the I see what you're saying, Since we're measuring from a much larger sample size, we're bringing up the average. And you know, we'd be remiss if we didn't point it out. A lot of not a lot, but some of those conspiracy theories about the way that pharmaceutical corporations handle experimental trials and developing countries have a grain of truth to them. As a matter of fact, a few of them are absolutely true. Um, so there is there's a wealth of information that we could examine there in a in a larger context. And there's a lot here that we're not touching on too much about the the prevalence of organized medicine, the way it's organized. Does the A M A do more harm than good? That's one that we here brought up a lot. And uh, I don't know about you, man, but I'd love to examine those in the future and hear what our listeners think about this. But first, before we tell you how to contact us, let's hit one last thing. Then, okay, what's that. Let's talk about the power of belief and it's limitations. Good, yes, uh, sort of the the future, the going forward of the placebo effects. Now we've explained a couple of reasons why, um, the methodology or the sample size may have changed to affect the placebo We also talked about the expectations of medicine and disorder. So now it's time to talk about how we can use this information you me, everybody listening to UH to bring forth hopefully fruitful changes. Well, yeah, then, yes, here's here's the here's the thing. In some cases, even if you know you're taking a placebo effect, it still seems to have an effect. That's that's pretty crazy, right, So even if you're aware that you are just taking a sugar pill, you can convince yourself that it's not just a sugar pill and it may help you. Yes, that's true. So what we're saying is that it may be possible to construct psychological strategies that hack a patient h to to exploit the placebo effect for positive results. Now are better results rather? Now we know, of course, that if someone is, for instance, horrifically burned you can't give them a sugar pill and solve their problems. Absolutely not. They're they're definite limits to this. If there weren't, then everybody would just live forever. Right. But we we do know that there is We are in a pioneering age of exploration between the relationship between the human minds and the human body, and the placebo effect is much more likely to be the tip of the iceberg than it is the iceberg entire um. So although we know why it's increasing, we do know that there's something to it, and it's reminded me of a lot of other sort of placebo effect related things about the mind having power over the body. But before I get under rant, before we go too long, um, we've already built up our case for pharmaceutical shenanigans in the developed world, which we will return to, and we've already touched on some of the conspiratorial things that people say about alternative medicine versus western medicine, and we want to hear what you think about it, because all of our best ideas come directly from you, the listener, And to prove that, let's do some listener mail. Matt, what do you say absolutely let's get started with Kelly E. M. She wrote to us and said, Hey, guys, I'm really enjoying your podcast so far. You sometimes seem concerned that the episode is running too long, but in my opinion, the episodes are too short. Your conversations are really engaging and I want to hear more details and nuances about each topic. Keep up the good work, Kelly. Wow, well, then I feel bad that we're reading that at the end. Yeah. Well, Kelly, thank you so much for writing in. We really appreciate your input. And you know, sometimes the time constraints, we we just put them on our ourselves because we kind of have to get in and out of here quickly. There's so many people using this, uh, this recording studio. But you know what, I think we can make time. We'll see what we can do. Um. In some cases they may be a little longer. In other cases, maybe they may be a little shorter, but hopefully you'll enjoy them. Yeah. Hey, one interesting thing Kelly that you might want to know is that all of our podcast, probably about an hour and a half, we record them and they get heavily redacted. I'm so kidding. I'm kidding. We we do We are really excited to have a longer um show opportunity, and we're gonna see how how much we can fit into the audio episodes before the powers that be catch us down and tear it takes us down. Yeah. Um so in the meantime as we build this crazy house of cards in a windy room, wish us luck with the next level. Let us know what you think. Do Please find us on Facebook and become our friend on Facebook. We would really appreciate it. It makes us much less likely to be fired. And if you say, hey, Facebook is for the birds whatever, that's dumb. While speaking of birds, why not try Twitter. We are on there too. We are conspiracy stuff at both of these and guess what, you can always take a page from Kelly's book and send us an email directly. We are conspiracy at Discovery dot com. For more on this topic another unexplained phenomena, visit test tube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.