Experts: Placebo Power Behind Many Natural Cures

MARILYNN MARCHIONE

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ten years and $2.5 billion in research have found no cures from alternative medicine. Yet these mostly unproven treatments are now mainstream and used by more than a third of all Americans. This is one in an occasional Associated Press series on their use and potential risks.

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People looking for natural cures will be happy to know there is one. Two words explain how it works: "I believe."

It's the placebo effect — the ability of a dummy pill or a faked treatment to make people feel better, just because they expect that it will. It's the mind's ability to alter physical symptoms, such as pain, anxiety and fatigue.

In just the past few weeks, the placebo effect has demonstrated its healing powers. In tests of a new drug to relieve lupus symptoms, about a third of patients felt better when they got dummy pills instead of the drug.

The placebo effect looms large in alternative medicine, which has many therapies and herbal remedies based on beliefs versus science. Often the problems they seek to relieve, such as pain, are subjective.