Placebos In Antidepressants

In addition to therapy being an alternative for antidepressants, there is the possible substitute to a daily dosed drug, placebos. A placebo is a substance such as a pill or shot that doesn’t contain any medicine. Placebos are typically used in clinical trials and used as a control for the testing of a real new medication. The main reason a trial has a placebo group is to ensure that any effects that happen are actually caused by the treatment and not some other factors. Many believe that the placebo effect serves no beneficial purpose and only occurs because the patient believes in the substance, the treatment, or the doctor. But this isn’t the case, placebos do in fact produce a beneficial purpose. The cause of the placebo effect is due to
The National Institute of Health posted an article explaining what placebos were and how they were conducted in a study by a team lead by Dr. Jon-Kar Zubieta, a doctor of medicine from the University of Utah, to test the use of a placebos in antidepressants. In this study, the group of scientists enrolled 35 people who suffered from major depression and were currently not taking any medications. The participants were randomly assigned to receive placebo pills that were described as a fast acting antidepressant. One group received a pill that was told to work as a depressant and contained medication, the active placebo group. The other group were given an identical pill but was told it actually a placebo with no medication, the inactive placebo group. Each group took their pills for a whole week, then after a few days, the groups switched. At the end of each week of treatment, the participants completed a questionnaire about their depression symptoms. Every participant underwent a PET brain scan to measure the activity of their opioid receptors, known to be involved in emotion, stress, social rewards, and depression. During the scan, the active placebo group’s participants shown to have numerous doses of saline with the understanding that it would activate brain systems involved in mood improvement. The inactive group’s participants shown no doses during the scan. The researchers
One of the arguments between the two sides is that placebos may not have a long term effect compared to actual antidepressants. The effects of a placebo releases the body’s relieving factors and some say that these positive effects only last a short amount of time and has no long term impact. Since the body naturally releases its own kind of painkiller and relief, it’s thought that these endorphins can only work for a short period of time. If someone were prescribed to take medications that was thought to be working antidepressants rather than in reality only being placebos, the patient wouldn’t have long lasting effects of their endorphins throughout the day. The most hard hitting debate over placebos and antidepressants is that placebos can be seen to be unethical. For example, in earlier times placebos were sometimes given by doctors out of frustration or desperation, because nothing else was available or seemed to work. A 2008 study found that nearly half of the doctors polled said that they used a placebo when they felt that it might help the patient feel better. (American Cancer Society medical content team) Isn’t it wrong for doctors to prescribe and charge their patients a pill that has no medication in it at all? Not to