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Speaker 1: From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to. Now, Hey, everybody,

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Speaker 1: welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and

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Speaker 1: I am then. And today we're gonna be talking about

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Speaker 1: something that I've been doing since i was Oh, we

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Speaker 1: tyke something my mom taught me. Um, whenever i feel

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Speaker 1: like I'm getting sick and you know, we're in the

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Speaker 1: cold season right now, and uh, and I tend to

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Speaker 1: get one nice bout of sickness every year. And I

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Speaker 1: have gotten the sickness ever since I was a little boy.

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Speaker 1: And what my mom would do is give me a

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Speaker 1: giant glass of orange juice and she would say, drink this,

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Speaker 1: it'll make you feel better. And so now even you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm thirty now, and this year, I've been drinking orange

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Speaker 1: juice like a madman because I feel like it's gonna

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Speaker 1: stave off this pickness that's coming on. I know it's coming.

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Speaker 1: But what I've learned over the course of the past

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Speaker 1: few months, so that this is the vitamin C isn't

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Speaker 1: actually doing anything to my immune system. Huh. That our

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Speaker 1: belief that vitamins. Really, yeah, aren't doing anything about that? Well,

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Speaker 1: they're they're probably still good for you, even if even

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Speaker 1: if it's true that they're not doing anything. It's good

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Speaker 1: for my body, but it has no direct effect. Well

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Speaker 1: let's take a more extreme example. UM, do you have asthma?

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Speaker 1: Do you know anyone who has asthma? I did have

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Speaker 1: asthma as a child. Oh yeah, I grew out of it. Huh.

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Speaker 1: I had wimpy white boy syndrome. What the heck is that?

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Speaker 1: And that's something that my wife has talked to me about. Uh,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. It's something about our genes. Man, I

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Speaker 1: got all these recessive genes in me allegedly. You know,

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Speaker 1: a little little white boys, they tend to get a

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Speaker 1: little sick. I used to be hooked up to one

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Speaker 1: of those machines a respirator at night. Really I was

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Speaker 1: a kid. Yeah wow, Well luckily this was you were

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Speaker 1: not that person I was talking about. Then in a

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Speaker 1: novel that I really enjoyed, it was pretty creepy, called

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Speaker 1: it by Stephen King. Listeners, some of you may have

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Speaker 1: read it already, UM, and I'm sure a lot of

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Speaker 1: people have seen the mini series. UM read the book

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Speaker 1: I hate to be that guy. But the book is

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Speaker 1: crazy good and scary and freaky. Um. Anyhow, in it,

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Speaker 1: there is a character named Eddie cass Brack or something

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Speaker 1: like that, Eddie k will call it. Eddie is a

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Speaker 1: bit of a hypochondriac and he has a very overbearing mother,

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Speaker 1: and Eddie's mother is convinced that Eddie has asthma. Eddie

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Speaker 1: himself is also convinced that he has asthma. And there's

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Speaker 1: a spoiler alert here, and I feel like it's not

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Speaker 1: too not too um crappy of me to say this

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Speaker 1: because it's been out for a while. You're not really

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Speaker 1: breaking the story, then, I'm not breaking Yeah, I'm not

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Speaker 1: breaking a huge plot point in the story. Um. One

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Speaker 1: thing that you find throughout the story is that Eddie

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Speaker 1: Kay doesn't have asthma, and the entire time that he

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Speaker 1: thought he did as a child, his pharmacist was trying

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Speaker 1: to play kate his mother by giving him just an

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Speaker 1: inhaler that had some stuff sprayed in it to give

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Speaker 1: it a medicinal crappy taste. And despite the fact that

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Speaker 1: this was pretty much foul tasting water, it cured Eddie's

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Speaker 1: imagined asthma. Every time, ladies and gentlemen. What Matt and

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Speaker 1: I are talking about today is the placebo effect. And

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Speaker 1: a placebo effect is not just something that allows a

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Speaker 1: a purported medicine to fix a psychological or psycho somatic disease.

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Speaker 1: It can actually cure real conditions. And from what we've

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Speaker 1: been learning when we did an episode on this, apparently

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Speaker 1: the placebo effect is getting stronger. What do you think, Matt, Oh,

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Speaker 1: that is so crazy to me. So what we're really

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Speaker 1: talking about here is the power of the human brain

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Speaker 1: and the mind and belief, the power of belief. And

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Speaker 1: this is where it gets a little weird for me

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Speaker 1: because I have a hard time really grasping some of

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Speaker 1: this stuff because it seems so pseudo scientific. It seems

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Speaker 1: almost almost spiritual in a way, um, where it kind

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Speaker 1: of it bridges that mind body gap. Um. It's tough

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Speaker 1: for me to wrap my head around really, but it's fascinating.

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Speaker 1: My god, it's fascinating. Uh. What if I give you

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Speaker 1: a pill that will help you wrap your head around it?

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Speaker 1: See what that would probably work? I don't know, might

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Speaker 1: have to be from a doctor least at least have

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Speaker 1: All Right, well, let's start digging into this then, okay,

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Speaker 1: so let's define it first. The placebo effect according to

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Speaker 1: rational Wiki, which we wanted to check out here because

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Speaker 1: we figured they would have the least spiritualized definition. Right, So,

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Speaker 1: they say, it's a psycho somatic phenomenon in which symptoms

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Speaker 1: of a disease or condition lesson or even appear to

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Speaker 1: be comcured completely from the patient being merely exposed to

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Speaker 1: a treatment. Now, this is important because it means symptoms

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Speaker 1: might disappear, they might feel better, they might actually be better. Um,

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Speaker 1: whether or not the treatment they were given had any

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Speaker 1: real medicinal effect or or active chemical or pharmacological agent

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Speaker 1: in there. That means just the idea that you are

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Speaker 1: somehow being treated can affect your your mind such that

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Speaker 1: your mind makes effects on your body. Imagine yourself. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's so crazy. It just it's almost as though it's

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Speaker 1: allowing it's allowing you to unlock your your immune system

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Speaker 1: that already exists within you to fight off whatever the

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Speaker 1: thing is that you're trying to beat. Right, and we

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Speaker 1: know that we know that there are there are some

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Speaker 1: measurable effects of the mental outlook on the human body

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Speaker 1: mind over matter. If you will, right, um, and it's

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Speaker 1: strange because you and I did an episode a while

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Speaker 1: back that we rereleased recently asking whether or not the

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Speaker 1: placebo effect is getting stronger. Now we dug into it

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Speaker 1: with some more details in this podcast, and we have

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Speaker 1: some interesting things to tell to tell all you lovely

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Speaker 1: guys and ladies out there today. Um but before we

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Speaker 1: get to that, let's just say some weird, maybe disturbing,

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Speaker 1: maybe cool facts about the placebo effect. Um. One, the

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Speaker 1: packaging matters. Yeah, the packaging on the pill matters. If

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Speaker 1: it's flashy, it looks like they spend a lot of

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Speaker 1: money creating this package, which means, hey, maybe they spend

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Speaker 1: a lot of money creating this pill or whatever this

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Speaker 1: solution is that I'm taking. That's crazy. Yeah, And it's

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Speaker 1: it's an effect that also transcends medicine. People will judge

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Speaker 1: wine that seems to come in a more expensive bottle

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Speaker 1: as a better wine. Oh yeah, oh totally. Well. And

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Speaker 1: here's another weird thing. Ben older drugs, the real drugs

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Speaker 1: that actually have some kind of active agent in them,

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Speaker 1: don't seem to work as well anymore because they're they're older.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know this, this is really weird. There

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Speaker 1: are a lot of things you can get into with

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Speaker 1: this fact. But okay, so somebody's perception of it as

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Speaker 1: less effective, well, because that's been around for a long time. UM,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to this new drug that is essentially the

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Speaker 1: same thing and possibly even has the same active ingredient

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Speaker 1: in it, will be strong will have a stronger effect.

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Speaker 1: And there's another thing. There's a huge debate between the

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Speaker 1: medical communities, the respective little islands and the archipelago of medicine.

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Speaker 1: There's this huge debate about how alternative medicine quote unquote

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Speaker 1: or homeopathy works. Uh. Some people believe that it's entirely

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Speaker 1: due to the placebo effect. That if you really believe

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Speaker 1: you're drinking you know, energized water or you are having

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Speaker 1: a your chakras aligned, that the simple belief that a

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Speaker 1: patient might have that this is working is the engine

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Speaker 1: behind the results. Now, we're not doing an episode right

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Speaker 1: now on an alternative medicine or homeopathy or or any

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Speaker 1: of that stuff. We will do an episode on it

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Speaker 1: if you would like to hear it in the future. UM.

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Speaker 1: Interesting other facts about the placebo effect. It has been

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Speaker 1: observed in both animals and babies, and that's the weird

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Speaker 1: thing about that, Ben, is that it usually requires some

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Speaker 1: kind of conditioning, which basically just means someone telling you, hey, Ben,

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Speaker 1: I'm giving you this pill and it's going to help

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Speaker 1: with your prasides. Yeah, you have to know what is

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Speaker 1: what the mechanism is. It's not learned, yes exactly, but

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Speaker 1: but it's shown to work in babies and animals. And

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Speaker 1: how the heck do you translate for let's say an

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Speaker 1: orca whale that this medicine that you're giving it is

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Speaker 1: going to help with its fin I don't know, but

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Speaker 1: oreca whales are murderously intelligent, It's true, so they might.

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Speaker 1: They might. They'll be able to pick it up. Maybe intelligent.

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Speaker 1: Yeah right, Um, so we said placebos are more expensive,

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Speaker 1: work better. We also know that if you if you

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Speaker 1: have more of a placebo, then you will feel like

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Speaker 1: it's more effective. You know, just like when you're taking

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Speaker 1: real medicine, take two pills, then it'll have an increased effect.

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Speaker 1: Apparently that even works when the medicine is fake. So

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Speaker 1: if you take two sugar pills or you know, blue

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Speaker 1: sky cough medicine doses or whatever, then it will it

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Speaker 1: will have more of a dramatic placebo effect well, and

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Speaker 1: it's also shown that more, the more dramatic, the way

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Speaker 1: you get the medicine, the way it's given to you,

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Speaker 1: the better it's gonna work. So what do you mean,

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Speaker 1: So if I just give you a pill that you

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Speaker 1: have to take, uh, it's gonna have a certain effect.

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Speaker 1: But if I roll up with a syringe and give

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Speaker 1: you an injection of just some sailine, then you know

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Speaker 1: that's that's that's an intensive thing that I've just given

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Speaker 1: you a drug that requires to go directly into your bloodstream. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's gonna make you feel like I'm doing more and uh,

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Speaker 1: and it's probably gonna work better. So we could also

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Speaker 1: extend that maybe too when the doctor is talking with you.

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Speaker 1: If the doctor sits you down and says, you know, Matthew,

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Speaker 1: this is an astonishing new experimental treatment. This will cure you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: then you'll be more likely to feel the effects. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're coming from a place of authority. We've and you know,

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Speaker 1: we've explored this before been but that authoritative voice of

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Speaker 1: someone who seems at least seems to be an expert

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Speaker 1: in something, that information comes off much more strongly. All

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Speaker 1: you need is that subtitle at the bottom of the screen.

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Speaker 1: Right expert on insert x here. Uh. Yeah, we also

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Speaker 1: know that um placebos can overpower real pharmacological effects. So people,

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Speaker 1: for instance, who were given drugs to induce nausea didn't

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Speaker 1: develop symptoms when they were told the treatment would actually

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Speaker 1: wait for it relieve nausea. That's what Yeah, Uh, I

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Speaker 1: just need I just need to sit down for a second. Ben,

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Speaker 1: I think I think my uh my anti nausea medication

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Speaker 1: is working well. Now, we we can while while Matt's

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Speaker 1: trying not to throw out we can we can skim

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Speaker 1: over some of these because we've got a lot of

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Speaker 1: facts that people have to get get too. But the

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Speaker 1: primary thing we wanted to talk about is um that

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Speaker 1: the placebo effect does appear to be getting stronger over time.

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Speaker 1: And some of this is due to the idea that

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Speaker 1: our expectations of medicine, not just what medicine treats, but

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Speaker 1: what medicine is, have changed over time. So here's the question, Matt,

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Speaker 1: is the placebo effect becoming stronger or are we measuring

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Speaker 1: things differently? What what gives? That's an excellent question. So

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Speaker 1: this goes to there are a couple things we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be able to talk about here. Um, but wow, man,

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Speaker 1: the most important one, I'm gonna we're gonna leave for

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Speaker 1: the end because I think that's the most interesting. Um

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Speaker 1: about how about how how wide the measurements are? Well,

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Speaker 1: we'll go back to that. We go back to that one.

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Speaker 1: The most interesting. Um. So, from two thousand two to

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Speaker 1: two thousand six, the number of drugs that were axed

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Speaker 1: after phase two clinical trials. That that's the volunteer trials. Okay,

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Speaker 1: the poor college student trials exactly. Yes, Well, they increased

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Speaker 1: because the drugs couldn't beat the placebos that they were

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Speaker 1: being compared to, which is wild. It's wild, man, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and they're they're Also when we dug into this, we

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Speaker 1: found that there were a few big factors that generated

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Speaker 1: this appearance of an increase in the placebo effect. Um.

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Speaker 1: The first one, and one of the big keys is

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Speaker 1: powerful advertising. And it makes sense if you think about it, right,

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Speaker 1: because advertising affects the mind, and the placebo effect is

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Speaker 1: mind body connection that it's so fascinating. We're gonna have

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Speaker 1: to have some kind of large series just on this bend,

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Speaker 1: just on the mind body connection. And you know what

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Speaker 1: we need to do. We need to get uh, we

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Speaker 1: need to get the people from stuff with blow your mind.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that'd be cool. That's what we should do.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you and Robert and Julie and I can all

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Speaker 1: take a vision quest. So the the other interesting thing

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Speaker 1: here is that for anyone who doesn't know the at

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Speaker 1: least the Western pharmaceutical industry, which is the vast majority

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Speaker 1: of the international pharmaceutical industry, spends so much money on advertising.

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Speaker 1: Now you would think that people would spend so much

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Speaker 1: more money on research and design. How can we cure HIV?

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Speaker 1: How can we cure insert disease here? But how can

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Speaker 1: we sell more of my drug? Right? A lot of

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Speaker 1: it is more. How can we how can we get

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Speaker 1: people to take more ZR tech? Yeah, and not only

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Speaker 1: sell it monetarily, but sell it to you that it works,

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Speaker 1: that it's a real thing that is functioning and effective.

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Speaker 1: And this goes to something else that I want to

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Speaker 1: talk about. Now. We're saving the big one for the end,

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Speaker 1: but not. Another reason for the increase in the perception

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Speaker 1: of the placebo effect is that we have a much

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Speaker 1: larger pool of diseases now, and psychological disorders have begun

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Speaker 1: to be counted as something. You know, so, oh you're depressed,

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Speaker 1: Oh you're you're you're you have O c D of

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Speaker 1: some sort, you have a d h D for instance,

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Speaker 1: and and and various things that would be qualified as

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Speaker 1: psychological disorders rather than physical disorders. Sleep So well, sometimes

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Speaker 1: you feel guilty. You should take this and look at

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Speaker 1: this cute animation that we've created for it. See pay

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Speaker 1: no attention to the fine prints about these terrible side

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Speaker 1: effects and the weird dreams. Oh yeah, may cause vivid hallucinations,

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Speaker 1: strange dreams, side urination, whatever that is. Uh yeah, Well, now,

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Speaker 1: of course we're not saying this to in any way

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Speaker 1: denigrade people who do suffer from psychological disorders. And we're

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Speaker 1: not saying absolutely not, we're not saying that this that

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Speaker 1: the medicine that these people might be taking isn't really real.

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Speaker 1: But what we are saying is that the placebo effect

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Speaker 1: is measurable in these psychological disorders as well. And it

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Speaker 1: is no secret that psychological disorders are widely misdiagnosed. Oh yes,

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Speaker 1: I've had many conversations with my wife, the school psychologist,

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Speaker 1: about misdiagnosis, especially in younger people, right, and and some

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Speaker 1: of us we you know, the behavior of a of

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Speaker 1: a young human being, it can seem a ratic in

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Speaker 1: comparison to an older human being. Um, Different disorders manifest

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Speaker 1: at different times. There are a lot of factors at play.

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Speaker 1: It's not a cut and dry thing. So pharmaceutical companies

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Speaker 1: have spent a lot of money researching these diseases specifically, right,

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, And just another thing here been that

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Speaker 1: kind of it struck me as crazy, is that the

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Speaker 1: attitude of the way a doctor comes at your disease

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Speaker 1: and the way they basically whether or whether or not

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Speaker 1: they give you a negative or a positive diagnosis initially

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Speaker 1: is going to change, can change the way the outcome

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Speaker 1: of whatever it is that you're suffering from. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: just whether or not you have a positive or negative

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Speaker 1: outlook on whatever it is that you're going through can

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Speaker 1: change the way it affects you. Okay. So if a

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Speaker 1: doctor comes in and says, you know, I've got great news,

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Speaker 1: Mr Boland, your hammer toe will be completely solved by

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Speaker 1: this operation that we're doing, or not operation that's important

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Speaker 1: was solved by this pill or even better disinjection, right

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Speaker 1: versus we've got terrible news, Mr Bolan, There's only one

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Speaker 1: hope for your hammer toe. It's this amputate amputate placebo.

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Speaker 1: That one back, all right, So now it's time for

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Speaker 1: the largest reason. Maybe we'll do a drum roll and

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Speaker 1: then that the honor is yours. So the most interesting

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Speaker 1: reason that it seems the placebo effect is increasing is

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Speaker 1: because our our range, our scope is getting much larger,

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Speaker 1: and we're we're looking at many more developing nations um

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Speaker 1: and getting data from developing nations that have access to

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Speaker 1: drugs that they have never really had access to before.

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Speaker 1: And it's Western medicine. And there's there's kind of this, uh,

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Speaker 1: this thought that Western medicine is very powerful, and the

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Speaker 1: belief in this medicine itself is very strong in a

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Speaker 1: lot of developing nations. So when you give someone in

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Speaker 1: a developing nation a let's say a handful of pills

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Speaker 1: and you say this is going to cure x for you,

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Speaker 1: the strengthen that belief of that medicine, even if it's

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Speaker 1: a placebo, it's so great that it seems to be

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Speaker 1: almost larger there. So the expectancy, which is key in

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Speaker 1: in the effect of a placebo, means that placebos in

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Speaker 1: developing or poor countries actually do better than they would

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Speaker 1: in a developed country. Yeah, it's pretty pretty weird, isn't it. Yes,

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Speaker 1: And so that's what you mean by scope, right, So

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Speaker 1: since the I see what you're saying, Since we're measuring

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Speaker 1: from a much larger sample size, we're bringing up the average.

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Speaker 1: And you know, we'd be remiss if we didn't point

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Speaker 1: it out. A lot of not a lot, but some

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Speaker 1: of those conspiracy theories about the way that pharmaceutical corporations

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Speaker 1: handle experimental trials and developing countries have a grain of

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Speaker 1: truth to them. As a matter of fact, a few

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Speaker 1: of them are absolutely true. Um, so there is there's

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Speaker 1: a wealth of information that we could examine there in

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Speaker 1: a in a larger context. And there's a lot here

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Speaker 1: that we're not touching on too much about the the

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Speaker 1: prevalence of organized medicine, the way it's organized. Does the

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Speaker 1: A M A do more harm than good? That's one

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Speaker 1: that we here brought up a lot. And uh, I

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Speaker 1: don't know about you, man, but I'd love to examine

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Speaker 1: those in the future and hear what our listeners think

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Speaker 1: about this. But first, before we tell you how to

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Speaker 1: contact us, let's hit one last thing. Then, okay, what's that.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk about the power of belief and it's limitations. Good, yes, uh,

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Speaker 1: sort of the the future, the going forward of the

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Speaker 1: placebo effects. Now we've explained a couple of reasons why, um,

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Speaker 1: the methodology or the sample size may have changed to

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Speaker 1: affect the placebo We also talked about the expectations of

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Speaker 1: medicine and disorder. So now it's time to talk about

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Speaker 1: how we can use this information you me, everybody listening

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Speaker 1: to UH to bring forth hopefully fruitful changes. Well, yeah, then, yes,

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Speaker 1: here's here's the here's the thing. In some cases, even

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Speaker 1: if you know you're taking a placebo effect, it still

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Speaker 1: seems to have an effect. That's that's pretty crazy, right,

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Speaker 1: So even if you're aware that you are just taking

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Speaker 1: a sugar pill, you can convince yourself that it's not

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Speaker 1: just a sugar pill and it may help you. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that's true. So what we're saying is that it may

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Speaker 1: be possible to construct psychological strategies that hack a patient

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Speaker 1: h to to exploit the placebo effect for positive results.

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Speaker 1: Now are better results rather? Now we know, of course,

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Speaker 1: that if someone is, for instance, horrifically burned you can't

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Speaker 1: give them a sugar pill and solve their problems. Absolutely not.

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Speaker 1: They're they're definite limits to this. If there weren't, then

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Speaker 1: everybody would just live forever. Right. But we we do

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Speaker 1: know that there is We are in a pioneering age

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Speaker 1: of exploration between the relationship between the human minds and

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Speaker 1: the human body, and the placebo effect is much more

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Speaker 1: likely to be the tip of the iceberg than it

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Speaker 1: is the iceberg entire um. So although we know why

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Speaker 1: it's increasing, we do know that there's something to it,

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Speaker 1: and it's reminded me of a lot of other sort

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Speaker 1: of placebo effect related things about the mind having power

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Speaker 1: over the body. But before I get under rant, before

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Speaker 1: we go too long, um, we've already built up our

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Speaker 1: case for pharmaceutical shenanigans in the developed world, which we

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Speaker 1: will return to, and we've already touched on some of

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Speaker 1: the conspiratorial things that people say about alternative medicine versus

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Speaker 1: western medicine, and we want to hear what you think

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Speaker 1: about it, because all of our best ideas come directly

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Speaker 1: from you, the listener, And to prove that, let's do

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Speaker 1: some listener mail. Matt, what do you say absolutely let's

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Speaker 1: get started with Kelly E. M. She wrote to us

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Speaker 1: and said, Hey, guys, I'm really enjoying your podcast so far.

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Speaker 1: You sometimes seem concerned that the episode is running too long,

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Speaker 1: but in my opinion, the episodes are too short. Your

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Speaker 1: conversations are really engaging and I want to hear more

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Speaker 1: details and nuances about each topic. Keep up the good work, Kelly. Wow, well,

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Speaker 1: then I feel bad that we're reading that at the end. Yeah. Well, Kelly,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for writing in. We really appreciate

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Speaker 1: your input. And you know, sometimes the time constraints, we

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Speaker 1: we just put them on our ourselves because we kind

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Speaker 1: of have to get in and out of here quickly.

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Speaker 1: There's so many people using this, uh, this recording studio.

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Speaker 1: But you know what, I think we can make time.

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Speaker 1: We'll see what we can do. Um. In some cases

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Speaker 1: they may be a little longer. In other cases, maybe

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Speaker 1: they may be a little shorter, but hopefully you'll enjoy them. Yeah. Hey,

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Speaker 1: one interesting thing Kelly that you might want to know

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Speaker 1: is that all of our podcast, probably about an hour

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Speaker 1: and a half, we record them and they get heavily redacted.

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Speaker 1: I'm so kidding. I'm kidding. We we do We are

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Speaker 1: really excited to have a longer um show opportunity, and

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Speaker 1: we're gonna see how how much we can fit into

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Speaker 1: the audio episodes before the powers that be catch us

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Speaker 1: down and tear it takes us down. Yeah. Um so

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Speaker 1: in the meantime as we build this crazy house of

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Speaker 1: cards in a windy room, wish us luck with the

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Speaker 1: next level. Let us know what you think. Do Please

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Speaker 1: find us on Facebook and become our friend on Facebook.

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Speaker 1: We would really appreciate it. It makes us much less

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Speaker 1: likely to be fired. And if you say, hey, Facebook

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Speaker 1: is for the birds whatever, that's dumb. While speaking of birds,

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Speaker 1: why not try Twitter. We are on there too. We

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Speaker 1: are conspiracy stuff at both of these and guess what,

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Speaker 1: you can always take a page from Kelly's book and

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Speaker 1: send us an email directly. We are conspiracy at Discovery

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Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this topic another unexplained phenomena,

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Speaker 1: visit test tube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can

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Speaker 1: also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at

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Speaker 1: conspiracy stuff.