Medical Myth #6 is the notion that placebo’s don’t work.  The fact is that they work incredibly well, and we all should embrace them as a legitimate means of healing.  Here is our first incredible example—

“In 2002 an unusual study from Houstons VA Medical Center was published. It was a study about surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee, a condition that causes pain and disability due to thinning and breakdown of cartilage (the padding) in the joint. Patients occasionally have surgery to shave off the rough edges of the cartilage, or sometimes to wash out the knee joint. There were three groups of patients in the VA study: one group got the cartilage in their knees shaved, another group got their knees washed out, and one got an elaborate act. When the patient arrived in the operating room he was given anesthetic and the surgeon was then handed a sealed envelope telling him which surgery to perform. If the card inside the envelope said placebo, three incisions were made in the skin but nothing surgical was done to the knee joint. In case the patient was able to subconsciously hear or feel, water was splashed to simulate the sounds of the surgical procedure. In addition, the patient was kept in the operating room for the length of an actual surgery, during which the surgeon asked for all instruments and manipulated the knee as if surgery was being done. The operating room staff was sworn to secrecy, and outside the operating room no one was told which surgery the patient had undergone. The study results were shocking to many, including the orthopedic physicians who perform knee surgeries every day: the two real surgeries had been no more effective than the sham surgery. In retrospect, perhaps this should not have been surprising. Osteoarthritis is due to thinning of the knee cartilage, and there never was a good or even very feasible argument for why either of the treatments, shaving or washing, should work; after all, neither cures or reverses the thinning. But what is surprising even in retrospect is that all of the groups showed significant improvement in knee pain and function. In an article about the study and a closely related smaller study by the same researchers, one gentleman who had been enrolled told an interviewer that he was now able to mow his lawn and walk wherever he wanted, and added, The surgery was two years ago and the knee has never bothered me since. Its just like my other knee now.  He was in the placebo surgery group.”