Could it be that Tic Tac's are the ultimate answer to life's aches and pains?
After it was recently discovered that two popular prescription medications have been proved to have no effect on patients, the U.S. health care system is starting to recognize the placebo effect (i.e., sugar pills) as a safe and more affordable alternative to the high priced real pills. As it turns out, this placebo effect is currently re-shaping how science is beginning to approach curing the common cold, arthritis and depression.
How can you be certain you're taking the right kind of medicine? According to a Health Care Poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal, three in every five Americans feel very concerned about receiving the wrong medication or the wrong dosage. And if those three Americans happen all to suffer from arthritis, their fears have just been confirmed.
A recent article from AOL News reported that while herbal cures like Echinacea have been proved to be ineffective in curing the common cold, two outrageously popular (and expensive) arthritis pain medications, glucosamine and chondroitin, have also been tested and proved to relieve as much pain as the aforementioned Tic Tac's.
As outraged as some takers of these prescribed patent medicines should feel after the drugs were proved ineffective, some still swear by the medicine - hence the placebo effect. Instead of the medication working, what actually happens is that a patient's mind simply triggers their body's natural pain relieving chemicals. That, and not the medicine, is why they feel better. The patient could have just as easily have been taking the Tic Tac's to get the same results, which would have been a lot less costly and certainly tastier.
As stated by the Institute of Medicine, 98,000 Americans' lives are cut short by preventable medical errors each year. With ineffective medication and careless casualties by the thousands, there's no wonder people are starting to run as far away from hospitals as possible and continue to spend billions on alternative medicine with unproven results. And this medication meltdown doesn't just end with pain relievers; it is starting to spill over into the world of mental health.
If you haven't poured your prescriptions down the toilet yet, take heed of a 2002 study in Prevention & Treatment where they found that 80 percent of the same elevated responses activated by the six most popular anti-depressants of the 1990's were duplicated by placebos.
According to Time magazine, Steven Hayes' new formal psychotherapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, the best approach to heal those who can not deal with reality, could turn the world of psychiatry upside down. Instead of medication, Hayes' breakthrough method focuses on the patient accepting negative thoughts as just a regular part of everyone's life.
This runs in direct opposition to the currently popular cognitive (what you see is what you get) therapy, which is a long term strategy that forces patients to focus on changing their negative thoughts. This therapy is like focusing on a life-interrupting problem (such as smoking) where a smoker tells him/herself I don't want to smoke
but then, unfortunately, obsesses over avoiding the next smoke instead of the actual goal of getting to a healthier life style.
So what is Hayes' alternative approach? He focuses on modifying thoughts into a simpler form so that the list of rules and details no longer hold sway over our behavior. The sooner we learn to accept the fact that negative thoughts and feelings are a natural part of life, the faster we can learn to start living a complete life instead of only thinking about and being blocked by its negative individual aspects.
Although it seems like there is no way to figure out if you're getting useless cures and snake oil solutions, don't panic. It might be as easy as reaching out for simple relief from a Pez dispenser, which would also present a double benefit. The Pez dispenser can actually become a collectable item, which is much more than you can say for the value of a typical orange medication bottle and the questionable pills inside.
Jessica Beinecke is a freshman journalism major. Send her an email at jb275005@ohio.edu 17
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Jessica Beinecke
