Reminds me of the snobby Martini drinkers. “Open a bottle of vermouth in the same room to let the fumes touch the glass” “Put a drop of vermouth in the glass, then pour it out and fill with gin.”
According to homeopathic cocktail making theory, you’re now drinking straight vermouth.
No, but your body learns how to deal with alcohol and you won’t become intoxicated.
Well, to be honest, it was on the same planet as some actual medicine.
That’s got to count for something.
I had a friend just the other day who had a cold and asked me what I know about homeopathic medicine. I immediately launched into how it’s complete bunk that’s nothing but water, and was *about *to go into the few details I know in passing and how it could only possibly be effective as a placebo. I was assuming that he was only considering going that route, and was going to tell him not to bother. But he cut me off before I really dug in and somewhat indignantly informed me that he was already taking them (in pill form) and that it was working wonderfully! :smack:
Not wanting to irritate him, nor risk rendering his placebo effect ineffectual, I immediately backpedaled without skipping a beat, and said, “Oh they’re pills? I was talking about the stuff that’s just water, I don’t know anything about the pills. I guess there might be something to those!” 
I felt a little dirty, but I think I did the right thing. If someone is self-administering a placebo, and it’s helping them in some way, I think fighting ignorance should take a back seat, particularly when it’s for something minor like the common cold, where a placebo is probably the most “effective” treatment.
I avoided asking what he paid for them, because it would have been much more difficult for me to keep quiet if he had paid a lot for those sugar (binder, whatever) pills.
To expand on what Kayaker said:
There’s whole range of the effectiveness of a placebo based upon how it’s perceived by the user. A cold remedy syrup that tastes bitter and unpleasant will have a greater placebo effect than one which tastes good. A more expensive placebo will work better than a cheap one. A placebo which is described as having more severe side effects will be perceived as more effective than one with lesser side effects. Even the color of the placebo will affect how people react to it. The subject of how the placebo effect works is rather fascinating.
So that being said, I suspect that the manufacturer came up with a slightly more convoluted way of taking it than simply mixing it in with some water simply because having a more obscure, specific method of ingestion probably gives a stronger placebo effect.
Are there any proper, rigorous academic studies of HOW the placebo effect works? Not whether it works, it certainly does to some extent, but what is actually happening to make the patient better?
No, you’re drinking something that has much more vermouthic effectiveness than straight vermouth would have.
Or better yet, just put it permanently out of your mind; forget you ever heard of it.
Instant cure!
I apologize for lacking any useful cites, but I heard a relatively in-depth interview with a researcher in this field recently.
The best answer, as I recall, is that it’s not well understood but is being increasingly studied. The researcher in question seemed to believe it has a lot to do with the impression that patients are “doing something.” Sorta like the pain/discomfort warning system in our brain is alleviated somewhat by any sort of active intervention, even if the patient knows intellectually that the invervention is meaningless.
Other interesting note from the interview: in at least one trial, they found that placebos and an actual medicine were equally effective at reducing patients’ self-reported pain/discomfort, even though the placebo did not affect the pain-causing physical symptoms yet the actual medicine did. I don’t know what the takeaway really is, but I love that result.
So they want to bypass the stomach to avoid it being dilluted by the hydrochloric acid? Homeopathy sure is weird.
Is the part I bolded that sorta like shaking your thumb if if you hit it, sucking on a minor burn, etc?
It wasn’t mentioned in the interview / lecture I heard, but it seems like it might be related. Those things really DO seem to help, don’t they?
The researcher also mentioned that he thinks part of the efficacy of placebos is interpersonal. Somebody else taking an interest in your problem and trying to intervene lets you offload some of the stress you’re feeling.
This sounds like it was from The Power of Nothing from the December 12, 2011 issue of the New Yorker. Here’s the abstract: The Power of Nothing | The New Yorker
I believe it’s the same researcher, yes. I actually listened to an interview. My money’s on NPR’s Science Friday or another science podcast.