Confronted with a patient suffering from pain or a chronic disease for which no drugs are effective, doctors sometimes prescribe a sugar pill or vitamin. Although these “medications” have no active ingredients, patients often feel better. It’s called the “placebo effect,” and most scientists would say that it works only if the patient doesn’t know the pill is fake. But a new clinical trial shows that patients can get better on a placebo even if they know the truth.

“It’s a fascinating, innovative, and important study,” says Klaus Linde, who studies complementary and alternative medicine at the Technical University in Munich, Germany.

Lead author Ted Kaptchuk of Harvard Medical School in Boston says he set up the trial in part because doctors seem to be struggling with the placebo problem. In a survey among 1200 internists and rheumatologists that Kaptchuk and others published in 2008, roughly half of participants admitted having prescribed placebos. sometimes, these were truly inactive pills, but very often, they were “impure placebos”: vitamins, over-the-counter pain killers, antibiotics, or even sedatives that the physicians believed had no specific action on the disease but might provide a placebo benefit.

Few were upfront with the patients about this, the study showed: Many described the treatment as “a medicine not typically used for your condition that might benefit you,” or words to that effect. that kind of mild deception is widely considered unethical, says Kaptchuk. it also may be unnecessary, according to the new study.

The team recruited 80 people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)—which includes symptoms like chronic abdominal pain, discomfort, and irregular bowel movements—for “a novel mind-body management study of IBS” in fliers and newspapers. all had a 15-minute conversation with a sympathetic doctor or nurse who told them that they would get either placebo pills or no pills at all. They were also told that placebos contain no active ingredient but can have a powerful effect because the body responds to them “like Pavlov’s dogs” to a bell. the placebos—blue and maroon gelatin capsules—were given in a bottle labeled “placebo pills.” There’s no doubt whatsoever that patients realized they were inactive, Kaptchuk says: “They were told so many times, they had it coming out of their ears.”

Three weeks later, those on the pills did significantly better on several scales of patient well-being often used in IBS drug trials. (The scales are all questionnaire-based because IBS severity is impossible to measure objectively.) On the so-called IBS Global Improvement Scale, for instance, in which patients rate improvement on a scale between 1 and 7, those who took the placebo scored an average of 5.0, compared with 3.9 in the control group, the researchers report today in the journal PLoS ONE. the difference is “huge,” says Kaptchuk; in fact, it’s comparable to the improvement seen in many trials of real drugs for IBS.

Kaptchuk says his team isn’t advocating widespread use of placebos just yet. the group is trying to replicate the finding in studies with different diseases and a larger number of patients.

One potential weakness to the study, Linde says, is that because the outcome measure is so subjective, placebo patients may have exaggerated their improvement, for instance, to please the researchers. That’s true, admits study co-author Irving Kirsch, a psychologist at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom—but in this type of study, it’s simply impossible to eliminate this kind of bias, he says.

Trials in which placebos are used openly have been extremely rare, says Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin in Italy. One such study was carried out in neurotic patients 45 years ago, but it had no control arm. the only other example is recent work in which placebos were used openly to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). those studies showed that children could halve the dosage of their regular ADHD treatment without any negative consequences if a placebo was given at the same time.

“We’re learning that it isn’t useful to draw such rigid distinctions between mind and body,” says James Bodfish of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, one of the authors on the ADHD studies. “What we think of as physical disorders can be helped with psychological treatments and vice versa,” he says. Patients and their parents “may not be wildly enthusiastic about taking placebos, but they’re certainly open to it,” says his co-author Adrian Sandler of the Mission Children’s Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina.

Bodfish sees another potential weakness of the IBS study, however: the way it was advertised may have attracted patients who were more open and susceptible to getting better on placebos, which may have boosted the success of the placebo. “Interestingly, this weakness may also be a strength when viewed in another light,” he adds. “In the context of ‘personalized medicine,’ it might make sense to selectively prescribe placebo treatment to only those patients most likely to derive benefit from it.”

*The story has been amended  to note the journal in which the study was published.

Siberian Pine Nut Oil.org released clinical study of use of Siberian Pine Nut Oil in the treatment of Gastritis and Duodenal Ulcers.

(PRWEB) July 26, 2010 — Published reports attest to the high therapeutic effectiveness of various types of oils in various inflammatory processes. Siberian pine nut oil is distinguished from other well-known curative oils by its enriched content of various kinds of healing elements. It is a natural product used from ancient times in folk medicine. Siberian pine nut oil contains a large quantity of polyunsaturated fatty acids, including a significant quantity of fat-dissolving vitamins E and F, which are known for their high level of physiological and anti-acidic properties. the Siberian pine nut oil contains phosphatidic phosphorous, very important to bodily health, besides being a rich source of vitally important micro-elements: phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, manganese, copper, zinc, cobalt and iodine. Siberian pine nut oil contains up to 5% nitrogenous substances, of which 90% are amino acids, 70% of them indispensable acids — all of which testifies to its high physiological value.

Clinical tests of Siberian pine nut oil have been conducted on patients at the Tomsk Scientific Research Institute of Balneotherapy and Physiotherapy. the aims were: to demonstrate the healing effectiveness of a given drug in both internal and external applications through sonic phonophoresis, to determine the dynamics of subjective and objective indications, to study the influence of Siberian pine nut oil on the nutritional, secretory and excretive functions of the stomach and liver, to study its anti-oxidant properties, to work out the methodology of application to treatment, to determine its level of tolerance by patients under various prescribed methodologies.

The following methodologies were used for this purpose:

1. General clinical blood research (aspartate aminotransferase, alanine-aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, antioxidant activity, methane-dicarbonic dialdehyde).2. General blood and urinal analysis,3. Follicle-stimulating hormone with targeted biopsy.4. Duodenal intubation with research into the chemical properties of bile.5. Determination of the secretory function of the stomach.6. Ultrasonic examination of the bladder, kidneys and pancreas.

The study comprised 30 patients under observation. Of these 25 had chronic erosive ulcers of the gastric mucosa, duodenal ulcers with accompanying cholane giocholecystitis of opisthorchosis etiology; the remaining five had chronic cholecystitis with chronic gastritis with a reduced secretory stomach function.

Two of the thirty subjects had reactive pancreatitis, while four had chronic hepatitis outside active procedures. With all 30 subject s motor dyskinesia of the bowels was observed.

Subsequently the subjects were prescribed a programme of treatment: one tablespoon of Siberian pine nut oil three times a day over a two-month period. As a result of this treatment stomach pains were completely eliminated in all patients. Symptoms of dyspeptic disorder (nausea, heartburn, regurgitation and vomiting) were not to be found in a single patient. In 28 of the subjects a normalization of bowel functions took place. According to follicle-stimulating hormone tests conducted 20 days after the treatment, ten of the subjects had experienced full recovery from ulcers and gastritis along with a reduction in inflammation of gastric mucosa and duodenal ulcers, as well as a reduction in ulcer size for the remaining 15 patients with erosive mucous stomach ulcers. there was a 50% reduction in the number of cases of fixed duodenal reflexes, according to endoscopic and laboratory tests. In evaluating the laboratory tests there was an indication of some reduction of acidity in the stomach juices in subjects with previously high acidic levels. the quantity of bilious discharge from the gall bladder doubled.

Thus, on the basis of the results obtained, one may conclude that Siberian pine nut oil has a healing effect, meets a favorable reaction with patients, and can be applied to the treatment of digestive disorders. It is especially effective in curing erosive stomach and duodenal ulcers. During the remission stage one can apply phonophoresis of Siberian pine nut oil to the projection area of the pathological process for a full and lasting healing effect. when diluted with milk, the Siberian pine nut oil has an anti-inflammation effect in treating cholecystitis and hepatocholecystitis.

TREATMENT METHODOLOGY:

1. Siberian pine nut oil is prescribed for 30 minutes or 1 hour before intake of food over a period of 21-24 days, with unhurried swallows of a tablespoon at a time three times a day. this is recommended for ulcerations located in the stomach or duodenum.

2. Siberian pine nut oil is prescribed for 1 hour before intake of food, diluted with milk (1 : 1) according to the method described above. this is recommended when ulceration is combined with chronic cholecystitis.

3. Siberian pine nut oil is prescribed internally according to variant Nº 2 with the following prescription of Siberian pine nut oil phonophoresis. an ultrasound of the epigastrium is prescribed in a dosage of 0.2-0.6 Bt/cm2 in either pulse or continuous action over a period of 2-4 minutes, as well as of the paravertebral zone (intensity of 0.2 Bt/cm2 over a period of 2 minutes). Before the ultrasound the patient drinks 1 glass of boiled water. this is recommended when the ulceration is combined with chronic pancreatitis

4. In the case of post-excision disorders on account of ulceration, the treatment method may also be applied to patients operated on for cancer of the stomach.

1. Patients with erosive ulcers of the stomach and duodenum.2. Patients with cholecystitis and hepatocholecystitis.3. Patients with endogastritis or bulbitis.4. Patients with chronic pancreatitis.5. Patients with post-excision discorders on account of ulceration.

There are no known counter-indications to application.

COUNTERFEIT NOTE: in the market there were detected counterfeits of cold pressed extra virgin Siberian pine nut oil in different packages, in bottles and gel capsules. Counterfeit and low quality Siberian pine nut oil does not possess above mentioned properties. the best advice is not to take needless risks, and obtain genuine cold pressed extra virgin Siberian Pine Nut Oil from official producer SiberianPineNutOil.org.

SPECIAL STEPS HAVE BEEN TAKEN TO PROTECT SIBERIAN PINE NUT OIL AGAINST COUNTERFEIT:

Final products are placed in special packaging to prevent daylight penetration, and stored at a temperature of 0°C to +5°C to better preserve the product's natural components. the resulting product is a bright gold-coloured liquid with the pleasant smell of pine nuts. It is a 100% natural product with strong healing powers.each box contains one half of a ten-rouble note with an official registration number and company brochure. the second half of the note is retained by Siberianpinenutoil.org, the official producer of genuine cold pressed SIBERIAN PINE NUT OIL. on web page siberianpinenutoil.org/pine-nut-oil/anti-counterfeit.php you can verify the authenticity of the product which you have purchased. if the cold pressed Siberian Pine Nut Oil is not packaged into branded company box and does not contain the items named above, then your cold pressed SIBERIAN PINE NUT OIL is not genuine.

E.I. Filchenko, M.D.S.V. Nizkodubova, D.M.S.V.I. Karpitsky, M.D. and a.G. Petrenko, M.D.

SiberianPineNutOil.org/Used by permission.© Copyright CedarInfo.info

Full text is available at siberianpinenutoil.org/Siberian_Pine_Nut_Oil_is_remedy_for_gastritis_and_ulcers.php

###

SiberianPineNutOilVictor Rod646-429-1985E-mail InformationTrackback URL: prweb.com/pingpr.php/WmV0YS1UaGlyLUZhbHUtVGhpci1TaW5nLVNxdWEtWmVybw==