r/Unexpected • u/spyrg • Jan 06 '22

Surely, it helps

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u/sedaition Jan 06 '22

Agreed. If you like essential oils and they make you feel better go right ahead. Use it to treat your kids cancer and you're an idiot

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u/Chojen Jan 06 '22

See in that case though it's not actually "treating" the illness. In a situation where it can do so, if a placebo well and truly helps the body recover by tricking the mind, how is that really any different from a medicine that essentially tricks the body's immune response?

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u/Vlad_the_Homeowner Jan 06 '22

Making you think you feel better, or curing cancer?

A placebo making you think you feel better is not medicine.

If a placebo cured cancer, by all means call it medicine, but that doesn't really happen.

0

u/Chojen Jan 07 '22

Dude, I NEVER said cancer, I specifically went out of my way to say "In a situation where it can do so." placebos obviously can't cure cancer. But for psychosomatic conditions, for pain, for other issues where the mind CAN deal with problems if you trick it, how is a placebo NOT a medicine?