The trouble with placebos
My significant other has been at home coughing and spluttering all weekend. Obviously, being a selfish cow, my main concern is that I don’t get ill and thereby disrupt my own hectic social life. So, in response, I have been loading up on vitamin C but this comes with its own problems.
I used to think that taking vitamin C for colds was good for you. Then sometime during the Andrew Collins vs Ben Goldacre homeopathy wars I read an article claiming that scientifically speaking, vitamin C doesn’t do anything, it’s just psychological, a placebo (annoyingly I can’t find the actual reference to this article anywhere so hopefully I imagined it…).
In the olden days when I had a cold, I’d just innocently pop some vitamins thinking that I was somehow doing my body a favour. It worked and that was good enough for me. Or rather it used to be. Now it’s an issue:
The ‘I just want to get healthy’ me thinks ‘My throat feels a bit tight, maybe I have a cold coming on. I think I’ll take a vitamin C.‘
Cynical/rational me says sarcastically ‘Yeah, lets get some of those placebos in there, like that will work.‘
Healthy me tries to ignore this, but can’t help but secretly think ‘Good point. If it’s a placebo, perhaps there’s no point in taking it…’
‘Exactly’ says cynical me.
Healthy me remains positive: ‘But I could take it and it might have an effect. It’s worth trying at least and it did use to work.’
Cynical me responds: ‘Yeah, but its not going to now is it? It’s a placebo isn’t it you idiot? And now that you know that, of course it’s not going to fucking work.’
Healthy me quickly wacks down a tablet anyway but feels desperately guilty, like I’m wasting my own time.
I feel cheated of my placebos.
Tags: mindless minutiae, placebos
December 18th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Are they placebos? I thought the point was that their effectiveness had been over-emphasised and that they remain relatively useful if taken as a replacement for whatever vitamin you feel you aren’t getting through standard nourishment (due to allergies or food preferences)
Necking them indiscriminately might not do you much good, but if you take the right ones for the right reasons then I don’t see why they shouldn’t be effective.
What is it with Andrew Collins? Poor sod seems to attract the ‘foaming at the mouth’ brigade like nobodies business. Part of me feels you need the hide of a Rhino to blog sometimes, but by the same token, verbal abuse and threats are never much fun. It’s funny, I stood up for someone recently, who was being berrated on his own blog for his use of language. I thought they were moaning about him swearing in the blog posts, but it would seem he employs verbal abuse towards anyone who disagrees with him in the comments, so I sort of see entirely where his detractors are coming from.
December 18th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
I wish I could find that damn article. I am absolutely positive that it was saying that vitamin C does nothing for colds and flu, and even if it does you piss it all out anyway as the body doesn’t absorb vitamin C very well. The same article also made an interesting point that in clinical tests, branded paracetamols are shown to work better than non-branded paracetamols when they’re exactly the same. It’s all psychological. Allegedly. I still can’t help but agree with you though surely some vitamin pills must work if you’re deficient in them….
The trouble with being cynical is that you just don’t know who to believe anymore.
Yep, Andrew Collins does seem to get the worst of the weirdos. I just don’t understand why you could even be arsed flaming people like that. Good thing there’s no chance of that round here what with my 5 readers and 1 regular commenter!!