Suggestible You
His riveting narrative explores the world of placebos, hypnosis, false memories, and neurology to reveal the groundbreaking science of our suggestible minds. Could the secrets to personal health lie within our own brains? Journalist Erik Vance explores the surprising ways our expectations and beliefs influence our bodily responses to pain, disease, and everyday events.
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3recommend
4mentions
4people
2018–2023years
75% recommend25% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- "Suggestible You" by Erik Vance explores this phenomenon, and really turned me around on placebos. I'm, generally speaking, not particularly susceptible to placebo effects, and always kind of (arrogantly) chalked placebo effects up to people just being gullible and wanting to see something that wasn't there. It turns out there are actually genes that might be responsible for the physical impact of the placebo effect in the brain.
There's an enzyme - catechol-O-methyltransferase - which is coded for by the COMT gene. This enzyme catalyzes the metabolism of dopamine in the brain. COMT has three common variations - AA/AG/GG - which substantially alters how effective the enzyme is at metabolizing dopamine. AA results in significantly reduced enzyme activity, which can result in dopamine built-up in the brain, which results in increased sensitivity to stress, anxiety, and pain, but comes with the bonus of enhanced cognition, motor skills, and memory.
AA genotypes also tend to be "placebo responders", while GG genotypes tend to be non-responders. This tends to imply that placebo responsiveness isn't purely psychological, but physical - and indeed, it turns out that in AA "responders" you can turn off the placebo effect by administrating naloxone (which works by binding to opioid receptors)!
This has really interesting implications for pharmacological research, too - if there are people who are genotypically predisposed towards or against placebo effects, then a drug trial that stacks responders in the trial group and non-responders in the placebo group which would produce a drug efficacy signal that could be just the placebo effect.
- For those like me that know little about the placebo effect, there's a nice episode[1] of the On Being by Krista Tippett podcast where she interviewed Erik Vance on the subject. His book is also very interesting for the uninitiated[2].
[1] https://onbeing.org/programs/erik-vance-the-drugs-inside-you...
[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32944584-suggestible-you
- A great book on this topic is Suggestible You by Erik Vance. He addresses some of the scientific basis of the placebo effect.
- Is the COMT gene stuff discussed in "Suggestible You"? I recently learned I have the AA variation and from what I understand so far, it seems like it might be an explanation (or at least part of one) for why I am so sensitive to a number of vitamins and medications. I hadn't heard about the placebo related thing. But anyway, I am interested in continuing to learn more about it (it has been somewhat difficult for me to find digestible information about it online) so might look into that book if it discusses it much at all.
