I'd imagine placebos are getting more effective due to more people having purely headspace/mindset (or even imaginative) illnesses/causes due to stress factors.
The more it's in your head, the more likely you can cure it with another imaginative treatment... As long as you believe in it.
It's the only reasonable explanation.
Aside from that, the power of belief can also be a reasonably powerful treatment with a positive response on the body/mind.
I agree. WebMD has probably been a boom for drug companies as hypochondriacs (and wannabe hypochondriacs) research new ways for drug companies to take their money. I've met sane people who are positive they've got the latest bug or some rare disease.
The commercials you see on TV probably doesn't help too much either.
My biggest problem with WebMD and other sites like it is that they often give me the following kind of result using their diagnoser: "it's flu, allergies, or a rare and deadly cancer, see a doctor".
"Aside from that, the power of belief can also be a reasonably powerful treatment with a positive response on the body/mind."
No it can't. Your mind cannot heal anything. You can change your perception of symptoms but not heal. This is how placebo works. It only changes perception.
I strongly recommend listing to episode 5 of Mark Crislip's QuackCast podcast:
if by "your mind cannot heal anything" means "everything dies eventually" then i agree wholeheartedly. but that's probably not what you meant. considering that many of a maladies today stem from chemical imbalances controlled by the brain, or by the second brain http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gut-second-... your argument seems over the top. in fact, since it's hard to know what you know and impossible to know what you do not, how can any thinking being ever say anything cannot do anything. have you surveyed the depths of every human mind, animal mind, extraterrestrial mind to achieve such certainty? if so, what am i thinking right now (you should probably be able to guess because i'm lobbing it right down the middle).
the more one learns, the less one knows. of this, i am less certain every day.
The poster edited their comment. It originally started something like "tl;dr no really I didn't read the article" and proceeded with the speculation (and hubris that it's the "only reasonable explanation") that remains at the time of this writing.
I downmodded the comment because it's the type of quick, non-substantial response that actually detracts from conversation among those who took the time to read the article and want a real discussion.
I downvoted the parent post because before the post was edited, the OP stated he didn't even read the article. If you come here to comment on an article, you should at least try to read it.
> I'd imagine placebos are getting more effective due to more people having purely headspace/mindset (or even imaginative) illnesses/causes due to stress factors
You could argue that many of those ailments could be due to mental/stress issues, and that it makes sense that calming the mind and believing in a treatment would work, but for some of them (Parkinson's, Herpes, food allergy), it's pretty amazing at how individuals are affected. Maybe we're under-crediting the brain's ability to control the body.
I'm reading Robert Sapolsky's Why Don't Zebras Get Ulcers right now (very interesting on subject of stress) and given what I've read, I would not be greatly shocked to learn that Parkinson's, herpes, or food allergies are affected by stress and the remediation of it.
It's impressive how integral stress hormones are to metabolism and disease. You wouldn't expect the psychogenic effects of a placebo to cure these diseases, but it makes sense that a placebo, or some factor tied to them that helps to lessen stress, could alleviate the intensity of outbreaks or symptoms.
The more it's in your head, the more likely you can cure it with another imaginative treatment... As long as you believe in it.
It's the only reasonable explanation.
Aside from that, the power of belief can also be a reasonably powerful treatment with a positive response on the body/mind.