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A small human trial (27 participants) has found no benefits to consuming (dried) placental pills. The control group took pills containing beef or vegetarian mock beef:
In two new studies, researchers conclude that new moms who consume their placentas experience no significant changes in their moods, energy levels, hormone levels, or in bonding with their new infant, when compared with moms ingesting a placebo. "It really does show that most of what's going on, if not all, is a placebo effect," says Mark Kristal, a behavioral neuroscientist at the State University of New York in Buffalo who has studied the practice—known as placentophagy—in other animals for more than 40 years.
Humans aren't the only species that eat their placentas. In fact, nearly all mammals do. In rats, placentophagy spurs moms to start taking care of their pups and relieves birthing pain; both amniotic fluid and placentas contain a factor that acts as a morphine-related analgesic. But whether placentophagy confers such benefits in humans has been unclear. What is clear is that the practice is gaining in popularity. Before the 1970s, it was used occasionally in traditional Chinese medicine to treat a host of ailments in men and women. Now, there are cookbooks that offer guidelines for the storage and preparation of placenta-based smoothies and meals. Most contemporary consumers first steam and dehydrate the placenta before pulverizing it and fashioning it into a vitaminlike pill.
Maybe they need to eat it when it is fresh and raw instead of dried and powdered.
Effects of placentophagy on maternal salivary hormones: A pilot trial, part 1 (DOI: 10.1016/j.wombi.2017.09.023) (DX)
Placentophagy's effects on mood, bonding, and fatigue: A pilot trial, part 2 (DOI: 10.1016/j.wombi.2017.11.004) (DX)
Related: The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine
Prematurely Born Lambs Kept Alive With Artificial External Placenta - Human Babies Could be Next
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday December 05 2017, @02:01AM (9 children)
A survey of doctors a while back found that it is quite common for doctors to prescribe such placebos as real prescription drugs that in themselves don't do anything about their patients' complaints.
That's why drug trials always compare the candidate drug to placebo - they don't compare the drug to taking nothing at all.
Tangentially related is a study that verified that the human mind can cure warts: a group of volunteers with the worst kind of warts - all over their bodies - were hypnotized then given the suggestion that their warts would disappear from just one-half of their bodies.
They really did.
Oddly, some patients cured the warts from the wrong side!
Throughout much of my mental illness I had unexplainable sores breaking out all over my lower legs and feet. They would come and go.
After I while I could consciously control them. A little while longer and they disappeared completely.
The warts and my sores were psychosomatic illnesses - real illnesses with real germs that really do cause sickness or damage to the body, but whose ultimate cause is the human brain.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Tuesday December 05 2017, @03:05AM (2 children)
It's the main thing used by traditional healers, shamans, witch-doctors, etc.
The *good* ones probably have better rates of success than your doctor.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 05 2017, @10:04AM (1 child)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2015/10/07/why-is-the-placebo-effect-exploding-in-the-u-s-but-nowhere-else/#676ea21053cf [forbes.com]
https://www.thecut.com/2015/10/placebo-effect-is-getting-stronger.html [thecut.com]
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34572482 [bbc.com]
One contributing factor might be more US people are addicted to sugar and many of those placebo studies stupidly (cunningly?) actually use sugar as the placebo.
Think of how much relief a heroin user gets when he finally gets his drug...
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 05 2017, @02:43PM
I sincerely doubt the tiny amount of sugar in a pill is responsible for anything here. Your first link already posits a number of likely factors responsible for the increased placebo effect in the US in recent years.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 05 2017, @03:12PM
For the warts, it's closer to: latent viral infections are kept in check by a fully functional immune system, but viral replication can also be induced by stress or other physiological cues.
Anything that inhibits your immune response or anything that induces the signaling Cascades that promote replication can allow viral expansion to symptomatic levels.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Lester on Tuesday December 05 2017, @04:10PM (3 children)
Tested drugs do really work, antibiotics do really work, biochemicals science do really work, radiation do really work, surgery do really work.
Placebos help (i.e can boost a lot immunologic system), but most times only temporally and against symptoms. Placebos can't cure a cancer and that is the danger. People may stop feeling symptoms for some time and get rid of traditional medicine relying on placebos while illness keeps working.
So placebos and so psychology may help a lot but physical medicine do really cure. If orthodox medicine can't do it, don't expect too much from placebos or alternative medicine.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday December 06 2017, @07:50AM (2 children)
The book "Laughter Is The Best Medicine" was written by a guy who had what was diagnosed to be terminal cancer.
He decided to go out in style so he rented lots of funny movies. After a period of feeling joyful all the time his cancer went into remission.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Lester on Wednesday December 06 2017, @02:18PM (1 child)
So?
And many people gets cured by prayers in Lourdes sanctuary.That is not science, that is anecdotical evidence. You should check a group of people that followed a medical treatment and people who follow alternative treatment. Medicine says 70% of success, 30% of failure. Alternative medicine says "it worked forma this guy" but how many cases it didn't work? Answer "It worked also for that other guy"
Steve Jobs, after a diagnostic of cancer, ignored doctors recomendaciones for 9 months and when he decided to follow a normal treatment, it was too late and finally died of... stubbornness.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Health_issues [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday December 07 2017, @01:46AM
I remain puzzled by that.
Tim Cook had himself tested for transplant compatibility - he was. Yet Jobs turned down Cook's quite selfless offer.
(We can donate one lobe of our liver while the rest of it takes up the slack. Live donors can also give one of their kidneys.)
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 05 2017, @05:52PM
"You mean if I eat this placenta pill Donald Trump will really be impeached?"
"Yes, any day now"