Nocebo
Which side effects are common enough to be mentioned, and which are rare enough to be left unsaid? It’s your body, your appointment and the doctor is your consultant. Ask for the information you want. Once when my mother was visiting me, we went to a dollar store and she…
If you have the tendency to Google the negative side effects associated with your medications, you may have a greater chance of experiencing them, a study published in the International Journal of Cardiology suggests. Researchers evaluated patient intolerance to statins — 1 of the common cholesterol-lowering drugs — in 13…
If a patient is told of potential negative side effects of a medicine, the patient is more likely to experience those side effects — even when given a placebo and not the medicine! This is called nocebo, “I shall harm” in Latin. Placebo translates: “I shall please,” and the two…
