Why Are Placebos Getting Stronger?

Pharmaceutical giants are at a loss to understand why placebos increasingly outperform promising new drugs in clinical trials. To the consternation of these big pharma companies, the number of drugs approved by the FDA and put on the market has been steadily decreasing over the years due to their inability to surpass the effectiveness of placebos.

And some longstanding products, such as Prozac and other antidepressants that significantly bolstered the profits of pharmaceuticals in the ’80s and ’90s, are waning against placebos in routine followup testing. In fact, if these same drugs weren’t on the market already, many of them wouldn’t even be approved considering their performance against placebos. (In order to gain approval by the FDA, the product must twice beat the placebo in a minimum of two verified trials.)

Drug developers believe the reason for the slide in pharmaceutical market approval is that the placebo is somehow getting stronger.

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One Native American’s culture to improved health

The Tohono O’odham Nation, a group of aboriginal Americans who reside primarily in the Sonoran Desert of the southeastern Arizona and northwest Mexico regions, have one of the highest rates of diabetes type 2 ever recorded. Based on research that shows their traditional foods help control blood sugars, a local non-profit, called Tohono O’odham Community Action (TOCA), helps members become re-acquainted with their traditional diet to overcome obesity and control diabetes.

Read more at the Tohono O’odham Community Action (TOCA).

Pondering the Big Questions of Life Provides Significant Mental Benefits

No matter your religion or spiritual beliefs, even if you’re atheist, contemplating the questions of the universe — whether they be religious, scientific, or psychological — can enhance brain function. Practices such as meditation, chanting mantras, and intense prayer can provide significantly positive effects on cognition, relaxation, and psychological health.

According to a new book by Andrew Newberg, MD and Mark Robert Waldman called “How God Changes Your Brain,”  such practices both increase activity in the frontal lobe, which “creates and integrates all of your ideas about God,” and diminishes activity in the amygdala, the region responsible for emotions that can generate fearful images of a frightening and punitive God and suppress the frontal lobe’s ability to logically think about God.

When the parietal-frontal circuit is activated, we readily perceive and delineate our physical surroundings and our orientation within it. Meditation overrides these perceptions, which then allows feelings of oneness with spirit and the universe to arise.

Dr. Newberg is a medical doctor, professor of radiology, psychology, and religious studies, and is head of the Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s considered one of the top neuroscientists that is shedding light on the growing field of neurotheology and the new discoveries being made about the relationship between the brain and spiritual or contemplative practices.

One of Dr. Newberg’s objectives is to align the fields of science and religion, both often viewed as holding opposing concepts. “The two most powerful forces in all of human history have been religion and science,” he said. “These are the two things that help us organize our world and understand it. Why not try to bring them together to address each other and ultimately our world in a more effective way?”

Voyage to the Plastic Vortex Sets Sail

Two teams of researchers, which include Project Kaisei and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, have set sail this past week for a four-week expedition to perform extensive research and analysis of the Plastic Vortex — aka the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch, a bobbing plastic wasteland twice the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean northeast of Hawaii. One ship, The New Horizon (owned by the Scripps Institution), left San Diego on August 2nd, and the Kaisei left San Francisco on August 4th. The expedition is being filmed by National Geographic, and proceeds from the documentary will help pay for the expedition.

Project Kaisei — the name of the oceanic mission that will ultimately explore hi-tech solutions to this plastic dilemma — has the following objectives for this project:

• Study and document the marine debris found in this area of the Pacific Ocean;
• Test catch methods for removing the debris;
• Conduct research on the chemical interactions of marine debris in the gyre and select fishes and wildlife related to persistent organic pollutants (POPs);
• Understand the needs required to undertake an eventual large scale clean-up of the waste material; and
• Test technologies for conversion into an economically viable by-product: diesel fuel.

The Project Kaisei website states: “If the expedition proves successful, and large volumes of plastic debris can be captured and processed, then a full clean-up operational plan would be initiated within 18 months.”

Scientists believe at least 70 percent of the vortex’s plastic is hidden below the ocean’s surface, and that 80 percent of the plastic comes not from illegal ocean dumping but rather litter from beaches and water sources flowing out to sea from land.

Anyone interested in Project Kaisei’s progress can follow their blog or chart it using the interactive voyage tracker: kaisei.blipback.com. Be sure and check out this impressive use of today’s internet technology with Google Earth and short video clips with dates, times, and precise locations.

(I have previously written about the Plastic Vortex in these articles: [intlink id="2301" type="post"]What Can Be Done About the Plastic Vortex?[/intlink] and [intlink id="91" type="post"]The Deadly Plastic in Our Oceans[/intlink].)