Say No to Nocebo: How Doctors Can Keep Patients' Minds from Making Them Sicker

"First, do no harm," the saying goes, but that might be close to impossible. Just as our expectations can make us feel better, they can also make us feel much worse. This means that how doctors phrase their instructions or introduce new drugs may have a real impact on our health. But some doctors are trying to figure out how they can do less harm by harnessing the surprising power of their words. "In the classical view that is still taught at medical school and in textbooks, drug actions are purely determined by the drug," says Ulrike Bingel, a neurologist at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. "But that is not true." She's a member of the Placebo Competence Team, the steering committee of a placebo research group funded by the German Research Foundation. The Latin version of "first, do no harm" (for when you want it to sound extra ...