It isn’t often that reading a label will make you sick, but there are exceptions!
Reading labels on medicines has been identified as one cause of phantom illnesses ranging from serious diseases, such as cancer, to minor ailments such as a bout of flu – the latest is the rise in the number of cases of swine flu which fortunately, turn out to be nothing more than a sniffle. One warning sign is when the doctor writes on your prescription, “Oink, Oink, Boom!”, which is the sound a flying pig makes breaking the sound barrier!
Medications are big business in the US with billions of dollars spent on drugs which are prescribed or are available over the counter. By law, every medication must come with a label which highlights what the medicine is to be used for and possible side effects or contra indications.
Frequent side effects are quoted as headaches, fatigue, dizziness, feeling sleepy or having difficulty concentrating. All are vague in their nature but when they are coupled with warnings that some patients may suffer from an increased risk of something more serious, a stroke or cardiac episode, the effect of reading the label combined with an overactive imagination can lead people to believe they have something more sinister.
The culprit is how the mind works, and psychiatrists have identified a condition termed the “nocebo effect”. This is the opposite of a placebo – a placebo will make you feel better though it may be a pill containing nothing more medical or therapeutic than powdered milk. Nocebos actually invoke feelings of ill health even though there is, in fact, nothing wrong with the patient, but before you think this is quackery, nocebos can be fatal!
One example of the effect of a nocebo is contained in a study conducted in the 1960’s. Patients were given a glass of sugar water and told that this would make them vomit as part of a procedure to study their stomachs. Though there was nothing in the glass except sugar and water, 80 of those taking the drink did in fact throw up immediately afterwards.
Research into nocebos has been limited, not least because with a study group, illnesses will be induced because of the power of suggestion. The Framingham Heart Study followed a group of women over several decades who believed they were part of a high risk group for heart attacks. The result of the study was that those women who believed they were in a high risk group had a fatality rate four times higher than those women in the same risk category but who were not told of this fact. Fear played a part in bringing about the condition precisely because they had been informed of the fact.
An Italian study into men and the taking of medication, found that those men who read the label on the medicine which had been doctored to warn of “erectile dysfunction”, reported a far higher incidence of the condition. Reading the label and especially, reading about the side effects and what the medication is designed to prevent does in fact result in a far greater incidence of the conditions warned of than those who remain blissfully ignorant – a case of “Don’t Read the Label!”
Author Resource:
By Mark Trumper, President of http://MaverickLabel.com , the Internet's leading provider of custom labels, stickers and decals. From asset tags, to window decals to shipping labels, http://MaverickLabel.com can provide all of your label needs. Call 1-800-537-8816.
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