<h1>A Placebo is a pretend cure that works!</h1>

Placebo effect: AKA the placebo response. An interesting phenomenon in which a placebo -- a fake treatment - for example as when a patient is given a sugar pill, expecting it to be medication and remarkably, it improves that patient's condition due to the expectation the person has that it will be be of some use in improving his condition.

PWP search for potions or miracles to stem the PD tide, without success. A couple of years ago, I came upon this:

The latest studyappeared in this week’s edition of the journal Neurology. Postuma and colleagues randomized 61 patients with Parkinson’s disease to caffeine or alternatively to a placebo. The investigators aimed to improve sleepiness, but caffeine failed to keep subjects more awake. However, on the UPDRS Parkinson’s disease motor scale, patients who received caffeine had an approximate 5 point improvement. The caffeine study was only performed for six weeks, the sample was extremely small, and it was hard to blind who got caffeine and who did not. The results should therefore be interpreted with caution, and will need to be replicated in a much larger study, presumably using a primary motor outcome.

Ya Right. Apparently people who drown in coffee have a smaller chance of developing PD. I am out of luck. I don't drink coffee. I tried in university because everyone else seemed to enjoy it and the chances of meeting a lady increased.

"Would you like to join me for a coffee?" You hear that a lot in colleges. I couldn't use that line. How could I invite a woman out for coffee and then I drink milk while she downs the caffeine? Consequently, my social life in college was beer driven and it wasn't very successful. Who wants a drunk when there are coffee drinkers available!

So I tried but I gave up. I confess I detest that foul liquid - taste, smell, viscosity - everything about it. I was not going to be cured by caffeine. The quote only semi-interested me. The sample was too small and the duration too short to impress me. Thus it is ironic that I have been chosen to be a subject in a project to test the effects of caffeine on parkinson's. The sample will be huge and the duration long (5.5 years) enough that the findings will be significant. Plus, they have assured me that

• I will not have to drink coffee
• the caffeine will be in the form of a pill
• the caffeine will not keep me up at night
• there is no taste or odor to the pill, and finally,
• it won't take up too much time

OK THEN, COUNT ME IN!

Of course, half the participants will be taking a placebo. I doubt the placebo effect will affect me if I get a placebo and if I do, I hope it is not sugar. I like being almost thin. Imagine if I went through 5.5 years taking a placebo and got fat without any benefit while the caffeine pill poppers improved! Whooooo - would I be bitter!

Ah well, anything for science. Am I a lucky guy or an idiot? Will it make me less shaky or obese. Probably neither. That is the reality. No cure..again. Plato said something about the sciences simply being perception and we all know perception is not reality, but I do consider myself fortunate to live in another world, while keeping a summer house in reality.

Ergo, I will be their guinea pig and take the pill while clinging to the hope that what I pessimistically perceive to be the most likely outcome is not really reality. It is a dreamer's perception. Don't you know, only dreams are real. You know what I mean? Reality? Dreams?

Shoot....never mind; it is time for my afternoon nap.