A revelatory investigation into the nocebo effect - placebo’s evil twin - urging us to rethink our assumptions about the mind-body connection.
Illness is not simply a matter of biology. Our thoughts, conscious or otherwise, can create symptoms and forge ill health. The nocebo effect helps to explain why during the Covid-19 pandemic, lots of people had Covid symptoms but no Covid; why a quarter of those having chemotherapy feel nauseous before their treatment starts; and how when doctors warn of side effects, they make them more likely to occur.
In this original and eye-opening study, Helen reveals the nocebo’s stranglehold on our collective health. Across subjects as various as Alzheimer’s and diabetes, Havana Syndrome and hex deaths, social media ‘illfluencers’ and the viral pandemic of ticking they inspired, this book convincingly proves that the mind and body aren’t just connected. They are in fact the same thing.
Read an extract from The Daily Mail or my Opinion piece for The Guardian.
Or you can hear me talking about it on ABC's Nightlife (starts 26.55).
Illness is not simply a matter of biology. Our thoughts, conscious or otherwise, can create symptoms and forge ill health. The nocebo effect helps to explain why during the Covid-19 pandemic, lots of people had Covid symptoms but no Covid; why a quarter of those having chemotherapy feel nauseous before their treatment starts; and how when doctors warn of side effects, they make them more likely to occur.
In this original and eye-opening study, Helen reveals the nocebo’s stranglehold on our collective health. Across subjects as various as Alzheimer’s and diabetes, Havana Syndrome and hex deaths, social media ‘illfluencers’ and the viral pandemic of ticking they inspired, this book convincingly proves that the mind and body aren’t just connected. They are in fact the same thing.
Read an extract from The Daily Mail or my Opinion piece for The Guardian.
Or you can hear me talking about it on ABC's Nightlife (starts 26.55).
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"A wild and sometimes shocking ride ... Doctors, take note" TELEGRAPH, 4 stars
'Ambitious and fascinating' Book of the Day, THE GUARDIAN "Absolutely fascinating and never more relevant than today" Dr Julie Smith, author of Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before. A New Scientist best new popular science book of May 26 |
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