Verbal suggestion eases chest pain
German researchers say verbal suggestion about the effectiveness of a placebo may affect heart arteries and decrease chest pain in patients.
Researchers of Technical University Munich evaluated the effects of a placebo drug plus verbal suggestion in 30 patients who underwent coronary angiography to assess chest pain symptoms, Reuters reported.
Coronary angiography is a procedure for studying blockage in coronary arteries which supply oxygen to heart muscles. During the operation doctors insert a thin catheter through a blood vessel into the heart and inject a dye that makes coronary arteries visible by X-ray.
When the team found that none of the patients were suffering a blockage in heart arteries, they injected each of the participants some amounts of saline solution, which has no pain reliving effect as a placebo or dummy drug.
Half of the participants were also randomly told that they were receiving medication which would widen their heart arteries and boost blood flow to the heart.
Results showed that the verbal-suggestion group reported a dip in their chest pain after the procedure, and blood vessel narrowing. The control group, however, experienced slightly more pain and showed a little more vessel dilation.
"The major finding was that the coronary vessels reacted so clearly to a mere psychological intervention," said lead authors Drs. Karin Meissner and Joram Ronel.
Researchers say they suspect the pain reduction was an "indirect effect" of the verbal suggestion, but they cannot be sure whether or to what degree the blood vessel changes might have contributed to it.
In stressful situations, the nervous system of a normal person triggers blood vessel widening causing blood circulation to increase and meet the body’s needs.
"When the heart works less," researchers noted, "there is less need for blood supply, and the vessels will be less dilated than in a stressful situation. This is how we interpret our data."
Source: presstv.ir
