![\"Fake](\"http:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/IBS_70160143_s-2015-2.jpg\")
Most medical scientists would tell you that there is no cure for IBS. For many, the treatment (or life sentence) is to address the symptoms by:<\/p>\nMost medical scientists would tell you that there is no cure for IBS. For many, the treatment (or life sentence) is to address the symptoms by:<\/p>\n
\u2022\texcluding fermentable sugars or gluten from your diet
\n\u2022\tincreasing your consumption of fibrous food
\n\u2022\ttaking medication or probiotics
\n\u2022\treceiving psychological counseling or antidepressants<\/p>\n
This is a view with which professor Ted Kaptchuk from Boston\u2019s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center would strongly disagree.<\/p>\n
In the past eight years, he has done several studies that prove that IBS can be cured naturally.<\/p>\n
And what he uses is \u201cfake medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n
The history of science is replete with cases where people’s health improved after they were given fake treatments, called placebos. These placebos can be anything from water to sugar pills.<\/p>\n
Scientists think that the mere belief that you are getting a treatment is enough to bring about an improvement in some medical conditions, even if the treatment is a placebo, a kind of mind-over-matter phenomenon.<\/p>\n
Professor Kaptchuk has taken this a step further, however, by proving that placebos can be effective for some conditions even when patients understand they are receiving fake treatments.<\/p>\n
In 2010, he and his colleagues published a study in the journal PLOS ONE<\/em> in which they gave 80 IBS sufferers either a fake pill or no treatment at all.<\/p>\n They explained to their participants that the pill they were taking was fake, and they even labelled the bottle in which the pills were stored “placebo pills made of an inert substance.”<\/p>\n Notwithstanding all this, the group that received the placebo reported a much bigger improvement in their condition than did those who received no treatment at all.<\/p>\n But 60% of \u201cfeeling better\u201d is still too low for my liking.<\/p>\n