A recent study just published in the medical journal (JAMA Network Open) shows nocebo as a major cause of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic virus side effects.
It is a meta-analysis, a post-cluster processing of data from other original studies, signed by researchers at Harvard Medical School.
But what is nocebo?
THE Professor of Neurology at the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Municipality of Mitsikostas states that nocebo concerns the patient’s negative predisposition that the medical treatment offered (medicine, surgery, vaccine) will do him more harm than good.
How is it expressed?
With the appearance of side effects, which seem to be caused by the treatment, but in fact have nothing to do with the biological action of the treatment, except with the negative predisposition of the patients, that is, it is a form of self-submission and phobia.
How do we measure nocebo in medicine?
Recording the side effects of patients taking placebo in clinical trials. A strong indicator of the severity and frequency of nocebo is the recording of patients discontinuing treatment due to side effects, despite the fact that they took an inert substance (eg water, flour) that does not cause such biological effects.
How common is it?
About one in three patients taking placebo in clinical trials show any side effects and about one in 20 stop treatment because of the side effects, despite taking placebo.
What affects nocebo?
From many factors, mainly the personality of the patient, but also from his relationship with the doctor, the previous health experiences that the patient has, especially the negative ones, but also from the information that he receives, or is inadvertently overwhelmed, from the printed- electronic media, television, internet in general.
The US study showed that volunteers who were vaccinated with the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine had more side effects (76%) than those who received the placebo vaccine (30%). Expected. What is striking, however, is that systemic side effects (ie fever, fatigue, headache, myalgias, dizziness) are very common in the volunteers who received the placebo vaccine (76%), ie it is the result of nocebo behavior, phobia.
In a modern survey of the Medical School of EKPA conducted in five university hospitals in Athens in May to July 2021 (ie when the vaccination program against SARS-CoV-2 for Health workers was completed), about 1,300 employees answered in a specially designed questionnaire regarding vaccination and possible side effects experienced by vaccines for this particular virus, as well as nocebo behavior. The study was published in the international medical press with the participation of a number of professors and researchers of EKPA in November 2021 (https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/9/10/1179) entitled:
Nocebo-Prone Behavior Associated with SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Hesitancy in Healthcare Workers and authors: Dimos Mitsikostas, Konstantina Aravantinou-Fatourou, Christina Deligianni, Evridiki Kravariti, Eleni Koromboki, Maria Mylopia, Pylonia Gelona Athanasios Dellis, Georgios Tsivgoulis, Meletios A. Dimopoulos, Martina Amanzio, Petros Sfikakis
What did we find?
About eight in ten health professionals had been fully vaccinated by that time, and two in three had experienced at least one side effect after vaccination, mainly skin reactions and symptoms of the virus. Two out of eleven, however, did not get the vaccine…
Trying to trace the characteristics of this group that refused to be vaccinated, we found that they were mainly women (two in nine), categories of non-medical workers (most nurses – one in 4!) And workers who had a specific predisposition for nocebo behaviors, that is, they had given answers to the special questionnaire for nocebo that predispose hesitation, distrust and phobia to medical treatments.
These findings were reproduced by another study in which EKPA also participated with the Professor of Neurology of the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Municipality of Mitsikosta, along with other universities from Italy and the USA (https://doi.org/ 10.1016 / j.lanepe.2021.100253) and which followed the exact same methodology as the recent Harvard study, was a meta-analysis.
What did we find then?
One in three volunteers who participated in the phase 3 approval studies for COVID-19 vaccines had side effects while taking placebo. In fact, the generalized side effects that can not be measured and objectified (eg headache, fatigue, malaise, myalgias) were very high in the placebo group, as well as in the real group.
This study was published in November 2021 in a peer-reviewed medical journal (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanepe.2021.100253).
The new study from Harvad, therefore, confirms the initial studies of the previous EKPA, and all together demonstrate the great importance of nocebo in the vaccination for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which has dramatically changed our lives.
How can these scientific findings be used?
If we know the causes of the anti-vaccine mentality, but also the side effects that occur after the vaccine, we can help our frightened fellow citizens more effectively, by talking and analyzing the nocebo phenomenon in a persistent repetitive and long-lasting information campaign. That it is a normal phobia, associated with the survival instinct that we all have, but to varying degrees.
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