is alcohol a placebo?

Question

The idea that alcohol is a placebo has been around for quite some time, and with halloween coming up, the weekend will see a lot of alcohol consumption. The placebo effect can be very strong, even helping some people ease pain. According to the National Library of Medicine, " About 50% of subjects who received placebo alcohol felt slightly drunk and guessed that they had received alcohol", leading some to believe that alcohol is a placebo effect.

Comments

This is a very interesting claim, and it's credibility only aided by the fact that it comes from a reliable source. Getting this claim from a national institute instead of a journalism platform immediately helps its credibility, as there's no room nor place to push forward certain ideals or thoughts. Instead, it's simply an issue of human health, which can be definitively fact-checked and researched.

---

This is a good point about the placebo effect and alcohol. It's interesting that many people can feel drunk just because they think they've had alcohol. However, it’s important to remember that alcohol also has real effects on the body, not just psychological ones! You might want to explain more clearly how the mind's expectations (placebo) are different from the actual physical effects of alcohol.

---

This is an interesting perspective, as it really shows how our expectations can shape our experiences. As Halloween approaches, it is interesting to consider how much the environment and mindset around us, influences our perception of alcohol. Perhaps it is not just the drink itself, but also the rituals and social interactions that make a difference!

Answer 1

It is necessary to clarify what this claim means before exploring its credibility. A placebo is "a harmless pill, medicine, or procedure prescribed more for the psychological benefit to the patient than for any physiological effect."

The source you provided details a scientific study in which two groups of individuals receive alcohol and a placebo. The results found that around half of those who received placebos felt slightly drunk, while those who received alcohol felt very drunk. The article concluded that the experiment was compromised because those who received alcohol received too much, thus 'unblinding' the control group and exposing the placebo.

The source is titled "Alcohol placebos: you can only fool some people all of the time" and never claims that alcohol is a placebo in itself. Alcohol being a placebo would mean that the substance's effects are purely psychological, and there are no harmful effects whatsoever. This claim is false because doctors and scientists classify alcohol as a depressant drug with many significant and dangerous physiological effects. This information is verifiable with endless scholarly sources. 

While your source is reliable, the wording of this claim misrepresents the article's contents. Alcohol is not a harmless substance and, therefore, is not a placebo.  

Sources:

https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK20360/#:~:text=Alcohol%20is%20classified%20correctly%20as,later%20causes%20sedation%20and%20drowsiness.&text=In%20high%20concentrations%2C%20alcohol%20can,%2C%20coma%2C%20and%20even%20death.

https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health

https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/alcohols-effects-body

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/13/well/mind/alcohol-health-effects.html

Comments

I really liked how you included numerous articles to support what you think, and also defining what a placebo is useful because this question can be misinterpreted leading to a variety of answers that all answer a different question.

Answer 2

I think that by making your headline a question keeps the door open for interpretation. However, I think that you are leaving too much room for it. There is a lot of ambiguity in asking if alcohol as a whole is a placebo, and by asking it you are also opening a path to someone maybe saying you're lying, even if there is no factual basis for that accusation.

Answer 3

According to the article, I found this study is true 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30247751/

Answer 4

This claim is true. According to studies published by the National Library of Medicine, "About 50% of subjects who received placebo alcohol felt slightly drunk and guessed that they had received alcohol." The National Library of Medicine is a very credible source and the studies they publish can be trusted. Several other articles are referenced published by other credible science databases including Science Direct, some of which are linked below.

Sources:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007091217390062?pes=vor&utm_source=wiley&getft_integrator=wiley

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2270058/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2646975/

Answer 5

The claim that alcohol is a placebo appears to be true according to this article. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166432822004168Participants who expected alcohol, but received a placebo instead had activation in their nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex. These are the same parts of the brain that control the reward system, and they were triggered from the expectation of being drunk. However, only certain participants felt the placebo affects, many participants did not experience them. This means that for some of the population, the effects of alcohol might be increased from their brain's reward system. 

Answer 6

This separate National Institute of Health Article talks about how even large groups of people can be fooled into feeling false intoxication, so that part of the claim is accurate. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30247751

But the phrasing of this claim implies that alcohol itself is a placebo, and by definition its effects are all psychological. This is not true, as these articles also state that participants who were actually given alcohol reported higher levels of intoxication than those given a placebo.