YOU might not believe it, but telling a lie can cause physical pain. What’s more there is a name for it, the nocebo effect.
It can take hold when patients are given an inert pill and told it will intensify unpleasant symptoms. Now its biochemical pathway has been traced – a breakthrough that could lead to drugs that reduce pain.
In 1997, Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin, Italy, and his colleagues found that patients recovering from painful surgery were not susceptible to the nocebo effect when given injections of proglumide, which blocks the action of cholecystokinin (CCK), a neurotransmitter…
