The physician within

This week, New York State’s Attorney General claimed that 80 percent of herbal supplements are egregiously mislabeled.

But these allegations are nothing new. There have now been several exposes like this, and yet people still buy something like $5 billion worth of supplements a year. So something must be working.

And if its not the pills – it must be the labels! And the price tag.

In a recent study involving 12 patients with Parkinson’s disease, doctors injected two different drugs. One drug cost $100 per injection; the other cost $1,500 – 15 times as much.

Look what happened: the patients that got the more expensive drug actually had fewer tremors.

Except both drugs were, in fact, harmless saline placebos.

We are so programmed to think “expensive” means “better,” that the brain sends out the chemicals to make it so.

It also turns out people think big pills work better than little pills, and that red pills are better than blue pills.

And a Berkeley study found that walking among majestic trees, suppresses the chemicals that cause inflammation. That’s how powerful the brain is.

So the labels may be deceptive, but what if it turns out that the active ingredient in these supplements is deception!?

If taking a phony ginseng pill – or better yet, walking through a majestic forest, and taking a big red expensive phony ginseng pill – if that unleashes the brain chemicals that make you feel better – why should New York’s attorney general spoil the fun?