EP08: Fabrizio Benedetti PhD And The Role Of Our Beliefs, Expectations, And The Placebo Effect

As a journalist who investigates the connection between our mind, body and health, I often come across phenomenal stories where healers produce miracle cures and witch doctors put curses on people. Now, if you’re scientifically minded like I am, you might be inclined to dismiss these stories as fantasy, or the result of a person’s gullibility rather than acknowledging them as a genuine healing phenomenon. But before you do, you might like to consider the remarkable research being done around the world suggesting that the effects of our expectations and beliefs may account for good-to-excellent health improvement for almost 70 percent of us.

In this episode I’m sharing my interview with Fabrizio Benedetti, a leading neurophysiologist from the University of Turin in Italy who spends his working hours trying to determined exactly when, where, and how your beliefs and expectations can induce a physiological response in your body. This is what we call the placebo effect – but, as you’ll hear Benedetti’s research shows that there exists not one single placebo effect, but rather, many placebo effects which work in different ways.

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