Matthieu Ricard Quotes

Placebos work.

The placebo effect is one of the most fascinating things in the whole of medicine. It's not just about taking a pill, and your performance and your pain getting better. It's about our beliefs and expectations. It's about the cultural meaning of a treatment.

Research shows that if patients believe they are taking the real drug, they are more confident of improving and, so, improve even if they are actually on the placebo. Conversely, if they suspect they are taking the placebo, their expectancy of improvement declines, and so does their improvement.

The doctor-patient relationship is critical to the placebo effect.

The big bulk of the response to antidepressants is the placebo response.

If the brain expects that a treatment will work, it sends healing chemicals into the bloodstream, which facilitates that. And the opposite is equally true and equally powerful: When the brain expects that a therapy will not work, it doesn't. It's called the 'nocebo' effect.

I'm a strong believer in modern medicine. I think it has its use in society. I think it adds longevity to our life expectancy.

We cannot decide on the efficacy of a medical treatment by counting the number of 'Likes' an intervention receives on Facebook; no matter what, professionals will still need to conduct continued clinical trials and evaluate their outcomes carefully.

The patient, treated on the fashionable theory, sometimes gets well in spite of the medicine.

When you immerse yourself in medicine you realise that hope is not absolute. It's not that simple.

Stem cells have the potential to be used to treat and better understand some of the world's most deadly and disabling diseases.

We need stem-cell research, no question about it. It is absolutely crucial for moving our medical science forward. We are trying to harness an untapped source of energy that can provide cures and possibly even prevent disease and suffering.

I do a lot of research on the placebo effect, not just in depression but in irritable bowel syndrome, pain, arthritis of the knee, migraine, asthma.

Stem cell research holds enormous promise for easing human suffering, and federal support is critical to its success.

I still believe that music is healing to some extent.

My dad has had a rare form of leukemia since I was in about 7th grade. But they've come up with some amazing drugs since then and he's doing really well today.

My job is to stay alive until the medicine and research catch up.

Lipitor is one of the most researched medicines. I'm glad I take Lipitor, as a doctor, and a dad.

Embryonic stem cell research will prolong life, improve life and give hope for life to millions of people.

Embryonic stem cell research has the potential to alleviate so much suffering. Surely, by working together we can harness its life-giving potential.

The United States has an active pharmaceutical industry that has brought huge benefits to the U.S. public. Most Americans, who benefit from these advances, have little understanding of how difficult it is to create an important new medical therapy and make it available to improve public health.

Great amount of scientific research is there to show that health is better because transcendental meditation deals with consciousness, and consciousness is the basic value of all the physical expressions. The entire creation is the expression of consciousness.

I want to cure many diseases and save children's lives.

We now have the ability to explore many new treatments for many diseases. However we do not have enough money to explore them all…. I measure time by the number of patients who die each day as the result of diseases that we do not have enough money to develop cures for. We have the tools. We need the money.

All medicine is made to make you better. If it did the opposite, it would be malpractice.