690. How Your Brain Makes You Sick: The Sark Side of the Placebo Effect with Helen Pilcher

About this episode

What happens when your brain predicts a symptom that doesn't belong — and your body obeys? Can a diagnosis itself make you sicker? And could the way your doctor delivers bad news change the course of your disease? Helen Pilcher is a science writer whose work has appeared in Nature, The Guardian, and the BBC. Her new book, This Book May Cause Side Effects: The Curious and Dangerous Power of the Nocebo Effect, Placebo's Evil Twin, explores how negative expectations can produce real, measurable harm in the body. Helen and Greg discuss how the nocebo effect turns clinical warnings into self-fulfilling prophecies, why modern medicine's culture of full disclosure may be doing patients more harm…