ALL IN YOUR MIND:

Telling someone they're going to feel better can result in just that. It's called the placebo effect. And the opposite is true: "nocebo" is when people are told they might get sick, and do. [...]

Which points up the alarming possibility that what we say about illness could lead people to get sick. Might the media, which loves to report on health scares, cause people to feel bad?

That's the conclusion of new research led by Michael Witthöft, at Johannes Gutenberg University, in Germany. While on a research trip in the U.K., Witthöft and a British researcher named James Rubin, recruited 147 adults. They showed half an alarmist TV report about the dangers of Wi-Fi signals. The other half watched a package about the security of online and cellphone data. [...]

"The mere anticipation of possible injury may actually trigger pain or disorders," says Witthöft, in a press release. Most troubling of all, nocebos could become self-fulfilling, the researchers say. Because people believe they're going to get sick, they'll start monitoring themselves more, and become anxious. After a while, that could make them more susceptible.

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