As Mary Poppins said, “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.” Well, what if all that was needed to begin with was a spoonful of sugar, without having to swallow any medicine at all?

Placebos may not have any actual medical credibility, but the fact that people think they’re supposed to work just might make them work.

A study conducted last spring at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the same place that intoxicated undergrads end up on evenings where too much alcohol is consumed, said patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) felt better after taking sugar pills even if they knew they were taking a placebo.

The study was published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) One journal in December. According to a Boston Globe article from Dec. 23, more placebo studies will ensue in July at Harvard Medical School regarding patients knowingly taking placebos but still feeling better.

Researchers are starting to test placebo use on highly anxiety related and psychological conditions, but where does it stop? Could a placebo potentially be used to “cure” the common cold?

In an episode of the ’90s sitcom “The Nanny,” Fran says, “[My mother] thinks taking an M&M with a glass of water is like taking a One-a-Day.”

Next time I have a headache, I may just pop an M&M and save myself the trip to CVS for Advil if that’s just what I would be prescribed anyway. If everything is all about the psychology behind feeling better, paying for a visit to the doctor’s office and the prescription to sugar seems silly.

But in a Boston Globe article published March 7, the author of the PLoS One journal article said that the notion of taking the trip to the doctor’s office could relax symptoms in conditions caused by high anxiety levels, like IBS. So, should I stop eating that apple a day to keep the doctor away, or go more often?

In the Globe article, a psychologist even agreed that many patients who are prescribed drugs like antidepressants do not benefit from the drugs themselves because half of the condition itself is related to anxiety in the first place, so if someone knows they’re going to feel better after taking a pill, they will.

Even better, Cosmopolitan magazine agrees that mind over matter can be a valid way to achieve happiness, but in reference to women depressed by single-orgasm sex rather than IBS patients.

In the article, titled, “How to have Multiple Orgasm Sex,” it says, “If you go into a hookup with limited expectations of your orgasm, you’ll actually cause your body to limit its pleasure responses. In other words, if you assume you can only come once during intercourse you will.”

Believing that a pill will make you feel better, or that you will have more than one orgasm, can psychologically make it happen, according to experts. That’s not to say that taking a sugar pill will work for any ailment, because it definitely will not. Just the ones that are highly caused by psychological factors to begin with.

I guess our parents weren’t completely off when they said we can achieve whatever we want if we put our minds to it.

–Allie Ehrhart can be reached at [email protected]