From the Gabbatt article. This nutritionist doesn't understand placebo, this isn't how it works. Placebo gets looked at as "all in your head" all the time. That's not what it is. There isn't a "placebo effect" from "mind over matter" or people convincing themselves something ineffective is effective, etc. If there's a placebo effect--it's the total effect of various unknown or unknowable conditions that might affect the outcome--including things like reversion to the means. Happens a lot with bipolars like me. Or with people with lesser depression, or I'd guess with people with the sort of aches and pains that cycle--if you think you can predict the weather with your joint pain, you might contribute to the placebo effect in a study. Chronic major depression or pain are different. Anti-depressants often show as not that effective in trials with milder depression, but much more effective with major depression, where a coincidental remission of depression is less likely.

This doesn't mean that how a person feels/thinks about a treatment can't be part of the placebo "effect." Just that studies aren't generally designed to suss this out.

If the placebo effect were so powerful, in the way that this nutritionist seems to mean it--we have to suppose that some of the antidepressants etc. that Mikhaila took over the years not only weren't effective, but actually had an anti-placebo effect. If she's so good at tricking herself, why did she wait for an all-beef diet to do so?