As I pointed out above, if you actually look at the study itself (not the NY Times article), the participants didn't "kick an antibiotic resistant infection" as you put it. All they did was have reduced bowel movements and better self-rated health.
Interestingly the study did a stool test for C dificile before the study (to see if the participants actually had the infection) but they didn't do any stool analysis after the study.
All in all, there are a lot of deficiencies with this study and it doesn't really tell us much.
And yes, the placebo effect has been shown to reduce diarrhea (as I pointed out above). This is expected, as the HPA axis (the body's stress system) is one of the systems that controls bowel movement.
Interestingly the study did a stool test for C dificile before the study (to see if the participants actually had the infection) but they didn't do any stool analysis after the study.
All in all, there are a lot of deficiencies with this study and it doesn't really tell us much.
And yes, the placebo effect has been shown to reduce diarrhea (as I pointed out above). This is expected, as the HPA axis (the body's stress system) is one of the systems that controls bowel movement.