Both bananas and potatoes are sources of potassium. Perhaps that's pertinent.
I don't know.
I know biofeedback is a real and useful thing and may account for at least some of what people dismiss as placebo effect.
But I'm not personally a big believer in that stuff being particularly significant medically. I think it's more likely that a ritual helps keep the mind focused on "I want this gone!" And that may subtly alter behavior in ways that support the desired outcome without the individual knowing exactly what they did differently.
Historically, some doctor had a track record of referring patients for an STD test (syphilis iirc) much earlier than usual and consistently being right. Rather than pretending he must be psychic or a magic voodoo witch doctor or some bullshit, they put two other doctors in the room with him to see if they could spot what he was seeing well enough to refer patients for testing without being able to tell you why.
This is how an earlier, subtler symptom was identified -- an eye flutter -- and that empowered other doctors to look for it too so they could refer patients for testing earlier as well instead of acting like he was all special and no one else could possibly do what he did. (Of course, earlier identification generally translates to better medical outcomes.)
My feeling is that while the general subject may be mostly woo with some potential to bear results as we understand it better, there are definitely data points around warts are interesting, in part because the results are relatively unambiguous compared to many other problem domains, and substantially more so compared to something like autoimmune disorders or weight loss.
The problem is "life is chemistry." So it's challenging to track all the factors at play and identify the pertinent ones and draw a firm conclusion.
If potassium is a means to treat it, you can increase your potassium intake by eating differently without consciously realizing:
A. I increased my potassium intake.
B. My increased potassium levels are the real reason my warts went away -- or at least one of the pertinent factors.
Most dietary studies are "observational" and also self reported. These are both weak means to make any kind of cause-and-effect connection and there's no obvious way to improve on it because it's generally considered unethical to experiment medically on humans by doing extreme things to them and also if you don't lock them down and have absolute control over them, you will not know for certain that they weren't sneaking food not listed or making themselves throw up on purpose or something.
People have all kinds of bizarre behaviors around diet and routinely actively hide it from other people or outright lie. People with eating disorders usually don't tell their social circle they are anorexic or bulimic. They hide that fact.
How do you get people to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about their diet? How do you make sure they report every single candy bar grabbed from a vending machine during a busy workday? How do you ensure they don't fib about something because they feel X is socially unacceptable?
Presumably, if you tried, you would get self-selected volunteers who saw themselves as "eating right" and generally fitting a particular pattern of consumption. You probably wouldn't get a lot of volunteers on "weirdo" diets and if you did, how do you meaningfully compare data for your vegan participant and your carnivore diet participant?
And that's just diet. There are other things in life beyond diet that impact health.
I don't know.
I know biofeedback is a real and useful thing and may account for at least some of what people dismiss as placebo effect.
But I'm not personally a big believer in that stuff being particularly significant medically. I think it's more likely that a ritual helps keep the mind focused on "I want this gone!" And that may subtly alter behavior in ways that support the desired outcome without the individual knowing exactly what they did differently.
Historically, some doctor had a track record of referring patients for an STD test (syphilis iirc) much earlier than usual and consistently being right. Rather than pretending he must be psychic or a magic voodoo witch doctor or some bullshit, they put two other doctors in the room with him to see if they could spot what he was seeing well enough to refer patients for testing without being able to tell you why.
This is how an earlier, subtler symptom was identified -- an eye flutter -- and that empowered other doctors to look for it too so they could refer patients for testing earlier as well instead of acting like he was all special and no one else could possibly do what he did. (Of course, earlier identification generally translates to better medical outcomes.)