Should Placebos Be Used as a Routine Part of Therapy?
Different studies of the placebo effect report wildly different results. One survey of 117 trials of two ulcer drugs found that, depending on the trial, patients in the placebo group had anywhere from zero to a 100 percent recovery rate… Expectations around medical rituals may also explain why placebos tend to be more powerful if the pills are expensive or you take them several times a day; why injections and exotic machines are more powerful than pills; and why surgery is more powerful than injections. (In placebo surgery, the patient is anaesthetized, cut and sewn back up again)…
Placebo treatments are more powerful if your doctor believes in them. They are also more powerful if the doctor tells you so.
Full article on the placebo effect.
Hey, if it works, why not harness it and use it?
The best thing about them is that they are the cheapest drug there is.
It would be interesting if someone designed a negative placebo-effect study. Researchers could randomly assign people into one of four groups:
1) give patients real treatments, but tell the patient it’s a placebo. 2) give patients placebo treatments and then tell them it’s a placebo. 3) give patients real treatments and then tell them nothing. 4) give patients placebo treatments and tell them nothing.
I agree with Larry. The price is right.
@Devon – Don’t you think it would be a contradiction to tell a patient, you’re giving them a placebo? That defeats the purpose of what a placebo is and how it provides a psychological remedy, therefore there would be no positive or useful results from your proposed research.
Absolutely! Like you indicated, double-blind studies randomly assign some patients to placebos, while other patients are assigned the treatment group. None of the participants know whether they got the treatment or the placebo. This treatment versus placebo effect supposedly shows how much of the effect of the actual treatment can be merely attributed to the placebo effect.
But, wouldn’t it be interesting to add to that knowledge, the results of how people react when given a treatment (or placebo) which they believe is an ineffective? This would demonstrate how much effect of the actual drug could be taken away when people believe they have taken a sugar pill.
The placebo effect that this article says is so powerful usually shows up in pain studies and other areas in which subjective ratings are important.
It isn’t going to help you if you break your leg and need the bone set so that your legs are the same length after it has healed.