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Really? You believe in placebos?

2013-09-19 22:11:05.659425+00 by Dan Lyke 5 comments

Really? You believe in placebos?

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2013-09-20 00:10:16.557699+00 by: TheSHAD0W

It doesn't matter, placebos believe in you.

Seriously, the placebo effect is significant and not avoidable, which is why you *must* have controls using them in any sort of medical testing.

#Comment Re: made: 2013-09-20 02:25:54.575858+00 by: meuon [edit history]

I believe know that what I believe can change my reality. If I believe that taking some pill, herb, drink.... will help, it will help (within limits).

#Comment Re: made: 2013-09-20 17:32:32.595121+00 by: Dan Lyke

Yeah, actually that came from me wondering if nobody believed in it, was it still placebo?

#Comment Re: made: 2013-09-20 22:03:59.50439+00 by: Jack William Bell

I did a quick google, but couldn't find any studies where they told the patients they were taking a placebo in order to see if the placebo effect still occurred.

But that brings up a related question: How many drugs were found to be effective in clinical trials where the actual drug wasn't causing improvement so much as was the placebo effect? (For the inverse, see also 'nocebo effect'.)

#Comment Re: made: 2013-09-20 23:52:18.242567+00 by: Dan Lyke

Digging back into the archives, I wish I'd copied and pasted more so I could deal with the link-rot, but that link apparently suggested that sugar pills were more potent than most anti-depressants.

And bonus archive link to an article about how the placebo effect is getting stronger, which is causing problems in drug trials because standard baselines are no longer standard.