3 ms·

Are you sure that's true? Ask yourself why do they do double-blind experiments. I had read that depending on the illness, a non-active treatment (sugar pill) g

• ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  "Placebo interventions are often claimed to substantially improve patient-reported and observer-reported outcomes in many clinical conditions, but most reports on effects of placebos are based on studies that have not randomised patients to placebo or no treatment. Two previous versions of this review from 2001 and 2004 found that placebo interventions in general did not have clinically important effects, but that there were possible beneficial effects on patient-reported outcomes, especially pain. Since then several relevant trials have been published." ... "We did not find that placebo interventions have important clinical effects in general. However, in certain settings placebo interventions can influence patient-reported outcomes, especially pain and nausea, though it is difficult to distinguish patient-reported effects of placebo from biased reporting. The effect on pain varied, even among trials with low risk of bias, from negligible to clinically important. Variations in the effect of placebo were partly explained by variations in how trials were conducted and how patients were informed." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20091554 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20091554 This suggests the double-blind may have more to do with stopping the researchers fudging the results, than convincing the patient they're getting real treatment.