3 ms·
It's also interesting to note that it may not be necessary to lie. In a number of studies, placebos have been effective even when the patient is told they're ge
by jfk13 8y ago
It's also interesting to note that it may not be necessary to lie. In a number of studies, placebos have been effective even when the patient is told they're getting a placebo.
- ekianjo 8y agoNote that "working" is ambiguous. In many disease where the condition is not entirely chronic, there is often the phenomenon of regression to the mean: i.e. you are recruited in the clinical trial at your worst state, and you progressively get to "average better" even if you don't take any drug. that can also partly explain placebo effect in many cases.
- tlrobinson 8y agoShouldn’t that be controlled for in a trial?
- 08-15 8y agoAbsolutely. That's why you have a control group which gets a placebo. Then you can test if the medication is more effective than the placebo. At least that's how it worked until someone looked at the term "placebo effect" and got confused into thinking that's anything other than regression to the mean.
- tlrobinson 8y agoYes, but if you're specifically studying placebos you should have a control group that gets nothing.