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December 28, 2010

Majority of U.S. Family Physicians Prescribe Placebos

David Liu:

Ted Kaptchuk at Harvard Medical School and colleagues at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center conducted a clinical trial and found a placebo pill without any active ingredient was better than no treatment at helping patients with irritable bowel syndrome.

The therapeutic effect observed in the IBS patients who received the placebo treatment was not the common placebo effect, which is something observed in patients who do not know they are taking a dummy pill in the first place.

In this study, the researchers actually told those on the placebo treatment that they were using a placebo pill, but not a medicine.

The study published on December 22 in PLoS ONE suggests that any placebo treatment (which at least won't cause adverse or side effect) can be better than no treatment.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 28, 2010 2:32 AM
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