Placebos Work -- Even Without Deception

An anonymous reader writes "For most of us, the 'placebo effect' is synonymous with the power of positive thinking; it works because you believe you're taking a real drug. But a new study rattles this assumption. Researchers at Harvard Medical School's Osher Research Center and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have found that placebos work even when administered without the seemingly requisite deception. The study was published on December 22 in PLoS ONE."

Comments

Homeopathic Medicine

[Sonny Yatsen]

If deception isn't necessary for placebos to work, does this mean the homeopathic medicine advocates can admit it's bullshit now?

Re:Homeopathic Medicine

[happylight]

If it works, how can it be bullshit?

False deception

[Thanshin]

A guy dressed in a white lab coat, doing an experiment, gives you some medicine and tells you: "This is a placebo. Trust me, there is no active component of any kind.". Then, as soon as you swallow the medicine he, and three other lab coated investigators watch you attentively for an hour, asking if you feel strange in any way.

What would be the chances of you believing them and having no doubts about the placebo nature of what you had taken?

Re:Same Deception

[Monkeedude1212]

Moreover, I'm confused how on Earth they would manage to test something like this.

If you tell them it's a placebo, doesn't that, in a way, make it no longer a placebo? How can you observe a positive effect from placebos if they aren't even placebos anymore?

There's any number of things that could cause the "Positive thinking". They might be glad their Doctor is honest with them. They might like the sugar they put in them. They might be lessed stress knowing its not 100% necessary to get up at 6 in the morning to make sure you pop your placebo in time.

I'll read the full Article after this cup of coffee. I Can never seem to keep focused before having a cup of Decaf.

Not so fast

[Suddenly_Dead]

As pointed out by Orac, things are nowhere as simple here as they've been presented. There was still an establishment of expectation of the treatment working, which is exactly one would expect would elicit the placebo effect.

...the investigators deceived their subjects to induce placebo effects. Here's how they describe what they told their patients:

Patients who gave informed consent and fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria were randomized into two groups: 1) placebo pill twice daily or 2) no-treatment. Before randomization and during the screening, the placebo pills were truthfully described as inert or inactive pills, like sugar pills, without any medication in it. Additionally, patients were told that "placebo pills, something like sugar pills, have been shown in rigorous clinical testing to produce significant mind-body self-healing processes." The patient-provider relationship and contact time was similar in both groups. Study visits occurred at baseline (Day 1), midpoint (Day 11) and completion (Day 21). Assessment questionnaires were completed by patients with the assistance of a blinded assessor at study visits.

Moreover, the investigators recruited subjects thusly:

Participants were recruited from advertisements for "a novel mind-body management study of IBS" in newspapers and fliers and from referrals from healthcare professionals. During the telephone screening, potential enrollees were told that participants would receive "either placebo (inert) pills, which were like sugar pills which had been shown to have self-healing properties" or no-treatment.

Even the authors had to acknowledge that this was a problem:

A further possible limitation is that our results are not generalizable because our trial may have selectively attracted IBS patients who were attracted by an advertisement for "a novel mind-body" intervention. Obviously, we cannot rule out this possibility. However, selective attraction to the advertised treatment is a possibility in virtually all clinical trials.

In other words, not only did Kaptchuk et al deceive their subjects to trigger placebo effects, whether they realize or will admit that that's what they did or not, but they might very well have specifically attracted patients more prone to believing that the power of "mind-body" interactions. Yes, patients were informed that they were receiving a placebo, but that knowledge was tainted by what the investigators told them about what the placebo pills could do.