Placebo effects

[bluewater198]

Briefly describe the nature of placebo effect?

[Loosehead]

When a person takes some form of medication that they are convinced will cure them, often it does regardless of the content of the "medicine". This is the theory that is often used to explain why Homeoppathy can sometimes produce results. i.e. the mind seems to beleive it is getting better and the body follows suit.

[jake-the-peg]

It gets better ...there was a study that showed that large red placebo pills were actually more effective in curing pain than small blue ones!

Both large red pills and small blue ones were identical otherwise and contained no medecin at all.

[andy hughes]

A placebo is often used as a 'control' in experiemnts - some particupents are given a placebo - a non-effective but apparently similar version of the drug given to other recipients, in order to ascertain if the effects are purely imaginary, or have any scientific basis.

[copippin]

seems to be mind over matter.before I retired, I dispensed drugs in a local pharmacy;we kept a couple of bottles of placeb tablets which on request we used to give to people perhaps before taking an exam to calm the nerves,or before a driving test. It worked every time I am sure because people felt that they had been given something special which would help them through..

[ronniemonda9]

jake is half right. The study ACTUALLY showed that the blue pill left you in the real world and the red pill took you into the Matrix.

[MarkyP05]

Used in many studies. One group is given a tablet to combat some kind of problem / illness whatver, another group is given the same tablet but has no actual ingredients in it, it may be a basic sugar tablet. studies may be double blind - that is both the participant and the experimentor giving the tablets do not know which is which. if both groups experience the same recovery then it would be called a placebo effect the because the "sugar tablet" group did not receive any medical tablet to make them better, it was only the belief that they were being treated that made them better. there is an incredible amount of research into this topic and why the placebo effect works, way to much to go into now.

[scubadiver]

Also, it is not uncommon, in placebo controlled trials, that patients receiving the placebo will frequently report all sort of strange "side effects" because they have been asked to report anything out of the ordinary.