Information provided to patients is thought to influence placebo and drug effects. In a prospective, within-subjects, repeated-measures study of 66 subjects with episodic migraine, we investigated how variations in medication labeling modified placebo and drug effects. An initial attack with no treatment served as a control. In six subsequent migraine attacks, each participant received either p...

The hedonic placebo effect of traditional medicines All rights reserved. No part of this paper may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieve system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Abstract To date, the scie...

FREE Full Text 6. ↵ Andrews G (2001) Placebo response in depression: bane of research, boon to therapy. Br J Psychiatry 178: 192-194. FREE Full Text 7. ↵ Apkarian AV, Sosa Y, Sonty S, Levy RM, Harden RN, Parrish TB, Gitelman DR (2004) Chronic back pain is associated with decreased prefrontal and thalamic gray matter density. J Neurosci 24: 10410-10415. Abstract/FREE Full Text 8. ↵ Bao S, Chan V...

This is a response to Dr Charlotte Rosalind Blease's paper 'Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), the Placebo Effect and Informed Consent', written by Julie K. Hersh who has had ECT. Hersh argues that placebo effect is impossible to prove without endangering the lives of participants in the study. In addition, informing potential ECT patients of unproven placebo effect could discourage patients from...

It is often stated, paradoxically, that a treatment is not effective when trials have shown a placebo effect. This should be rephrased 'that the tested treatment is not more effective than the placebo' if we are not to confuse ourselves and the public in the current debate on complementary and alternative medicine.

The history of the concept of the placebo effect and research into its quantification and mechanisms are reviewed, particularly in relation to psychiatry. Research has demonstrated a notable placebo effect in depression: a large proportion of the clinical effect of antidepressant medication is attributable to the effect. Various mechanisms have been hypothesised: anxiety relief, expectation, tr...

OBJECTIVE Administration of placebo can result in a clinical response indistinguishable from that seen with active antidepressant treatment. Functional brain correlates of this phenomenon have not been fully characterized. METHOD Changes in brain glucose metabolism were measured by using positron emission tomography in hospitalized men with unipolar depression who were administered placebo as...

background this study assesses the potential effect of lactobacillus reuteri as a single strain probiotic preparation (biogaia®) on irritable bowel syndrome (ibs). methods patients diagnosed with ibs who fulfilled rome iii criteria and consented to participate in this study were randomized to receive either the probiotic or an identical placebo once daily for four weeks. patients used a questio...

By using deceptive experiments in which participants are informed that they received caffeine when, fact, an inert substance (i.e., placebo), several investigations have demonstrated exercise performance can be enhanced to a similar degree as known dose. This ‘placebo effect’ phenomenon may part of the mechanisms explaining caffeine’s ergogenicity exercise. However, there is no study has establ...

Background Dietary treatment containing fiber-rich foods may contribute to lowering weight in obese women. Objective To investigate the effect of a hypoenergetic diet combined with pumpkin seed flour (PSF) consumption on quality, anthropometric indices, and glucose lipid metabolism Methods We conducted randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, 90-day clinical trial women, distributed into f...