AIMS The increased tolerance to myocardial ischaemia observed during the second of two sequential exercise tests, i.e. the warm-up phenomenon, has been proposed as a clinical model of ischaemic preconditioning. As ATP-sensitive K+ channels appear to be a mediator of ischaemic preconditioning in both experimental and clinical studies, the aim of this study was to investigate the role of K(ATP) c...

Abstract Reactivity, or the phenomenon by which subjects tend to modify their behavior in virtue of being studied upon, is often cited as one most important difficulties involved social scientific experiments, and yet, there date a persistent conceptual muddle when dealing with many dimensions reactivity. This paper offers framework for reactivity that draws on an interventionist approach causa...

OBJECTIVE Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) is an important clinical feature of systemic sclerosis (SSc) for which consistently effective therapies are lacking. The study was designed to assess the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of tadalafil, a selective, long acting type V cyclic GMP phosphodiesterase (PDE-5) inhibitor, in this clinical syndrome. METHODS We performed a prospective, randomized, d...

Digital vasospastic phenomena have been reported to result from use of nonselective and cardioselective /3-adrenoreceptor-blocking drugs. The effects of 80 mg/day propranolol and 100 mg/day metoprolol on finger hemodynamics and clinical responses were compared with those of placebo in 16 patients with Raynaud's phenomenon. A double-blind, 2 week crossover study design was used with a 2 week was...

The placebo effect is an interesting phenomenon whereby a dummy treatment can produce therapeutic benefit, such as, pain relief. While evidence for the placebo effect is growing, relatively few studies have explored ways of enhancing placebo effects. To address this, the current study tested whether placebo-induced analgesia could be enhanced by providing an educational handout about the effica...

Although it has long been known that psychosocial factors play a crucial role in placebo responses, no attempt has been made to understand if social observation shapes the placebo analgesic effect. To address this question, we compared placebo analgesia induced through social observation (Group 1) with first-hand experience via a typical conditioning procedure (Group 2) and verbal suggestion al...

Iloprost, a stable prostacyclin analogue, was given by intravenous infusion to 29 patients with severe Raynaud's phenomenon, 26 of whom had systemic sclerosis (SS), and compared with placebo infusion in a double blind crossover trial. Iloprost significantly lessened the number and the severity of attacks compared with placebo. Nine patients expressed a preference for effectiveness of treatment,...

The paper examines the placebo effect in sports performance. The possibility that the placebo effect is a more common phenomenon than the quantity of published research would suggest is briefly addressed. It is suggested that the placebo control design often used in sports performance research masks any placebo effects and thus presents a false picture of the mechanisms underlying performance-e...