New evidence placebos work, even when people know they're placebos
Placebo drugs, containing no active ingredients, can still confer beneficial effects in people who are aware they are not real medications.
[There is a] growing body of study suggesting “honest” placebos could have a role in modern clinical practice.
Doctors have utilized of the power of the placebo for centuries. In fact, until the mid-20 century, placebos were administered by physicians to patients on a regular basis and medical ethicists at the time described them as a “necessary deception.”
...some scientists suggest the power of the placebo should be harnessed and modern medicine could incorporate non-deceptive placebos into clinical practices.
"Just think: What if someone took a side-effect free sugar pill twice a day after going through a short convincing video on the power of placebos and experienced reduced stress as a result?" asks lead author on the new study, Darwin Guevarra
There is a “compelling body of research suggests placebos can still be effective in some cases without a pretense of deception.
This new research began by investigating prior non-deceptive placebo studies. Many studies delivered promisingly positive results for conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, emotional distress and chronic back pain,
So the researchers devised an experiment…[participants]were told that the nasal spray was a placebo that contained no active ingredients, but would help reduce their negative emotional reactions to viewing distressing images if they believed it would.
"These findings provide initial support that non-deceptive placebos are not merely a product of response bias – telling the experimenter what they want to hear – but represent genuine psychobiological effects,"
“So rather than prescribing a host of medications to help a patient, you could give them a placebo, tell them it can help them and chances are – if they believe it can, then it will."