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Placebos Can Ease Stress – Even When People Know They’re Placebos
Aug 10, 2020
Placebo interventions have been shown to be a cost-effective way to manage a variety of disorders and symptoms. However, an important ethical issue prevents their widespread use: The common belief that for placebos to work, the patients needs to be deceived into thinking they are taking an active treatment.
Now in a new study, researchers from Michigan State University (MSU), University of Michigan and Dartmouth College have shown that placebos reduce brain markers of emotional distress even when people know they are taking one.
The findings show that even if people are aware that their treatment is not “real” — known as nondeceptive placebos — believing that it can heal can lead to changes in how the brain reacts to emotional information.
The findings offer initial support that nondeceptive placebos are not simply a product of response bias — or telling the patients what they want to hear — but that they represent genuine psychobiological effects, say the researchers.
“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,?” said Dr. Darwin Guevarra, MSU postdoctoral fellow and the study’s lead author. “These results raise that possibility.”
The new study tested how effective nondeceptive placebos are for reducing emotional brain activity.
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