Monday, July 31, 2006

The strange world of the placebo

Nothing can cure you - Health - Times Online

The link is to an interesting story on the placebo effect, and in particular how it is a large part of the complementary medicine story.

It does seem odd that an effect that is known to be quite powerful cannot really be used by doctors due to ethical/legal issues. (This didn't stop Dr House on the TV show "House" using it last week, though.)

One study is mentioned in the report which I think may have missed at the time:

Four years ago, a big study examined two popular treatments for depression: the herbal remedy St John’s Wort, the antidepressant tablet Zoloft, and a placebo. It revealed, amazingly, that the placebo was more effective than both of them.

Is there any way around the problems of how you could allow placebo to be legitimately used beyond the confines of medical studies? It would be tricky, I know, but it does seem a pity that only fictional doctors ever do it.

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