"Bob" wrote in message


and the placebo rated 45%.
Beliefs are powerful.

Geeze.......... 45%!?!?!

But I gotta ask who were the test subjects? Were they or had been SSRI
users?

If so I would think the study was skewed with a bunch of head cases. I
just can not believe that 45% of the general population would say they
felt better after swalling a sugar cube.


Placebo effects are interesting, and the effects can be large, but vary with
type of intervention and condition.

As an example, some years ago I read a trial of the different placebo
effects of different coloured pills- white ones didn't have much of an
effect, red and yellow a bit more, pink, candy-striped and other wilder
colours a bit more again, but the best of the lot were the black pills!

Likewise physical interventions like back manipulation/ acupuncture etc have
a higher placebo effect than simply taking a pill.

Also, the condition treated affects the placebo response- for example trials
of migraine remedies often exhibit a placebo response of over 50%, but it is
not sustained over time. I suspect seasickness would have a high placebo
response.

All this explains why we in medicine go to the trouble of double blinded,
placebo controlled trials to take out the errors of observer bias and
placebo response.

Peter HK (physician)