The Placebo Effect Uses Fake Medicine to Get Real Results

In this week's episode, we talk about placebos, which are inert "medications" used to compare with active drugs. We talk about how the use of medications that "do nothing" can provide pain relief, change hormone balance int he body, and lower symptoms across a broad variety of diseases.References:Beecher, H. K. (1955). The powerful placebo. Journal of the American Medical Association, 159(17), 1602-1606. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/303530Wager, T. D., & Atlas, L. Y. (2015). The neuroscience of placebo effects: connecting context, learning and health. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16(7), 403-418. https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn3976Zunhammer, M., Spisák, T., Wager, T. D., & Bingel, U. (2021). Meta-analysis of neural systems underlying placebo analgesia from individual participant fMRI data. Nature communications, 12(1), 1391. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21179-3Marchant, J. (2016). Placebos: honest fakery. Nature, 535(7611), S14-S15. https://www.nature.com/articles/535S14aAmanzio, M., & Benedetti, F. (1999). Neuropharmacological dissection of placebo analgesia: expectation-activated opioid systems versus conditioning-activated specific subsystems. Journal of Neuroscience, 19(1), 484-494. https://www.jneurosci.org/content/19/1/484.shortChen, C., Niehaus, J. K., Dinc, F., Huang, K. L., Barnette, A. L., Tassou, A., ... & Scherrer, G. (2024). Neural circuit basis of placebo pain relief. Nature, 632(8027), 1092-1100. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07816-zShare with a friend. Rate, Review, and Subscribe to MedEvidence! Articles to be notified when new episodes are released.Follow us on Social Media:FacebookInstagramTwitterLinkedInTiktokYoutubeFor more great content, including discussions by physicians and clinical research experts, check out the MedEvidence! Podcast and MedEvidence.comThank you for listening!