are independent from active chemical ingredients.
In order to distinguish real drug effect from placebo effect, researchers have been comparing drugs with placebo. In such studies, half of the subjects have been receiving the drug during the study and the other half have been receiving the placebo which is identical in form. In such studies, it is ideal if the subjects as well as the researchers do not know who has been receiving the real drug and who has been given the placebo (such studies are called "double blind”).
Science has determined that each drug has two therapeutic effects: the first one thanks to an active ingredient and the second one because of one's belief that he/she will get better. The latter phenomenon, known as the placebo effect, appears among a third of the patients who receive therapy under the condition that they are sure in its effectiveness.
Clinical trials
Many theories, discussions and even comprehensive, serious, pharmaco-biological and clinical trials exist and are directed towards trying to solve the enigma surrounding placebo and its real clinical efficiency. One such recently published research shows how doctors may, one day, start prescribing placebo-pills to their patients suffering from chronic pain. Such pills will reduce the pain as efficiently as any "real” painkiller that can now be found on the market.
A research team from the Northwestern University of Feinberg, Chicago has examined the brain anatomy and psychological characteristics of patients and has proven that it is possible to predict which patients with chronic pain will efficiently react to the false "sugar” pill that is placebo.
'Their brain is already prepared to positively respond to placebo', says the leader of the research, Vania Apkarian, Professor of Physiology at Northwestern. 'Its psychological and biological cerebral constitution is the cause of its suggestible state in which, if you claim that the pill will reduce their pain - their pain level will really be reduced.
'Such a patient isn't necessary to deceive', says Apkarian. There is a biological base supporting the placebo response.
'Their brain is already prepared to positively respond to placebo'
Vania Apkarian,
Professor of Physiology
at Northwestern.