Ethical placebos

"A recent study found that placebos work even if the patient is told by the doctor that the drug they're taking has no 'real' medicine in it.

Huh?

We've come to understand that the placebo effect is real. If we believe we're going to get better, perform better, make the sale, etc., it often occurs that we do. That's because the brain is the single best marketing agent when it comes to selling ourselves something. If we think we're going to get better, we're much more likely to actually get better."

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/02/ethical-placebos-stunning-but-not-actually-surprising.html

"In other words, in addition to the bogus medication, the volunteers were given a true story — the story of the placebo effect. They also received the care and attention of clinicians, which have been found in many other studies to be crucial for eliciting placebo effects. The combination of the story and a supportive clinical environment were enough to prevail over the knowledge that there was really nothing in the pills. People in the placebo arm of the trial got better — clinically, measurably, significantly better — on standard scales of symptom severity and overall quality of life. In fact, the volunteers in the placebo group experienced improvement comparable to patients taking a drug called alosetron, the standard of care for IBS."

http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2010/12/22/meet-the-ethical-placebo-a-story-that-heals/