Placebos

The availability of homeopathy on the NHS is important

I wonder if people such as Michael Marshall ( The Pharmaceutical Journal 2016;297:101), who would refuse patients the option of NHS homeopathic treatment, have considered the plight of people failed by evidence-based medicine? Where are those with chronic, disabling conditions to turn wh…

Simple saline spray is as effective as drug therapy for treating chronic nosebleeds

Squirting a simple saline solution into the nostrils twice a day could alleviate chronic nosebleeds just as effectively as administering any one of three different medication sprays, a study shows.  A total of 121 people were randomly assigned to receive bevacizumab, estriol, tranexamic a…

Dengue vaccine confers complete protection in human challenge trial

Candidate vaccines for dengue fever have not consistently conferred protective immunity against the virus, despite inducing antibody responses in clinical trials.…

Antibiotics not effective for children with infected eczema

Researchers conclude less severe eczema infection can be treated with topical steroids and emollients…

Caplacizumab speeds up resolution of rare thrombotic disorder

Study suggests novel therapy could prevent short and long-term organ damage associated with aTTP.…

Parkinson’s patients can be trained to respond to placebo

Placebo administration induced clinical and neuronal responses in Parkinson’s patients taking apomorphine.…

Placebos: more than meets the eye

Often dismissed as fakes, placebos seem to work on the same brain pathways targeted by ‘real’ treatments and involve a complex network of genes.…

Challenging the gold standard of double-blind drug trials

The double-blind randomised controlled trial may be the gold standard of medical research but it fails to take full account of interactions between treatment and behaviour, say researchers writing in PLoS ONE.…

Placebo effect genes identified

Researchers have identified at least 11 genes that influence individuals’ susceptibility to the placebo effect.…

Perception of drug cost influences placebo response in Parkinson’s disease

Treatment perceived to be expensive, even though it was a placebo, led to a two-fold improvement in motor function in Parkinson’s disease patients compared with a treatment perceived to be cheap.…