Something I Have Always Wondered About the Placebo Effect
The subject of the placebo effect has always fascinated me. The implications of the mind-body-health connection are mind blowing. I've always wondered though if anyone has ever done an experiment wherein the person administering the placebo was unaware that it was in fact a placebo. Would the effect still be the same?
This obviously could present ethical challenges so the experiment would have to be done in a way as to avoid harm. It would be hard to perform such a study but the results would sure be interesting.
Yes, it's typically done in clinical trials especially for new drugs.
They're called double-blind placebo-controlled trials. And it's done this way to eliminate the placebo effect.
You know when I read your profile yesterday I thought "I bet she would know something about this" but I didn't want to throw links at you like spam. I really appreciate your input and you definitively answered my question. Thank you. I'm going to look more into the terms you used.
;)
Oh, I thought that that was already the way they did it. Don't only the people at the top of the study know who is getting the actual drug or the placebo? I'm pretty sure that the person administering them is unaware of which is being administered.
Well, I suppose it would depend on the specific methodology of the study. What I'm wondering about is if the doctor prescribing it had no idea there were such a thing in play. Honestly I can't think of any way it could be done without creating an ethical dilemma but maybe a creative researcher could figure that out. With my admittedly limited understanding of the effect I would guess that it would produce the exact same result as if it were just the patient who thought it was a real drug.
Well there is something to be said about how much people can pick up without realizing it. Because of this, I think it's possible that if the person administering a placebo knew it was a placebo, the person receiving it could pick up on that somehow.
As long as the doctor that is administering the dose is aware that it could be a placebo then I don't think there is any ethical dilemma as placebos are usually only used in studies. (Unless you're Doctor House from the show House M.D.)