Placebos Can Improve Treatments and Relieve Symptoms

Scientists advise that placebos can be an important tool in many treatments. They can relieve symptoms in patients and even improve a treatment. According to a recent study, placebos are rooted in neurobiology and they offer several benefits. Prof. Ted Kaptchuk from the BIDMC (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) said that placebos are not a cure, but they provide relief. This means that they are even more important in situations where there is no cure. They can make patients feel better.
Placebos are used in clinical trials, in order to determine is a new drug effective or not. However, they have been used for centuries as a way of treating pain and similar symptoms.
A recent research found that placebos are not just a ‘’dummy’’ pills. They are important in many treatments and they have a positive effect on the patients. Prof. Kaptchuk, a professor at the Medicine at Harvard Medical School, also said that since 2011 (after a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine) placebos become more important and frequently used in many treatments. Recent studies found that placebos affect on certain neurotransmitters and brain pathways. This was used in order to explain how placebos actually work.
Placebos are also very effective in treatments for irritable bowel syndrome and migraine headache. They do not affect on these conditions directly, but they improve the effect of pharmaceutical therapies. For example, when patients took rizatriptan labeled as placebo and when they took placebo labeled as rizatriptan, the outcome was the same. But, when they labeled rizatriptan as rizatriptan (corectly) the effect was increased by 50%.