A Placebo May Work Even If You're Told It's Fake, Study

Even if you use a placebo that has no medical value, you can lower pain in research participants, say researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder. The placebo gel works for subjects, with the brain playing an important role, according to medindia.

"We're still learning a lot about the critical ingredients of placebo effects. What we think now is that they require both belief in the power of the treatment and experiences that are consistent with those beliefs," said senior author Scott Schafer.

"Those experiences make the brain learn to respond to the treatment as a real event. After the learning has occurred, your brain can still respond to the placebo even if you no longer believe in it," Schafer pointed out in The Journal of Pain.

The study commenced with a ceramic "heating element" rubbed on the forearms of those who participated in the research. After that, an analgesic gel was applied on the affected skin, turning down the temperature. The vaseline with blue food coloring was available in an "official looking pharmaceutical container".

"They believed the treatment was effective in relieving pain," Schafer explained. "After this process, they had acquired the placebo effect. We tested them with and without the treatment on medium intensity. They reported less pain with the placebo," Schafer said.

One catch was that the subjects were made to believe that the treatment was "real" over a period of time, according to med.news.

Some patients who were told that it was fake following just one session stopped to experience pain relief, the US study found. However, those who were told after four sessions continued to feel the gains.

Senior author Tor Wager, of the University of Colorado Boulder, said: "We're still learning a lot about the critical ingredients of placebo effects. What we think now is that they require both belief in the power of the treatment and experiences that are consistent with those beliefs."

An exciting offshoot of the research is that it might help to treat "drug addiction" or aid those who have been subjected to surgery and are ingesting strong, potentially addictive painkillers.

"We know placebos induce the release of pain-relieving substances in the brain, but we don't yet know whether this expectation-independent placebo effect is using the same or different systems," Schafer concluded.