The Placebo Effect

Commonly used in clinical trials as controls to study the effectiveness of new medications, placebos have been recently shown to be not quite what they seem. A study conducted in late 2010 shows that placebos (sugar pills without any active ingredients) have astounding curatiVe Values. Dummy pills were given to a group of 80 patients suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome with their full knowledge that the pills contained no medicinal ingredient. At the end of two weeks, a surprising number (59 percent) of patients reported symptom relief. These findings suggest that not only is the commonly accepted "power of positive thinking" beneficial to health, but belief in a simple medical ritual may also have healing powers.

wow frn its so informative threads. i love this threads. ya you are right that placebo is commonly used in clinical trials as controls to study the effectiveness of new medication...thank you for your wonderful post..