How does the placebo affect research and treatment?
Because of the strong placebo effect, we must be careful in how we interpret claims for new treatments. A positive or negative effect could simply be due to placebo and not the real treatment. Research is often designed to try to control or eliminate this placebo effect. The randomized controlled research trial commonly used to study new treatments and interventions is designed with this in mind. In the randomized trial, participants are randomly divided into a group that gets the treatment under study and another that gets placebo (i.e. sugar pill, sham surgery). Ideally both research participant and researcher are not aware of which group participants are assigned. This avoids the bias in measurement that researchers can bring to the table. In this way, the placebo effect (i.e. results obtained from the group that unknowingly received inactive treatment) is compared to that seen in the active treatment group. If there is a significant difference (negative or positive) the treatment d
