Scientists suggest that the placebo effect should be considered as an important tool in relieving the symptoms of patients and improving other therapeutics, writing in an article that these “dummy” treatments are underappreciated by the medical community.

Share on Pinterest Placebos have been used for centuries to relieve pain and other symptoms as well as in clinical trials to test new drugs.

The paper, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, states that recent research indicates placebo effects are rooted in neurobiology and can be valuable in and of themselves.

“Placebos don’t necessarily provide cures, but they provide relief,” explains coauthor Prof. Ted Kaptchuk, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). “In medical situations in which no cure is available, supportive and attentive health care can help patients to feel better, and when effective drugs do exist, placebo effects can enhance their impact.”

Dummy pills are often used in clinical trials as a means to test whether new drug therapies work or not, although they have also been used as a way of treating pain and other symptoms for centuries.

According to the authors, improvements in patients’ symptoms are due to participation in a therapeutic encounter and precipitated by contextual cues such as identifiable health care objects and the interaction between patient and physician.

“A significant body of research has resulted in a shift from thinking of placebos as just ‘dummy’ treatments to recognizing that placebo effects encompass numerous aspects of the health care experience and are central to medicine and patient care,” explains Prof. Kaptchuk, also Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

He demonstrates how opinions of placebos have changed by referring to a meta-analysis published in 2001 – also in The New England Journal of Medicine – which concluded that placebo effects are insignificant. Since that study, placebos have gone on to become more prominent in medical practice.

“Recent scientific advances have enabled us to identify a trove of neurotransmitters and detect relevant neural brain pathways as well as genetic markers that help explain the biology of the placebo effect,” says Prof. Kaptchuk. These pathways are also used by many common medications, enhancing the credibility of the placebo effect.