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substance or treatment of no therapeutic value / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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A placebo (/pləˈsiːboʊ/ plə-SEE-boh) is an inert substance or treatment which is not designed to have a therapeutic value.[1] Common placebos include inert tablets (like sugar pills), inert injections (like saline), sham surgery,[2] and other procedures.[3]
In drug testing and medical research, a placebo can be made to resemble an active medication or therapy so that it functions as a control; this is to prevent the recipient(s) or others from knowing (with their consent) whether a treatment is active or inactive, as expectations about efficacy can influence results.[4][5] In a clinical trial any change in the placebo arm is known as the placebo response, and the difference between this and the result of no treatment is the placebo effect.[6]
A placebo may be given to a person in a clinical context in order to deceive the recipient into thinking that it is an active treatment. The use of placebos as treatment in clinical medicine is ethically problematic as it introduces deception and dishonesty into the doctor–patient relationship.[7]
Even though placebo effects were already discussed in 18th century psychology[8], the role of placebo effects in clinical settings has only been recognized fully in the 20th century. An influential 1955 study entitled The Powerful Placebo finally established the idea that placebo effects were clinically important,[9] and were a result of the brain's role in physical health, but it did not account for regression to the mean or other factors, and reassessments of the data have found no evidence of any placebo effect.[10][11] Subsequent research has found that placebos have no impact on diseases;[12][13] they can only affect the person's perception of their own condition.</ref>[13] Improvements that patients experience after being treated with a placebo can also be due to unrelated factors, such as a natural recovery from the illness.[13][14]