Tag: placebo

Ethics in Medicine

Phenylephrine No Better Than Placebo

  FDA advisory panel’s declaration paves way for removal of dozens of medicines in the U.S. Your favorite cold medicine for a stuffy nose may soon be unavailable. An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration declared Tuesday that an ingredient in widely used oral decongestants doesn’t work, setting the stage for dozens of products…

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Autonomic Activity, HRV and Placebo Effect

There is scant data on the effect of placebo on the autonomic nervous system and HRV in particular.  Since acupuncture research has a heavy burden of showing real effect versus placebo, it is of interest to note this study which finds no difference in HRV response between the control group and the placebo group.  This…

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Medical Research

Phantom Needling: Novel Sham Acupuncture Technique

  A Vitaly Napadow article which explores using a video camera to suggest that a patient is getting acupuncture, when in fact they are not.  There are many interesting findings.  A key finding that affects my work and conclusions is that vagal enhancement seems to accompany the placebo effect.  So what that means is that…

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Ethics in Medicine

Placebo Effect Varies with Type Administered

This study compiled many studies already performed and showed that sham acupuncture and sham surgery had a higher placebo effect than a sham pill for migraine treatment.  The commentary challenges the researchers take away lesson, however, and feel that clinicians should harness the placebo effect if it works better than standard treatment.  Given that the…

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Ethics in Medicine

Knee Surgery for Meniscus Repair No Better Than Placebo

Of course, surgery is one of the most powerful placebos that exist.  But the studies that have actually looked at placebo surgery are vanishingly rare.  So bravo that they looked, and shame on surgeons that they so seldom scrutinize the real value of their procedures. THURSDAY, Dec. 26, 2013 (HealthDay News) — Improvements in knee…

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