Modern medicine prides itself on its evidence-based approach, whereby doctors and hospitals choose treatments based not on faith or hearsay but on hard science.
What if our faith in medicine can be scientifically shown to have a significant therapeutic effect?
Enter the Placebo
Generally understood as the illusion of treatment, a placebo often takes the form of a sugar pill masquerading as a genuine drug.
A placebo has no discernible pharmacological value, and yet research has shown that when patients take placebos, their symptoms improve.
This effect works so well that drug trials are often built around it. When evaluating new pharmaceuticals, researchers routinely compare one group of people who receive the actual drug with another group who receive a placebo. It’s only when new drugs and procedures can outperform this placebo effect that they can be deemed legitimately effective....
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