A placebo helps even those patients who know that the use placebo.

According to the lead author Eric Zhou an open placebo therapy has been found to be effective for patients with nausea, pain, migraine and inflammatory processes of the digestive system. In this case, appropriate medications alleviating the condition of patients often give side effects that are completely absent when taking a placebo. Not to mention the fact that placebotherapy is hundreds of times cheaper. However, the therapy is much better tolerated by cancer patients taking a placebo openly than those from the control group that did not receive any additional tablets. One of the versions is that the patient's condition improves from the very fact of taking the tablet, which triggers the usual psychological mechanism: "I took a tablet - I feel better". This theory is partly supported by the fact that after taking the drug, people often feel better within a few minutes, but the drug itself begins to act much later.

SOURCE: UNIAN