Thursday, April 16, 2009
Proven or placebo--take your pick!
A article by HealthDay reported this week that those acupressure wristbands that people use to stave off seasickness can also reduce nausea from cancer treatment. The article specifically noted that the improvement could not be attributed to the placebo effect, because patients who weren't sold on the benefits of the bands also reported less nausea.
Intrigued, I decided to engage in some heavy-duty journalistic investigation (Googling the press release mentioned in the article). I thought I found it here, but was surprised to find the study author saying, "But we think that the effect of the pressure bands was primarily a placebo effect. It appeared that the bands themselves did little or nothing, just as a placebo pill does nothing by itself." Wasn't that the opposite of the study findings?
Sure enough, it was. Because that press release was from a study released in 2003, by the same researchers, at the same university, published in the same journal, on effectively the same subject (one study covered nausea after chemo, while the other did radiation), with opposite results. The new press release for the 2009 study at least links back to the first study, but it still leaves one at a loss for the real implications of the research. Is the acupressure working, or the placebo?
Maybe it doesn't matter. As a recent ACP Internist article revealed, a lot of docs figure that if a treatment's cheap, not likely to cause harm, and the patient thinks it will work (all likely to be true of an acupressure wristband), why not give it a try?
Labels: alternative medicine, placebos
posted by Stacey Butterfield at
3:57 PM
0 Comments
Friday, October 24, 2008
Physicians using antibiotics, sedatives as placebos
Internists and rheumatologists are using antibiotics and sedatives for their placebo effect, researchers reported.
Before 1960, sugar pills were common and ethical. Then advances in pharmaceuticals and in informed consent cast placebos in a negative light. But internists are using them, so researchers looked at internists and rheumatologists use of placebos, figuring they dealt with "debilitating chronic clinical conditions that are notoriously difficult to manage."
Researchers collected 679 responses split nearly evenly bewteen internist and rheumatologists. About half prescribe placebos, using saline (3%), sugar pills (2%), over the counter analgesics (41%), vitamins (38%) antibiotics (13%) and sedatives (13%). Nearly half said they use placebos monthly.
The researchers concluded, "Recommending relatively innocuous treatments such as vitamins or over the counter analgesics to promote positive expectations might not raise serious concerns about detrimental effects to patients' welfare. Prescribing antibiotics and sedatives when they are not medically indicated, however, could have potentially important adverse consequences for both patients and public health."
How are you using placebos in your practice?
Labels: ethics, placebos, rheumatology
posted by Ryan DuBosar at
9:59 AM
0 Comments
ACP Internist hosted Grand Rounds on June 16, wrapping up the best of the medical blogosphere. Click here for the complete wrap-up.
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