Catarina Craveiro, a biomedical research technician from Lisbon, Portugal, had suffered from chronic lower back pain and participated in a 2013 clinical trial studying the effects of a placebo. Initially skeptical, she took the medically inert pills as directed and over time, she said her pain disappeared entirely.
Historically, the placebo effect was thought to work only through patients believing they were receiving an actual treatment. However, research has found the effect can occur even when patients are fully aware they are taking a placebo, a process also known as “open-label use.”
Studies have found that placebos can help relieve symptoms such as pain, anxiety, depression and fatigue. Imaging has suggested the effects work by prompting certain areas of the brain to release endorphins, which can help reduce pain and relieve stress.
A trial led by clinical and health psychologist Cláudia Ferreira de Carvalho, PhD, found that patients taking a placebo twice daily alongside their regular treatments experienced a 30% reduction in pain after three weeks, compared to 9% in those who continued their standard care without a placebo.
The benefits persisted for at least five years, with painkiller use dropping from 80% to 31% among placebo patients.
Experts stress, however, that placebos work best in the context of a supportive patient-doctor relationship.
“It’s the empathy, attention, emotional support, thoughtfulness, acts of decency, laying on of hands that goes on between a patient and doctor,” Ted Kaptchuk, a professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the program in placebo studies at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, both based in Boston, told the Post. “You can’t just take a Tic Tac, a sugar pill. It doesn’t work without a doctor.”