Emily Anderson- open label placebo treatment

     A recent discovery about the Placebo Effect has been made in the medical world. It has been understood for many decades now that the Placebo Effect is a "psychological phenomenon" where a good outcome occurs from a "dummy" medication due to the belief in your head that it will work. This theory has been tested in the past and has been proven to work. Therefore, for many years people have understood that because they think something is making them healthier, thy actually do become healthier. Recently though, the idea arose to allow patients to be aware that they are being given the "placebo pill," which doesn't actually have any active ingredients in it. A group of researchers gathered 97 patients suffering from chronic lower back pain to participate in their study. They randomly split them up into two groups: the first group just carried out their normal treatment while the other group received a "placebo pill" along with their other treatments. The patients knew they were just getting a "placebo pill"; however, despite their knowing that the pill had nothing effective in it, overall, those patients' pain decreased by 30% in just three weeks. 

     This study proves a lot of things wrong that people thought to be true. I always believed the Placebo Effect worked in the way we have always understood it to work. It's very interesting that even though the patient knows the "placebo pill" is ineffective, they still improve health wise. This story can relate to when in 1784 Benjamin Franklin tested the mind's power by seeing if a physician's "magical" tub was actually curing patients or if it was just the mindset of the curer and the cured. The Placebo Effect didn't get it's name until way later, but this theory has been in effect for a very long time.