Studies with open-label placebos — sugar pills given without deception — suggest that the placebo effect is more psychologically complex than previously thought.

In a groundbreaking randomized clinical trial recently published in JAMA Network Open, researchers explored the effects of open-label placebo treatment on migraine sufferers, uncovering nuanced insights into its potential impact beyond mere symptom control. While the placebo intervention did not yield a statistically significant decrease in headache frequency, it was linked to remarkable improvements in patients' quality of life and reductions in pain-related disability.

IBS patient Linda Buonanno knew the pills she was given c...

IBS patient Linda Buonanno knew the pills she was given c...

IBS patient Linda Buonanno knew the pills she was given contained no active drugs, yet they had an immediate effect on her condition. So can placebos play a useful medical role?

Berlin – Placebos, teilweise als Scheinmedikamente oder Scheininterventionen bezeichnet, können mitunter eine erstaunliche Wirkung entfalten. Die Placebos...

Ein Placebo gegen PMS-Beschwerden, bei dem die Betroffenen wissen, dass es ein Placebo ist? Das kann einer neuen Studie zufolge tatsächlich die Symptome verringern. Die Open-Label-Placebos könnten daher eine Behandlungsalternative zu herkömmlichen PMS-Therapien darstellen.

Placebo effects are known for numerous clinical symptoms. Until recently, deception of placebos was thought to be essential for placebo effects, but intriguing new studies suggest that even placebos without concealment (open-label placebos) may help patients with various clinical disorders. Most of those studies compared open-label placebo treatments with no treatment conditions (or treatment “as usual”). Given that open-label placebo studies obviously cannot be blinded, additional control studies are important to assess the efficacy of open-label placebos. The current study aimed to fil this gap by comparing open-label with conventional double-blind placebos and treatment as usual. Patients with seasonal allergic rhinitis were randomly divided in different groups. The first group received open-label placebos, the second double-blind placebos, and the third was treated as usual. After 4 weeks, results demonstrated that open-label placebos improved allergic symptoms more than treatment-as-usual and even more as double-blind placebos. In addition, we observed that allergic symptoms in general (and also the open-label placebo effects) were reduced by the Covid-19 pandemic. The results suggest that seasonal allergic symptoms may be relieved by open-label placebos. We discuss these results by addressing possible different mechanisms of open-label and conventionally concealed placebo treatments.

Studies with open-label placebos — sugar pills given without deception — suggest that the placebo effect is more psychologically complex than previously thought.