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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

@BrandonOne particular bias appears to be that in many of these studies the subjects are asked how they feel and usually answer in the positive giving a subjective result that isn't really that useful

A lot of outcomes in medicine are inherently subjective.Pain is _SUBJECTIVE_. If anything, the fmri studies on pain seem to indicate there probably is a role for psycho-somatic (placebo) control of pain. There is no physical measurement available. Depression is subjective, there is no know physical measurement available. Chest Pain (Angina) to some extent is _subjective_. Many interventions in medicine are aimed at improving these subjective measures as these things really can effect quality of life. You need a control arm. You need a control arm that doesn't have built in expectations to the questions they are going to answer.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

I can't tell - is the claim here that placebos are less effective remedies than previously thought (and completely ineffective for many conditions), or is it that they have no medical benefit whatsoever and only influence what people say about their health? The latter conclusion seems unwarranted, especially given the physiological research that is starting to look at the effects that placebos have on the brain (especially in the processing of pain). I'm not an expert on this, but it looks like these studies are finding effects on lower-level brain processes (like sub-cortical mu-opioid receptors and P2 ERPs) that are inconsistent with a mere reporting bias.

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