-- Results of a small study suggest that Parkinson's patients seem to improve if they think they're taking a costly medication. The findings have been published online Jan. 28 in Neurology.
In the study, 12 patients had their movement symptoms evaluated hourly, for about four hours after receiving each of the placebos. On average, patients had bigger short-term improvements in symptoms like tremor and muscle stiffness when they were told they were getting the costlier of two drugs. In reality, both "drugs" were nothing more than saline, given by injection. But the study patients were told that one drug was a new medication priced at $1,500 a dose, while the other cost just $100 -- though, the researchers assured them, the medications were expected to have similar effects.
...when patients' movement symptoms were evaluated in the hours after receiving the fake drugs, they showed greater improvements with the pricey placebo. What's more, magnetic resonance imaging scans showed differences in the patients' brain activity, depending on which placebo they'd received. The patients in the study didn't get as much relief from the two placebos as they did from their regular medication, levodopa. But the magnitude of the expensive placebo's benefit was about halfway between that of the cheap placebo and levodopa. What's more, patients' brain activity on the pricey placebo was similar to what was seen with levodopa.
And this effect is "not exclusive to Parkinson's," according to Peter LeWitt, M.D., a neurologist at the Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital in Michigan, who wrote an editorial published with the study...

http://www.empr.com/pricey-placebo-w...rticle/395255/

Given the stuff that is funded (above study referenced) I wish I had submitted a few grant proposals for studies I had dreamed up 10 years ago when I had more energy and time.

This finding presents an opportunity, not a threat. It shows, as I've proposed in the past, that placebos can be engineered to increase their impact.

There are likely to be many factors other than price which influence the impact of placebos, for instance:
- recommendation by a group of experts;
- peer recommendation;
- advertising
- seeing yourself or a friend improve after taking the placebo.

But why work with straight placebos - things which are thought to be inert. Why not work with "therebos" things which may have efficacy, but for which there is no conclusive proof; things such as curcumin?

There could be a "distillation" process: measure your condition, take a therebo, measure your condition, communicate this with others. Then, depending on the results, for the next period stay with this therebo or change to another. Over a period of time the confidence in the best performing therebos would increase and this would in turn magnify their efficacy.

John