Any health improvement in a patient who has been treated only with substances, preparations, or methods of no known ability to affect that patient's condition significantly is reasonably describable as a placebo effect. The distinction between using a placebo dishonestly and relying on the placebo effect is subtle but important. Hopefully, by making you more regular, we can reduce your cramps. In such a world, all of us would be groping for truth in a hall of mirrors. The doctor-patient partnership needs a shot of truth serum, not a saline injection.
Sugar pills are bitter medicine.
I find them too hard to swallow. ACSH scientific advisor and freelance writer Michael Kirsch, M.D., practices gastroenterology in Mentor, Ohio.