Most of us think of a placebo as a simple psychological trick --a fake pill might give us hope, but it produces no real effects. Yet, recent research has shown an increase in the placebo response over the past couple of decades. Just last week, the results of a new study published in the journal Pain suggest that a placebo can have real, even profound, physical benefits.

People with chronic lower back pain were recruited to participate in research at a public hospital in Lisbon, Portugal. First, they filled out questionnaires describing the intensity of their pain and their degree of disability. The researchers randomly assigned the patients to two groups. One continued with treatment as usual: the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) they were currently taking to prevent pain. The other group received their usual pain drugs as well as placebo pills in a typical prescription medicine bottle. They were told that a placebo pill contained no medication, and the bottle's label read "Placebo pills. Take 2 pills twice a day."

"We were very careful about making sure that they understood that there was nothing in the pill that could affect pain," said Irving Kirsch, senior author of the study and a professor at Harvard Medical School. After three weeks, both groups filled out a second questionnaire about their pain. On average, the pain medication group experienced a 9% reduction in usual pain, a 16% reduction in maximum pain and no reduction in disability. By contrast, the placebo group averaged a 30% reduction in both usual and maximum pain, while reporting nearly the same reduction, 29%, in disability. Read more.... http://journals.lww.com/pain/Abstract/publishahead/Open_label_placebo_treatment_in_chronic_low_back.99404.aspx