Are you a Harry Potter fan? If so, you might recall the following storyline from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Harry’s friend, Ronald Weasley, is an enthusiastic hobby sportsman with ...

In medicine, the placebo effect has been known for some time, but can it also show its effects in training? Researchers from Norway investigated this question—with a surprising result. The post The ...

Let's do a thought experiment. Round up 300 harried commuters with headaches—not hard to do on the New York subway any workday at rush hour. Of course, they are probably shouting and whining, which ...

There is a saying in medicine that goes double for psychiatry: "You shall not lie." So the question is: Is it possible to prescribe a placebo without lying? There are two kinds of placebo: a pure ...

In a survey of faculty members at three Chicago-area medical schools, nearly half said that they had used placebos to treat patients, a finding that may reflect a growing acceptance of placebos as a ...

Recently, a team of researchers set out to study the antidepressant effects of ketamine — and stumbled upon a medical phenomenon. The double-blind study at Stanford’s School of Medicine recruited ...

BOSTON – The placebo effect is the well-known phenomenon of a person's physical or mental health improving after taking a treatment with no pharmacological therapeutic benefit – a sugar pill, or a ...

As the temperatures cool, the season of colds, flu, and now Covid-19 is heating up. If you’re like many people, you’ve probably stocked up on over-the-counter cold medicine to help thwart the cough ...