Do Doctors Prescribe Placebo Pills To Keep You Quiet?
48 Percent of Doctors Admit to Prescribing Placebos Just to Shut You Up!
The next time your doctor prescribes you a medication, you have about a 50-50 chance that it's a placebo, according to a new study by University of Chicago researchers.
Their survey of 466 faculty physicians at Chicago-area medical schools found that 45 percent said they had prescribed placebos in regular clinical practice, with just over half having prescribed them in the previous year.
The most common reasons why doctors prescribed placebos were to:
- Calm a patient down
- Respond to demands for medication the doctor thought were unnecessary
- Do something after all other treatment options had failed
Almost all of the doctors -96 percent - believed that the placebos could have a real therapeutic effect.
A separate study by the University of Michigan, for instance, found that patients given placebos, but told they were receiving painkillers, had increased production of endorphins - your brain's natural pain relievers.
Sources:
Time January 3, 2008
The Consumerist January 9, 2008
Do Doctors Prescribe Placebo Pills To Keep You Quiet?
48 Percent of Doctors Admit to Prescribing Placebos Just to Shut You Up!
The next time your doctor prescribes you a medication, you have about a 50-50 chance that it's a placebo, according to a new study by University of Chicago researchers.
Their survey of 466 faculty physicians at Chicago-area medical schools found that 45 percent said they had prescribed placebos in regular clinical practice, with just over half having prescribed them in the previous year.
The most common reasons why doctors prescribed placebos were to:
- Calm a patient down
- Respond to demands for medication the doctor thought were unnecessary
- Do something after all other treatment options had failed
Almost all of the doctors -96 percent - believed that the placebos could have a real therapeutic effect.
A separate study by the University of Michigan, for instance, found that patients given placebos, but told they were receiving painkillers, had increased production of endorphins - your brain's natural pain relievers.
Sources:
Time January 3, 2008
The Consumerist January 9, 2008