Is the placebo powerless? Update of a systematic review with 52 new randomized trials comparing placebo with no treatment

@article{Hrbjartsson2004IsTP,
  title={Is the placebo powerless? Update of a systematic review with 52 new randomized trials comparing placebo with no treatment},
  author={Asbj{\o}rn Hr{\~o}bjartsson and Peter Christian G{\o}tzsche},
  journal={Journal of Internal Medicine},
  year={2004},
  volume={256}
}
Background.  It is widely believed that placebo interventions induce powerful effects. We could not confirm this in a systematic review of 114 randomized trials that compared placebo‐treated with untreated patients. 
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346 Citations
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346 Citations

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Evidence of placebo effects in trials of antiulcer and cholesterol‐lowering drugs is found and a simple test for placebo effects is proposed.
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A small placebo effect was observed in mental disorders research overall, and in patients with anxiety or depression, and these findings should be interpreted with caution in the light of heterogeneity and risk of bias.
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The present study indicated that true placebo effect sizes can be analyzed through a proper IPRCT design, and instead of treating high numbers of patients with placebos in a RCT, which increases the risk for subjects not receiving the active treatment, the I PRCT technique seems to be much more appropriate to analyze the effect sizes of any active treatment.
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The aim was to analyze the placebo effect in Huntington's disease and to propose a new design for clinical trials based on the placebo‐control design.
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  • Psychology, Medicine
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This article discusses some important aspects of the placebo effect on the basis of clinical research studies in pharmacology, and describes important findings about the psychological and neurobiological processes that underlie the placebos.
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A protocol for the first systematic review and meta-analysis of studies of the effects of non-deceptive placebos compared with no treatment and the methods of delivery used for non- deceptively delivered placebos is presented.
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