Some patients with chronic pain can get relief from a placebo even when they know it isn’t an active medication, a growing body of evidence shows. More researchers are looking at the idea of placebos—substances that have no actual pharmaceutical effect—as an alternative to traditional pain medications, which can be ineffective and carry significant side effects. Placebos might have particular potential for difficult-to-treat conditions like chronic back pain, cancer-related fatigue and symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome,...

Source: Wall Street Journal January 20, 2020 12:56 UTC