The placebo effect: more to it than meets the eye!

It’s long been known in medicine that the power of positive suggestion can provide a real and significant improvement in symptoms. This is the so-called ‘placebo effect’, where the mere belief that a medicine or some other form of treatment will provide benefits can actually produce some benefits. And these benefits can be had even if that treatment is nothing more than a sham - a completely inert substance that could not possibly benefit the patient in any physiological way. 

Many people, including athletes, are easily seduced by the placebo effect, spending large amounts of money on products where there is no solid evidence that a particular supplement provides meaningful physiological performance benefits. Make no mistake though, the placebo effect is very real, and when somebody believes that a product will benefit them, they may not only feel better but actually perform better too. 

Overcoming the placebo effect

It’s precisely because of the placebo effect that doctors and scientists need to investigate the potential benefits of medicines (or other products such as sports supplements) using carefully controlled studies. This means that alongside the medicine, supplement or any other kind of intervention, a control group is used – a group of subjects who go through the same experimental protocol but instead of using the potentially beneficial medicine/treatment, they are told they’re getting the same treatment but are instead given a completely inert placebo – a sham treatment. Because both groups of subjects experience the same placebo effect, you know that any significant difference in outcomes between the ‘real’ group and the control group is not down to the placebo effect, but down to actual benefits provided by the treatment.