Study Underscores Power of Placebo Effect

By Amy Norton HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 28, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- A new study -- this one involving patients with Parkinson's disease -- adds another layer of insight to the well-known "placebo effect." That's the phenomenon in which people's symptoms improve after taking an inactive substance simply because they believe the treatment will work.

The small study, involving 12 people, suggests that Parkinson's patients seem to feel better -- and their brains may actually change -- if they think they're taking a costly medication.

On average, patients had bigger short-term improvements in symptoms like tremor and muscle stiffness when they were told they were getting the costlier of two drugs.

In reality, both "drugs" were nothing more than saline, given by injection. But the study patients were told that one drug was a new medication priced at $1,500 a dose, while the other cost just $100 -- though, the researchers assured them, the medications were expected to have similar effects.

Yet, when patients' movement symptoms were evaluated in the hours after receiving the fake drugs, they showed greater improvements with the pricey placebo.

What's more, MRI scans showed differences in the patients' brain activity, depending on which placebo they'd received.

None of that is to say that the patients' symptoms -- or improvements -- were "in their heads," experts stressed.

"Even a condition with objectively measured signs and symptoms can improve because of the placebo effect," said Dr. Peter LeWitt, a neurologist at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital, in Michigan.

And that is "not exclusive to Parkinson's," added LeWitt, who wrote an editorial published with the study that appeared online Jan. 28 in the journal Neurology. Research has documented the placebo effect in various medical conditions, he said.

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Study Underscores Power of Placebo Effect