Jon Kabat-Zinn

I'll take transformational change any way it comes. One way to look at meditation is as a kind of intrapsychic technology that's been developed over thousands of years by traditions that know a lot about the mind/body connection. To call what happens 'the placebo effect' is just to give a name to something we don't understand.

American Educator

John Cornwell

Research shows that if patients believe they are taking the real drug, they are more confident of improving and, so, improve even if they are actually on the placebo. Conversely, if they suspect they are taking the placebo, their expectancy of improvement declines, and so does their improvement.

British Journalist

Charles Jencks

You have to believe in a placebo or it won't work, but if it works, it's obviously working in some indirect way, through feedback in the immune system, let us say, or in the willpower of the patient to take a more strenuous exercise in their own therapy.

American Architect

Derren Brown

Suggestibility is a very loose term. You may not be the sort of person who responds well to a hypnotist on stage, but you might find, for example, that a doctor administering a placebo to you is something you respond well to.

English Entertainer

Samin Nosrat

I take, like, 9,000 supplements every morning. I don't know if it's completely placebo or not, but I'm super committed to these supplements: like, I can't face the day without them.

American Chef

Chris Toumazou

I've spent a lot of time trying to understand how all the big cosmetics companies get away with the placebo science and unscientific claims.

British Scientist

Nicholson Baker

For me, as a beginning novelist, all other living writers form a control group for whom the world is a placebo.

American Novelist

Brian Molko

Placebo is music for outsiders, by outsiders and our gigs are like conventions of outcasts, which is cool.

Belgian Musician

Irving Kirsch

The big bulk of the response to antidepressants is the placebo response.

Bobby Sherman

American Musician

Used in experiments to test if a drug works by comparing its effects with a placebo.

Clinical Trials

A placebo has no therapeutic effect by itself; its impact is psychological.

No Effect Alone

The term 'placebo' implies patients believe they're getting real treatment.

False Belief

People may feel better with a placebo due to belief, not the ‘treatment’ itself.

Perceived Benefits

Beyond medicine, 'placebo' can describe anything ineffective but psychologically comforting.

Non-Medical Use

The effectiveness of a placebo hinges on the person's belief in its power.

Power of Belief

 but slightly more sophisticated versions of them, in order to distort the evidence they give to doctors and patients, and which we use to make vitally important decisions. So firstly, trials against everybody thinks a trial should be a comparison of your new drug against placebo. But in a lot of situations that's wrong;

Ben Goldacre: Battling...

 and actually produce placebo education. The point is that education doesn't actually work by teaching you things. It actually works by giving you the impression that you've had a very good education, which gives you an insane sense of unwarranted self-confidence, which then makes you very, very successful in later life.

Life lessons from an ad...

 that exist in the indigenous system and the challenge is getting those into a system tested in a placebo control trial to show that they really work and so if this innovation you know works it's something that's very important and that challenge is what are the studies that have demonstrated its value yeah that's

Innovative and cost...

 fascinating is that the pharmaceutical industry use exactly the same kinds of tricks and devices but slightly more sophisticated versions of them in order to distort the evidence that they give to doctors and patients in which we use to make vitally important decisions so firstly trials against placebo everybody

Battling bad science -...

 and and have empathy with that you know I've experienced that myself and particularly with things like jet lag I certainly will use melatonin to see if I can help and you know if things like chamomile or melatonin and do make you feel better than what I would say is that perhaps the placebo effect is one

Why sleep matters now...

 To summarize, I would say, next time you go to drink beer or wine, first of all, think about, what is it in your experience that is real, and what is it in your experience that is a placebo effect coming from expectations? And then think about what it also means for other decisions in your life,

How equal do we want the...

 put that down I'm not trying to use a placebo to trick a patient into getting better not completely already to do quite a bit but I want to do anything I can to improve this patients quality of life so if placebo enters into that in a

Treating Parkinson’s...

 we refused to use a placebo. Would you want your mother, your brother, your sister to get a placebo if they had advanced lung cancer and had weeks to live? And the answer, obviously, is not. So, it was done on this group of patients.

David Agus: A new...

 meaningful result here's what we propose it's called a challenge trial and indeed as Chris said what happens after you distribute the vaccine to some people and the control say the placebo to others is you deliberately infect

The case to infect...

 can be precisely compared. But of course, we know the placebos exert their own influence, too. Thanks to the placebo effect, patients have experienced relief from a range of ailments, including heart problems, asthma,