What is the Role of Placebos in Clinical Trials?
We are slowly becoming aware of clinical trials, which are meant to find effective and safe medicines. Researchers use various methods and protocols to conduct such trials. Placebos are one unique aspect of clinical trials that is considered one of the core parts.
You might have heard about placebo treatments in trials. But if you want to know more about the role of placebo treatment in clinical trials, then you are at the right place. In this post, we will discuss everything about placebos.
What are Placebos?
Placebos are nothing but dummy treatments provided to patients. They are provided along with regular medicines to identify the effectiveness or safety of the medicine. As medicines can trigger psychological effects, placebos ensure whether the actual medicines are working or it’s the psychological effect is due to placebos.
Role of Placebos in Clinical Trials
#1 – Identifying Placebo Effect
Placebos can have a surprising effect on patients. Sometimes, patients who take a placebo report feeling better, even though they haven’t received any actual medication. This phenomenon is known as the “placebo effect.” the psychological effect can help patients to feel better and even cure the underlying health condition.
This helps researchers understand whether the placebo effect is common in all of the trial participants or just a few. It also highlights the effectiveness of the actual trial medicines compared to placebos.
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#2 – No Side Effects
One of the best things about placebos is that they do not have any kind of side effects. The placebos are nothing but sugar pills or saline solutions. There is no therapeutic value to the placebo treatment, so it won’t cause any kind of side effects in the patients after administering it. In favorable cases, the placebo effect is triggered, and it can help patients feel better and even automatically cure the disease.
Final Words
Clinical Trials play an important part in the medical industry. With the various methods of reatment like the placebo treatment, the researchers take care of the participants and provide us with the effective and safe treatment option. In this post, we tried our best to explain everything about the role of placebo treatment in the trials. If you are a curious person, feel free to ask questions in the comments below.