Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, is there anything that could be said to be biologically inert in any and every scenario?
Chalk?
It has antacid properties.
Are Placebos Really Sugar Pills?
11–20 of 141 posts
Re: Are Placebos Really Sugar Pills?
#12Re: Are Placebos Really Sugar Pills?
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chalk?
Calcium, surely..
Calcium can interact with a number of other chemicals, potentially negatively (for the surrounding organism). Although doses are probably important in judging that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_metabolism#Interaction_...
Re: Are Placebos Really Sugar Pills?
#14This reminded me of a very good Wired article from a couple of years ago, "Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why" - http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo...
Re: Are Placebos Really Sugar Pills?
#15What this article leads me to think is that we need to legally protect the word placebo. It seems grossly misleading to use the word placebo to describe non biologically inert ingredients. To do so is to lie and nothing more.
Just look for homeopathic remedies then. Guaranteed not to have any active ingredients.
Re: Are Placebos Really Sugar Pills?
#16This is not by any means my field of study but i do agree that placebo components should always be disclosed in order to turn these kind of tests more transparent.
However, how can we prove that something is 100% biologically inert? We can't account for all the unknown effects, is there any such 'ingredient'? I guess that at least the used placebo should be proven to not affect directly anything directly related to the hypothesis.
Re: Are Placebos Really Sugar Pills?
#17As an aside, sugars aren't biologically inert either.
Everybody consumes a huge amount of sugar every day, so the pill is not even measurable compared to your normal intake.
So on average the effect of this small amount of sugar disappears.
Re: Are Placebos Really Sugar Pills?
#18Re: Are Placebos Really Sugar Pills?
#19As an aside, sugars aren't biologically inert either.
Unless you're studying something related to blood sugar, insulin, etc or the user has a condition impacted by sugar, such as diabetes, a small amount of sugar (pills would contain 100-1000mg) isn't going to have any impact.
Re: Are Placebos Really Sugar Pills?
#20Aren't the side effects mimicked so that participants won't see the lack of them and then know that they're taking the placebo which will defeat the double blind study? For example, if you're testing fish oil, you wouldn't use a sugar pill since it's easy to know what you're taking by looking at it. You would use something like olive oil.
There are certainly ways to simulate fish oil with biologically inert ingredients.
I think you're missing the point. He was talking about this section of the article:
>That way, of course, they can say things in their ads like "[drug name] has a low occurrence of side effects, such as dry mouth, which occurred about as often as they did with placebo."
cooldeal point is that you need to mimic the side effects to make the control group believable. Whether it is needed to use inert components or not would depend on the nature of the drug in test.