More on ‘Open Label’ Placebos

Open Label Placebos (OLPs) are becoming a Thing, reinforced once more by Ted Kaptchuk’s placebo research group at Harvard Medical School. This article – Open-Label Placebo (OLP): Take This, It Is A Sugar Pill, It Will Help You! – provides us with a succinct update on the current clinical research scene, including valuable reference to two meta-studies which attempt to summarise the current state of our understanding. Importantly, the writers note that formal studies to date “have shown that while openly-applied placebos affect symptoms (depression, motor activity, pain, fatigue, etc.), none have yet shown that it may also affect disease biomarkers. Secondly, patient (self-)selection has to be tested for biases, e.g., whether the recruited patients are prone to respond to placebo, while others not recruited are not. Last but not least, it would be important to know how OLP compares to effective drug treatment of the same condition and in the same patients.”