Article Critique Placebo Effects and the Common Cold: A Randomized Control Trial” by Barrett et al. (2011)
Placebo effect is a very interesting phenomenon which take place in our life.
More and more people every year overcome illness due to this interesting effect. But, instead of its abundance, scientists are still not able to explain it fully.
The article tries to clarify the situation about treatment of the cold effects.
By the way, this article determines how the duration of the cold and its severity can be caused by open-label pills, standard allocation to double-blind method and with using no pills for treatment.
It was provided a special trial in which people who had a new-onset cold were divided in the following groups: those who blinded to placebo, those who blinded to Echinacea, those who receive no pills, those who given open-label Echinacea.
As a result, forecasts of the scientists were proved out. The results of the trial were the following: people who do not receive any pills had longer and more severe illnesses than those who received pills. It is very interesting that people who believed in the pills and Echinacea were able to overcome illnesses more quickly even the pills did not contain Echinacea. Certainly, our emotional state and beliefs plays a crucial role in overcoming different problems especially illnesses. So the belief in the pills’ positive effect can help to overcome a disease more quickly.
