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Gullible people believe in every new alternative medicine miraculous treatment procedures. For every one of then, you don't need to go too far to learn that the efficacy is not different from placebo effect efficacy.

But indeed placebo effect is a thing, and indeed helps you get better, with scientific statistical proof.

But if you are a skeptic, you will ignore all new miraculous procedures, with the "probably yet another placebo effect thing" excuse.

Then, if you're a skeptic, you will never benefit from placebo effect. Or is there a way?

ariel
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    I can't quickly find a source - but I have read (in the New Scientist, on more than one occasion) about placebo trials where some patients were explicitly told they were taking a placebo and they still reported a positive effect compared to non-treatment, though not as much as uninformed placebo receivers. I can't remember if they included actual treatment in the trials. –  Jan 26 '17 at 22:23
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    I love this question but it seems off-topic for this site. Can you find a notable source claiming it's impossible? Or could this be a better fit for the [Health](http://health.stackexchange.com/) site? – Dan Getz Jan 26 '17 at 22:23
  • What if skeptics could suffer from *reverse* placebo effect, where you're so skeptical that you can never believe in any treatment and no medicine works for you? Food for thought. – lll Jan 26 '17 at 22:23
  • @DanGetz https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/placebos-work-even-when-you-know-10-12-23/ ; http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/placebo-can-work-even-know-placebo-201607079926 ; http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/placebos-work-even-when-you-know-they-are-placebos/ ; http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/07July/Pages/The-placebo-effect-can-still-work-even-if-people-know-its-a-placebo.aspx ; https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/dec/22/placebo-effect-patients-sham-drug ; http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/03/placebos.aspx – DavePhD Jan 26 '17 at 23:54
  • @ariel Because a belief in the placebo effect is itself a placebo effect. :) No really, I do this a lot. I may do or take something and outright think/say "This is just for placebo anyway", and I will feel better for it. While **sporting** I have found this particularly effective. Following a ritual, which in itself does absolutely nothing for my physical abilities, gets me in the right frame of mind to perform better. Or rather: if I do not follow the ritual then I have a very strong **nocebo** effect and I perform like crap compared to normal. –  Jan 27 '17 at 10:43
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    The placebo effect has nothing to do with the gullibility or otherwise of the subject, it's a psychosomatic response that we don't have much conscious control over. In fact a recent study suggests that the placebo effect occurs even if the subject knows that the "medicine" they're taking has no medical effect. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/dec/22/placebo-effect-patients-sham-drug – GordonM Jan 27 '17 at 12:17
  • The placebo effect will still work as pointed out here, this is because the parts of the brain that have the relevant control that you want to target are the more primitive parts of the brain that won't understand the details of what is going on, it will just react to you taking the pill in the same way as it always does. – Count Iblis Jan 30 '17 at 05:55

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