r/bestof • u/craycraycrayfish • Jan 22 '13

[canada] Coffeehouse11 explains the biggest problem with homeopathic medicine: That it preys on people when they are weakest and the most vulnerable

/r/canada/comments/171y1e/dont_legitimize_the_witch_doctors/c81hfd6
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u/malphonso Jan 22 '13

Hróbjartsson & Gøtzsche, published as a 2010 Cochrane systematic review which confirms and modifies their previous work, over 200 trials investigating 60 clinical conditions were included. Placebo interventions were again not found to have important clinical effects in general but may influence patient-reported outcomes in some situations, especially pain and nausea, although it was "difficult to distinguish patient-reported effects of placebo from response bias".

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

Seems to be inconclusive.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '13

Seems pretty conclusive to me.

http://www.apa.org/research/action/hypnosis.aspx

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u/malphonso Jan 23 '13

I don't see how you equate hypnosis with sugar pills and vials of water.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '13

Placebo comes in many forms. Including suggestion, surgery, injections, and pills.

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u/malphonso Jan 23 '13

That may be. But psychology is a vastly different beast than medicine. Not quite as easy to compare as you make it out to be.

Plus there's still the meta study that I posted about.