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#1 The placebo effect is when a patient who has been given a placebo in a drugs trial gets better, which is because the patients believe the placebo is the real drug or treatment. It's their belief that does the work.
#2 Placebo effects can be opposite depending on what the patient believes the pill will do. If they believe it will reduce pain, it will reduce pain. But if they believe it will cause pain, it will cause pain instead.
#3 Placebos can have a powerful effect on us, and this is especially true for Americans, who typically speak of getting a shot rather than taking a pill.
#4 The way a placebo is packaged also makes a difference to its power. In a study at Keele University in the UK, 835 women were given one of four different pills for headache. 9 The branded aspirin worked better than the unbranded one, and the main difference was in the appearance of the packaging.
