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Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

My understanding is sugar pills are commonly used as a placebo. Sugar helps take the edge off pain, though it doesn't work the same as a pain killer.

People going through withdrawal tend to be sugar fiends.

So I'm a bit skeptical of the assumption that "placebos do absolutely nothing, medically speaking" to begin with.

(Not dismissing your suggestion here.)

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Placebos generally aren't sugar pills, unless there is sugar in the medication itself (which I don't think is generally the case). They are designed to be impossible to tell apart from the active medication.

The pain-killing effect has nothing to do with sugar.

A placebo is a substance or treatment which is designed to have no therapeutic value. Common placebos include inert tablets (like sugar pills)...

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

Not to say Wikipedia is infallible. I'm sure it's not. Just checking how clueless I am and the internet suggests my understanding is "common knowledge."

Perhaps you can share more of your knowledge about what placebo pills typically contain and enlighten us? (Citations welcome should you choose to share.)

Actually, I did some searching and it seems that most RCTs don't actually list the contents of the placebo pill. I found this article which describes the problem:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-whats-placebo-idUSTRE69H5...

Thank you. Very enlightening and happily agrees with both your statements (that they usually aren't sugar pills) and mine (that placebos themselves may have medical impact).

> For example, in the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, the control group receives a meningitis and septicaemia vaccine as a placebo.

> The benefit of using an actual vaccine as the placebo control is that it will cause a similar reaction at the site of the injection as the COVID-19 vaccine, such as muscle pain and soreness. This prevents patients from knowing whether they are getting the placebo or the real treatment.

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-vaccine-why-its-impo...

Thank you.

A few hundred milligrams bound in a pill is probably different than a bowl of ice cream or bar of chocolate.

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