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Comment by acchow | Hacker News Reader

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acchow·

As an aside, sugars aren't biologically inert either.

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Everybody consumes a huge amount of sugar every day, so the pill is not even measurable compared to your normal intake.

So on average the effect of this small amount of sugar disappears.

Unless you're studying something related to blood sugar, insulin, etc or the user has a condition impacted by sugar, such as diabetes, a small amount of sugar (pills would contain 100-1000mg) isn't going to have any impact.

So, is there anything that could be said to be biologically inert in any and every scenario?

A quote from the press release about the paper the OP cites:

But, according to the paper's author, Beatrice Golomb, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, this standard has a fundamental problem, "there isn't anything actually known to be physiologically inert."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101018174335.ht...

Probably not, but disclosure of placebo ingredients would be enough to determine if it was a wise choice for a particular study.

Cellulose? Diamond? Glass? Ceramics?

I believe glass should work. Maybe teflon?

Gold?

Gold allergy.

Chalk?

It has antacid properties.

Cellulose as well? Dicalcium phosphate is also a common tablet filler, though I don't know if it's biologically inactive.

Calcium, surely..

Calcium can interact with a number of other chemicals, potentially negatively (for the surrounding organism). Although doses are probably important in judging that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_metabolism#Interaction_...

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