When you expect the treatment to make you better, you feel better?

A placebo treatment is defined as a treatment whose benefits derive from positive patient expectations and not from the physiological mechanism of the treatment itself.

The 23 October 2008 BMJ's article "Prescribing placebo treatments: results of national survey of US internists and rheumatologists" shows that 50% of the US doctors surveyed routine prescribed placebo treatment. The placebo could come in the form of a sugar pill and in other cases headache pills or vitamins. Research has shown that placebo treatments do work in some clinical trials for depression, hypertension and pain.

So, the common phrase that "It is all in the mind" is true after all!

However there are deep concerns about placebo treatments, one of which is ethics. At the heart of this is that the trust between patients and doctors could be undermined.

With patient expections getting higher, and many expecting to at least swallow a pill after seeing a doctor even when they do not need it, placebo treatments could well keep all parties happy!