• Question: Some people say that pills are psychological, is it true?

    Asked by Olivia-de-Larratea to Sian, Max, Lizzie, Francis, Ben on 6 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Max Jamilly

      Max Jamilly answered on 6 Mar 2018:

      The psychological effect you’re talking about is called a ‘placebo’. There’s a lot of evidence that some people will feel better (and maybe they’ll actually GET better) just because they are taking a pill or seeing a doctor, even if that pill doesn’t actually do anything inside the body. So when we test new medicines, we compare them to something like a sugar pill to see if they are any better than the placebo effect.

    • Photo: Ben Mulhearn

      Ben Mulhearn answered on 6 Mar 2018:

      There is a placebo effect to taking pills. This means that, even if the pill has NO medicine in it, people will start to feel better because of the psychological effect of taking the pill.

      In fact, the placebo effect is so strong that when we design trials to test drugs, we must always test the drug against a placebo pill to see if the drug has any additional effect!

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