The Studies Show Podcast
The Studies Show
Episode 9: The placebo effect
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Episode 9: The placebo effect

Much to our surprise, it might not actually exist
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If you give someone a sugar pill but convince them it’s a real medicine, they might get better because of the power of belief. That’s the standard story, anyway.

But as Tom and Stuart find in this episode, the more you dig into the science on placebo effects, the more you begin to doubt that the placebo effect is some innate bodily healing process that responds to beliefs. Instead, it might all just be due to mistakes and biases in the studies. Do we need to completely change the way we think about placebos?

The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine, an online magazine full to the brim with the best writing on science, technology, and human progress. Read any of the essays in Works in Progress magazine and you’re guaranteed to come away with a new idea or a new understanding of how things work - we can’t recommend it highly enough.

The Studies Show is also sponsored by the i, the UK’s smartest daily newspaper. Right now you can get a half-price deal on digital subscriptions, including full access to Stuart’s weekly subscriber-only science newsletter, by following this special podcast link.

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Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.

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The Studies Show Podcast
The Studies Show
A weekly podcast about the latest scientific controversies, with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie