Comment Re:Not necessarily without deception. (Score 4, Informative) 430
Addtional: The researchers themselves note something along the lines of what I'm talking about:
The placebo response in this trial (59% on IBS-AR) was substantially higher than typical reported placebo responses of 30–40% in double-blind IBS pharmaceutical studies. [15] This finding seems counterintuitive. We speculate that it is an indication of the credibility of our open-label rationale. Patients in our study accepted that they were receiving an active treatment, albeit not a pharmacological one, whereas patients in double-blind trials understand that they have only a 50% chance of receiving active treatment. It may be that one hundred percent certainty that one is receiving the “treatment of interest” (in this case open-label placebo) is more placebogenic than a fifty percent probability of receiving an inactive control.