People in control groups are usually given a sugar pill and are observed to assess if any changes occur to their health during the experiments. How do we know that these changes, if any, were the result of taking the sugar pill and not just random changes that might have happened even without taking the placebo? Are there any studies that prove that the placebo effect really exist?
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one simple way, is you can add another group, that is given nothing. and then use them as the control group. and then in the test group, give half of them the real drug, and half of them the sugar pill and tell everyone they’re getting the real thing. then in this case, if the test group all had similar results, then your drug is no different than the placebo effect. this is called a “blind” study.
in a “double blind” study. even the researchers (except for a few) don’t know who’s getting the placebo. because even researchers acting differently could affect the results. in short, testing things on humans have so many variables outside your control. you do the best you can. and your data gets more accurate with more test subjects.
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