In a simple blind study, the project leader knows which drug I am taking. There is a good chance that the effect of the drug on me is triggered by the placebo effect. But why is my placebo effect alleviated if the project leader does not know what I am taking either?
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A placebo is a special kind of “fake” medicine that doesn’t have any medicine in it. Sometimes people will feel better after taking a placebo because they think it is real medicine, and this is called the placebo effect.
A double-blind trial is a special way of doing a study where neither the people taking the medicine nor the people giving the medicine know who is getting the real medicine and who is getting the placebo. This is to make sure that the people taking the medicine don’t know if they are getting the real thing or not, which can help to minimize the placebo effect.
The reason why this helps is because if the people taking the medicine don’t know if they are getting the real thing or not, they can’t “trick” their bodies into feeling better just because they think they are taking real medicine. This means that the study can better see if the medicine is really working or if it is just the placebo effect.
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