It was found that a placebo (placebo) might significantly alleviate the extreme fatigue of cancer patients.
This is the result of a study conducted by the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center on 90 patients with advanced cancer.
“Cancer-related fatigue is a debilitating symptom experienced by regarding 60-90% of patients with advanced cancer,” said Dr. There is no cure,” he said.
“However, many cancer patients aren’t strong enough to manage their physical activity on their own, and they don’t see much benefit from it,” he said.
According to the researchers, in an initial study of patients with advanced cancer, approximately 56% of participants experienced significant fatigue relief despite simply being given a placebo. A placebo is a fake pill that contains no drugs of any kind.
Thanks to this, the research team went one step further. 90 patients with advanced cancer were informed in advance that the “fatigue recovery pills” they would be given twice a day did not contain any real drugs.
In addition, half of the patients were told to take a fatigue recovery pill. However, they were not allowed to receive any kind of treatment for a week. In other words, neither the actual drug nor the placebo was taken.
After the first week, the group of patients randomized to openly receive the sham pill had significantly greater relief from fatigue than the group who did not receive any kind of treatment for a week.
From that point on, the researchers had both groups of patients take the fake pills. One month later, there were no significant differences between patients who took the sham pill for one month and those who took it for three weeks. Overall, both groups showed significant fatigue relief.
Dr. Jenu said further research was needed before deciding to include placebo in the standard of care for cancer patients. He said, however, that a placebo may actually help with other ailments.
This is because the results of this study are consistent with the results of previous studies using an open-ended placebo for the treatment of chronic pain, migraine attacks, allergic rhinitis, major depression, menopausal hot flashes, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and irritable bowel syndrome.
This is a phenomenon rooted in the so-called ‘placebo effect’, and can also be seen as a result of supporting the Buddhist saying ‘one mindfulness’ (一切唯心造, everything is created by the mind). have.
Some in the medical community showed great interest in the statistically significant results of this study. However, some have called for further investigation by increasing the sample size to specifically compare the amount of fatigue relief obtained from the fake pills with the amount of fatigue relief obtained from standard treatments such as physical activity and psychological treatment.
The researchers presented their findings at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago. Studies presented at the conference are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
By Kim Young-seop, staff reporter edwdkim@kormedi.com
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