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Episode details

Radio 4,7 mins

Placebo Power

All in the Mind

Available for over a year

This is a clip from an episode of All In The Mind first broadcast in 2011. How strong is the placebo effect? Can sugar pills make you feel better even when you know that's exactly what they are? Claudia talks to Ted Kaptchuk from Harvard University about his findings that for people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, knowingly taking a placebo pill twice a day improved their symptoms. But is it the placebo or the ritual that surrounds taking it?

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