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Health improvements caused by positive expectations of a patient, who is being treated with inert medicine, is known as the placebo effect. Although ethical concerns are involved in the use of a placebo in clinical medicine, as the administration of ineffective medicine may be seen as contradicting the concept of non-maleficence, research shows that the phenomenon of placebo exists. Learn more about the placebo and nocebo effects suggesting that doctors should treat not only the patients, but their perceptions as well, the role and history of the practice in clinical medicine and medical research in this book.

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