Melbourne, Australia —31 March, 2008— Research has shown that varenicline tartrate – a novel new drug specifically developed for smoking cessation – allows smokers to abstain from cigarettes significantly longer and more effectively than smokers using a placebo.

In a national clinical trial, adolescents with moderate to severe depression first given a placebo treatment and then an antidepressant medication alone or in combination with therapy responded just as well over the long term as participants who received active treatment throughout the study, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report.

It is a well-known fact in drug trials that individuals can respond just as well to placebos, sugar pills, as to the active drug. On the other hand, it is difficult to explain why only certain people get better from placebos.

Many rheumatologists and general internal medicine physicians in the US say they regularly prescribe "placebo treatments" including active drugs such as sedatives and antibiotics, but rarely admit they are doing so to their patients, according to a study on bmj.com today.

A 10-cent pill doesn't kill pain as well as a $2.50 pill, even when they are identical placebos, according to a provocative study by Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University.

Anecdotal evidence touting the healing power of the Indian spice turmeric for psoriasis received a setback in a prospective study published this month by a leading dermatology journal stating that the low response rate of patients who ingested the active ingredient of the exotic spice was probably a result of the placebo effect.

In the first study examining American physicians' use of placebos in clinical practice in the 21st Century, 45 percent of Chicago internists report they have used a placebo at some time during their clinical practice researchers report in the January issue of Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Neuroeconomist Paul J. Zak of Claremont Graduate University has new research, and a paper, “Oxytocin Increases Generosity in Humans,” which will be published November 7, 2007 in PLoS ONE, the online, open-access journal from the Public Library of Science. This research extends his finding based on oxytocin and trust, which was published in Nature two years ago.

A new analysis of randomized controlled trials evaluating probiotics in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has found that Bifantis®, Bifidobacterium infantis 35624, the sole ingredient in Align® (manufactured by Procter & Gamble), is the only probiotic currently able to demonstrate significant improvement in IBS symptoms based upon a properly designed research study.

Researchers at the University of Virginia have led a multisite clinical trial showing that the drug topiramate is significantly more efficacious than placebo at curbing alcohol dependence. Subjects had to be drinking heavily and were not abstinent when they started the trial.

A new study by Rhode Island Hospital researchers indicates that a relapse during antidepressant continuation treatment may be due to a relapse in patients who were not true drug responders. The loss of drug response may be due to loss of placebo response (a positive medical response to taking a placebo as if it were an active medication.).

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have found that a drug originally developed to fight tuberculosis may help people with obsessive-compulsive disorder make more progress in therapy sessions.