Placebo

Apparently, an increasing number of promising drugs have failed the standard double-blind placebo test in recent years. Part of the reason is that the placebo effect is getting stronger.

The article explains that though placebos are crucial to the practice of medical science, they have never been thoroughly studied until recently. This article answers a lot of interesting questions:

-Why it matters where you conduct your study

-Why aspirin doesn't work as well on alzheimer's patients

-Why antidepression medication works better in conjunction with therapy (or analrapy)

-Why Dr. House may in fact not be such a great physician at times (he is pretty good when he is tasked by the writers of the show to do some lengthy exposition to the patient; he is not so good when he is acting imperious and unapproachable, or stabby)

-Whether 'nocebo' is a real word