Placebo Effect Update

By Nancy Steinbach

Broadcast: November 19, 2003

This is Phoebe Zimmermann with the VOA Special English Health Report.
When scientists want to test the effectiveness of a new drug, they usually divide a large number of people into two groups. One group takes the medicine that is being tested. The other group takes an 1)inactive substance, called a 2)placebo¹. Placebos² are usually made of sugar.
None of the people know which pill they are taking -- the active one or the inactive one. In this kind of experiment, the medicine must perform better than the placebo to prove it is effective.
The word “placebo” is Latin. It means “I shall a peace.” And, sometimes, it just might do that. Some people who take the placebo report improvements in their health. This is known as the “placebo effect" -- the effect of something that is not supposed to have any effect.
Some doctors have reported the use of the placebo effect in treatment. For example, a doctor tells a patient that a new drug will stop his or her pain. The pill is only sugar. The patient does not know that. The patients takes the pills and reports that the pain is gone.
An influential³ study appeared in nineteen-fifty-five. It said treatment with a placebo made patients feel better thirty-five percent of the time. In two-thousand-one, Danish researchers reported that they had examined more than one-hundred studies. They found little 3)evidence of healing as a result of the use of placebos. Other scientists disputed those findings.
But some medical researchers do think it is wrong to use inactive substances when testing new drugs. They say it would be better to use existing drugs instead of placebos and see if the new drug is more effective.
Other researchers are looking at the placebo effect in connection with the use of real drugs for conditions like asthma⁴ and high blood pressure. They want to prove whether a drug works better if a doctor provides it cheerfully and tells the patient that it will help. They say a good relationship between a patient and a doctor may increase the 4)effectiveness of the drugs that the doctor provides.
Doctors say investigating the placebo effect is important for the future of medicine. They say the knowledge gained may make it possible to reduce the number of drugs people need to take to improve their health.
This VOA Special English Health Report was written by Nancy Steinbach.

注释：
1) inactive [in5Aktiv] adj.非活动的
2) placebo [plE5si:bEu] n.安慰剂
3) evidence [5evidEns] n.明显, 显著
4) effectiveness [i5fektivnis] n.效力

1 placebo   

n.安慰剂；宽慰话

参考例句：

• The placebo has been found to work with a lot of different cases.人们已发现安慰剂能在很多不同的病例中发挥作用。
• The placebo effect refers to all the observable behaviors caused by placebo.安慰剂效应是指由安慰剂所引起的可观察的行为。

2 placebos   

n.（给无实际治疗需要者的）安慰剂( placebo的名词复数 )；安慰物；宽心话；（试验药物用的）无效对照剂

参考例句：

• But, eventually, I think they were just kind of like placebos. 但是后来，我想它们只是安慰剂（安慰剂：没有任何药效的药） 来自电影对白
• But comparable numbers of those who received placebos also improved. 但是吃安慰剂的人的病情也改善了。 来自互联网

3 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。

4 asthma   

n.气喘病，哮喘病

参考例句：

• I think he's having an asthma attack.我想他现在是哮喘病发作了。
• Its presence in allergic asthma is well known.它在过敏性气喘中的存在是大家很熟悉的。