Globe and Mail - Are you getting the real deal from your doctor?

In a survey of Canadian physicians, one in five acknowledged occasionally prescribing their patients placebos, or using medications well below the active dose.

But don’t feel cheated or deceived; your doctor was likely acting in your best interest. In fact, you may have benefited from the so-called placebo effect – in which some patients feel better because they believe they have been given a real therapy.

“Sometimes just thinking that they are getting treatment is enough to elicit some kind of therapeutic response,” said Amir Raz, a professor of psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal and lead author of a new survey published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, demonstrating that the use of placebos is widespread.