Savor the flavor: A randomized double-blind study assessing taste-enhanced placebo analgesia in healthy volunteers.

ABSTRACT: Placebo effects substantially contribute to analgesic treatment outcomes and might be leveraged to enhance gold-standard treatments. The taste of oral medications has been proposed to boost placebo effects. Here, we aimed at estimating how far the taste of an oral medication enhances placebo analgesia. We conducted a randomized, double-blind, between-group, single-visit study, with pre-treatment baseline. Over the course of three substudies, 318 healthy volunteers (297 included) were tested in a clinical trial setting. Participants were subjected to experimental tonic cold water pain (cold pressor test) before and after receiving taste-neutral (water), or bitter (quinine), or sweet (saccharin), or no placebo drops. Pre- versus post-treatment changes in area under the pain rating curve, the

SUBMITTER: Zunhammer M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9652436 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature