A nationwide survey carried out among doctors showed that approximately 50% of them prescribe placebos on a regular basis. According to the study published in the British Medical Journal, American doctors give placebo treatments such as vitamins, sedatives or even antibiotics to patients, although in many cases this doesn’t help the patient get well.

The team of researchers at the National Institutes of Health found out that about a half of the 679 general internal medicine physicians and rheumatologists surveyed regularly prescribe placebo treatments without telling the patient about it. About 62% of the surveyed doctors think this is actually ethically right.

However, most doctors involved in the survey usually see patients with chronic illnesses or pains that are usually very hard to cure, sometimes impossible. Often enough, the placebo treatments make this kind of patient feel better.

"Twenty to thirty percent of the benefit seen in rheumatism drug studies are due to the placebo effect. Real changes in health go along with the belief that patients will get better," study researcher Jon C. Tilburt, MD, told WebMD.

However, the use of placebo treatments has many opponents who argue that the practice is dishonest to patients. One of the opponents is Dr. Ted Palen, an internist at the Colorado Permanente Medical Group in Denver, Colo., who thinks that prescribing placebo drugs without informing the patient involves deception and violates the “patient’s autonomy and informed consent."

On the other side of the “barricade,” the supporters of placebo-based treatments argue that this kind of treatment helps patients get better often enough and that should be enough to make the practice acceptable. Actually, many past studies have showed that the placebo effect actually makes wonders in some cases and that the most powerful element in the equation of curing a disease is the human mind, that of the patient more precisely.

When it comes to boosting the part played by that element in curing a disease, the placebo effect is spot on.