[Correspondence] Concerns related to the nocebo effect

We read with interest the finding of Ajay Gupta and colleagues (June 24, p 2473)1 of an absence of attributable risk of muscle-related adverse events to statin therapy in the blinded randomised controlled phase by contrast with an excess risk in the non-randomised, open-label extension phase in the same population. These results were attributed to the nocebo effect. We note that the overall proportion of participants reporting muscle-related adverse events was lower in the non-blinded, non-randomised phase than in the masked randomised phase.

Source: LANCET - October 20, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: Zhen Zhou, Andrea Curtis, Monique Breslin, Mark Nelson Tags: Correspondence Source Type: research