Better health is all in the mind

PEOPLE can "think themselves better", scientists claimed yesterday after a long-term study showed that the placebo effect really does work.

Sugar pills and other sham medicines with no active ingredient can be "very powerful in changing a person's physiology", according to a research review.

State-of-the-art scanners have identified different placebo effects in the body, such as changes in heart and lung function – and different effects in conditions such as Parkinson's disease.

Writing in the Lancet, Dr Damien Finnis, a pain management consultant, and colleagues said many psychological and biological mechanisms had been identified as helping people to "think themselves better".