How to Use placebo effect in a Sentence

placebo effect

noun
  • But still, five pounds is enough room for some kind of placebo effect.
    Erik Vance, Slate Magazine, 13 July 2017
  • With that said, there’s nothing wrong with the placebo effect.
    Carolyn L. Todd, SELF, 7 May 2019
  • And the good ol’ placebo effect may dictate a good amount of what happens.
    Sarah Jacoby, SELF, 25 Mar. 2019
  • The placebo effect was first discovered in the late 1700s.
    Sandee Lamotte, CNN, 2 Dec. 2022
  • Chalk it up to a placebo effect — or maybe this stuff is just that good — but our tester is no longer a skeptic.
    Allure, 6 Oct. 2017
  • Others say that any pain relief is due to the placebo effect.
    Dexter Filkins, The New Yorker, 30 Dec. 2019
  • And the stronger your anticipation is, the stronger the placebo effect will be.
    Elizabeth Lopatto, The Verge, 13 Jan. 2021
  • For some players, the spray may also have a placebo effect.
    Angela Yang, NBC News, 2 Dec. 2022
  • There was no control group, so the improvement could have been due to the placebo effect or, more likely, the passage of time.
    Neuroskeptic, Discover Magazine, 2 Jan. 2010
  • Yet every doctor knows the placebo effect is real; the mind can change what’s happening in the body.
    Mary Hadar, Washington Post, 6 Mar. 2020
  • The placebo effect is, in fact, arising in studies for Covid-19 vaccines.
    Erica Smith, STAT, 13 Oct. 2020
  • The placebo is real That doesn't mean that the placebo effect isn't happening here.
    Kevin Purdy, Ars Technica, 26 Sep. 2023
  • Much or all of the encouraging hints seen so far in people may be the result of the placebo effect, skeptics say.
    Gunjan Sinha, Science | AAAS, 17 Sep. 2020
  • On the other hand, the placebo effect presumably doesn’t exist in rats.
    Scott Douglas, Outside Online, 5 Feb. 2020
  • While many of the accoutrements of wellness can feel fun to own and use, much of it has been a placebo effect in my experience.
    Tasnim Ahmed, Allure, 9 Aug. 2018
  • Chess students may do better in school because of a placebo effect.
    Sue Shellenbarger, WSJ, 24 Dec. 2018
  • To some, the treatment is considered somewhat of a placebo effect.
    Ira Winderman, Sun Sentinel, 27 Oct. 2022
  • Sometimes there’s nothing to doctor, but the placebo effect of a Band-Aid cannot be overstated.
    Rachel Walker, Outside Online, 22 Apr. 2019
  • So the researchers really have no idea how the trained placebo effect is working in humans.
    John Timmer, Ars Technica, 3 Apr. 2018
  • This stuff, along with crystals and horoscopes, joins a long list of things that have never been proven to have much value beyond a placebo effect.
    Barry Ritholtz, chicagotribune.com, 6 Apr. 2018
  • What does this suggest about the value of both art and the placebo effect in supporting our human Frailties?
    Andrew Ridker, CBS News, 19 Sep. 2023
  • For those desperate to recharge while stuck at home, these Goop-esque promises might at least have a placebo effect.
    Flora Tsapovsky, Wired, 22 June 2020
  • Often these are harmless, and sometimes there’s even a placebo effect.
    Christine Byrne, Outside Online, 9 Sep. 2019
  • But research on the placebo effect suggests that even snake oil can have benefits for those who believe.
    Markham Heid, Time, 5 Oct. 2017
  • There was a placebo effect, however — pain for the women who received the placebo decreased to 73 within two hours and 51 by four hours.
    Calli McMurray, STAT, 17 Feb. 2023
  • Now, some researchers in Germany have figured out a way to harness the placebo effect to increase the impact of a normal drug treatment.
    John Timmer, Ars Technica, 3 Apr. 2018
  • Dodman describes it as something like the placebo effect.
    Avery Hurt, Discover Magazine, 15 Sep. 2023
  • That study might seem to suggest that nothing more than the placebo effect is at work, in which the person expects to experience pain relief and so does.
    Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 27 Oct. 2022
  • This isn’t just a placebo effect either: early studies have found that compounds in CBD oils have been useful in pain treatment, including for intense pain, sharp pain, cold and itchy sensations.
    Amber Smith, Discover Magazine, 1 Aug. 2023
  • The inclusion of a randomized, blinded placebo group would also be necessary to eliminate the potential for the placebo effect and other variables, Moriarty added.
    Novella Lui, Health, 3 May 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'placebo effect.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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