Expensive medicines can seem to create worse side-effects than cheaper alternatives, suggests a new study that looked at the "nocebo" effect of drugs. Researchers in Germany studied 49 people, randomly assigning some to receive a "cheap" cream and others to receive an "expensive" cream. The others received cream packaged in a drab box labelled with the more generic sounding name Imotadil-LeniPharma Creme. "So, I can talk about, 'Oh it has the potential for some side-effects and the side-effects are X, Y, Z.' Gorfinkel thinks the nocebo study should be taken with a grain of salt.

Source: CBC News October 18, 2017 09:00 UTC