Word of the Day | placebo

placebo •\plə-ˈsē-(ˌ)bō\• noun

: an innocuous or inert medication; given as a pacifier or to the control group in experiments on the efficacy of a drug

The word placebo has appeared in 112 New York Times articles in the past year, including on Sept. 13 in “A Squirt of Insulin May Delay Alzheimer’s,” by Gina Kolata:

A small pilot study has found preliminary evidence that squirting insulin deep into the nose where it travels to the brain might hold early Alzheimer’s disease at bay, researchers said on Monday.

The study, published online in the Archives of Neurology, included 104 people, a group small enough that the promising results could have occurred by chance.

Researchers at the University of Washington divided the subjects into three groups. One got a placebo, one got 20 international units of aerosolized insulin a day, and the third got 40 international units a day.

… One hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease is reduced metabolism in the brain, which shows up on scans as less use of glucose, the fuel for brain cells. In this assessment, those getting insulin used more glucose in their brains; those taking placebos used less.

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via learning.blogs.nytimes.com