The 2008 Ig Nobel Prizes honor research on amoebas, placebos, and cola

Eyes on the Prize

Earlier this year I told you about a study that examined the mysterious power of the placebo effect. The authors of that study (from Massachusetts Institute of Technology) were recently awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for their groundbreaking work.

So maybe I underestimated the importance of this study.

Or maybe not…

Less than noble

The Stanford/Duke team actually won the Ig Nobel Prize, awarded by the editors of the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).

AIR is a real journal and the Ig Nobel Prize is a real prize with a real ceremony at which many recipients actually show up and accept their awards in person. And although “ignoble” suggests something dishonorable, these studies might better be described as eccentric.

In past e-Alerts I’ve mocked pointless studies – such as the study that found non-medical use of prescription drugs (such as muscle relaxants) among college students leads to recreational use of the drugs. Did we really need that study? Probably not. And you might ask the same of the Ig Nobel winners. But as AIR editors put it, their journal features “research that makes people laugh, and then think.”

Here are a few of the 2008 Ig Nobel winners:

Cognitive Science Prize Researchers in Japan and Hungary showed that a large amoeba-like cell can solve problems.

Nutrition Prize
UK scientists used loud crunching sounds to successfully convince subjects they were eating fresh, crisp chips when the chips were actually stale.

Archaeology Prize
Brazilian researchers demonstrated that a wandering armadillo could disturb the site of an archaeological dig in such a way that might alter scientific conclusions.

Biology Prize
French researchers proved that fleas on a dog jump higher than fleas on a cat.

Physics Prize
University of California researchers devised mathematical proof that anything that CAN tangle (hair, electrical cords, etc.) inevitably WILL tangle.

Chemistry Prize
This prize was shared between a team from Harvard and Boston University Medical School, and a team from Taiwan. The Harvard/BU team showed that cola soft drinks kill sperm, while the Taiwanese team illustrated that cola is not actually an effective spermicide because sperm travel too quickly.

Good to know!

Don’t follow the money

And the 2008 Ig Nobel Prize in medicine goes to…the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where researchers revealed an unusual wrinkle in the placebo effect.

The MIT team recruited 80 subjects and gave each a mild electrical shock on the wrist. Then each subject was given a painkilling drug. Along with the pill, half the subjects were given a brochure describing the drug as newly approved by the FDA. The price of the drug: $2.50 per dose. The other subjects received a similar brochure that listed the drug’s cost at just 10 cents per dose.

Then each subject was given the electrical shock again. Among those who read the brochure with the $2.50 list price, 85 percent said their pain was reduced. In the “low price” group, about 60 percent reported less pain.

And here’s the best part: All the pills were placebos – completely free of active ingredients.

Reporting in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers noted that their results help explain why patients who switch from a brand-name drug to a generic with identical active ingredients often find the generic to be less effective. And the authors added: “Furthermore, clinicians may be able to harness quality cues in beneficial ways, for example, by de-emphasizing potentially deleterious commercial factors (e.g., low-priced, generic).”

In other words, doctors should sell a generic with some snap and sizzle. Plant the idea in the patient’s brain that it’s a whale of a drug!

That’s a terrific idea, of course…as long as the patient is getting a side-effect free placebo.

Source:
“The 2008 Ig Nobel Prize Winners” Annals of Improbable Research, 10/2/08, improbable.com “Commercial Features of Placebo and Therapeutic Efficacy” Journal of the American Medical Association” Vol. 299, No. 9, 3/5/08, jama.ama-assn.org