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There's something called the "placebo effect", which basically means that if people believe they're taking medicine, they may report feeling better (and may actually even GET better) even if what they're taking isn't medicine at all.

The control group getting sugar pills exists to make sure that the people being given the actual drug aren't just feeling better because they think they're supposed to. If the "drug" has about the same effectiveness in both groups, then the researchers can be pretty sure it's due to the placebo effect; only if the subjects getting the real drug report significantly more improvement than the ones getting the sugar pills will the drug be considered to be effective.

In real clinical trials, not even the physicians that interact with the patients should know which ones are real and which ones aren't, to ensure that they behave the same with both groups. This is called a "double-blind" study: neither the patients nor their physicians know which pills were real and which were fake (at least until after the study is complete).

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10y ago

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An experiment for a new medicine was tested by two groups of people One group was given the medicine The other group was given a sugar pill The sugar pill serves as the?

Control group, or simply control. Please study.


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When conducting an experiment, there are two groups. One group is called the experimental group. This is the group that the treatment is being given too. The second group is called the control group. This group is not given the treatment and is used to compare the experimental group with. An example would be: A new medicine for heartburn was being tested. The experimental group would be given the medicine. The control group would be given a sugar pill. When the treatment was done, the results of both groups would be compared and a decision would be made as to the medications effectiveness.


What is the difference between control group and experiemental group?

The experimental group is the entire population of people in a testing program. The control group is a subset of that unit. The control group would be given a sugar pill instead of the drug being tested. This is done without even some of the experimenters knowing who is who.


Most medical trials administer a drug to a group of people suffering from an illines are administred a sugar pill Why is one group given a sugar pill?

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