Taking Medication, Real or Fake, Extends Life

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- People who take medication regularly lower their risk of dying -- even if it's a placebo, reveals new research.

Investigators analyzed 21 studies involving more than 46,000 participants. For those with good adherence to drug therapy or placebo, the risk of mortality was about half that of participants with poor adherence. "Our findings support the tenet that good adherence to drug therapy is associated with positive health outcomes," say researchers. They add, "The observed association between good adherence to placebo and lower mortality also supports the existence of the healthy adherer effect, whereby adherence to drug therapy may be a surrogate marker for overall healthy behavior."

American researcher Betty Chewning, Ph.D., from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, suggests it's possible people who adhere to healthy lifestyles also tend to take care of themselves by greater adherence to prescribed treatments.

Chewning points to research revealing healing may not lie in the treatment but rather in patients' emotional and cognitive processes of "feeling cared for" and "caring for oneself." She suggests practice based on these hypotheses "could yield extra value in treatment regimens that patients agree to, believe in, and will sustain over time."

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SOURCE: British Medical Journal, 2006;333:15-19