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Re:A new form of brain stimulation relieved severe depressio... by floatingatoll on Tuesday April 07, 2020 @02:27PM (#22805982)
"What if the placebo effect isn't just a trick?" (1 year ago, 278 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18398342

> Those with the high-COMT variant had the weakest placebo responses, and those with the opposite variant had the strongest. These effects were compounded by the amount of interaction each patient got: For instance, low-COMT, high-interaction patients fared best of all, but the low-COMT subjects who were placed in the no-treatment group did worse than the other genotypes in that group

> Analyzing the data amassed during the first 10 years of the study, Hall found that the women with the low-COMT gene variant had significantly higher rates of heart disease than women with the high-COMT variant, and that the risk was reduced for those low-COMT women who received the active treatments but not in those given placebos. Among high-COMT people, the results were the inverse: Women taking placebos had the lowest rates of disease; people in the treatment arms had an increased risk.

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