> You know it's just sugar,

That is not the definition of a placebo.

You take the placebo (whatever it is: could be a pill; could be some kind of task or routine) and you believe it is medicine; you believe it to be therapeutic.

The placebo effect comes from your faith, your belief, and your anticipation that it will heal.

If the pharmacist hands you a pill and says, “here, this placebo is sugar!” they have destroyed the effect from the start.

Once on e.r. I heard the physicians preparing to administer “Obecalp”, which is a perfectly cromulent “drug brand”, but also unlikely to alert a nearby patient about their true intent.

> That is not the definition of a placebo.

But, puzzlingly enough, it's the definition of open-label placebo, in which the patient is told they've been given a placebo. And some studies show there is a non-insignificant effect as well, albeit smaller (and less conclusive) than with blind placebo.

One, a placebo does not need to be given blindly. A sugar pill is a placebo, even if the recipient knows about it.

An actual definition: "A placebo is an inactive substance (like a sugar pill) or procedure (like sham surgery) with no intrinsic therapeutic value, designed to look identical to real treatment." No mention of the user's belief.

Two, real hard data proves that the placebo effect remains (albeit reduced) even if the recipient knows about it. It's counter-intuitive, but real.