ArticleFrontiers in psychology2025
Open-Label-Placebos can reduce pain, but not indigestion during gluten challenge in chronic pain patients.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Dietary interventions have become a management tool for chronic pain conditions over the past few decades. Certain diets, such as gluten-free diets, are perceived as particularly beneficial by patients, although there is no evidence to support this. Studies that have investigated this topic have focused little on possible expectation effects that could be involved in symptom development or pain increase. Methods: In a 2×2 study design with repeated measurements to test treatment effects, we investigated 26 patients with fibromyalgia (FMS). Additional chronic pain conditions were included and analyzed exploratively. However, the main analysis focused on fibromyalgia patients. Participants underwent an oral food challenge (OFC) with double-blinded gluten or alleged gluten (sham gluten). All of them received an OLP with different instructions to treat negative effects of the porridge. Treatment expectations were modulated by either neutral or positive instructions regarding the OLPs. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups: (1) gluten and neutral instructions; (2) gluten and positive instructions; (3) sham gluten and neutral instructions; and (4) sham gluten and positive instructions. Expectations before (T0) and after the instructions (T0.1) as well as pain and indigestion before (T0) and after the OFC (T1 30min, T2 30-180min, T3 240min) were assessed. Results: In FMS patients, a significant interaction with instructions were observed ( Conclusion: This study highlights the complex interplay of disease type, placebo effects, and expectations in chronic pain conditions during gluten provocation. While gluten itself showed no significant impact on pain or indigestion, positive instructions significantly enhanced perceived pain relief. These findings suggest that expectation effects, rather than gluten, may play a more central role in symptom modulation, at least for pain. Future research should focus on expectation-driven mechanisms to better understand and optimize dietary interventions in chronic pain management and differences across pain diseases.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.