NEW YORK — Inhaling albuterol helps asthmatic lungs work better, but patients who get it don’t feel much better than those treated with a placebo inhaler or phony acupuncture, according to a U.S. study.

The results, which appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, demonstrate the importance of, literally, caring for patients and not just providing drugs, said co-author Ted Kaptchuk of Harvard Medical School.

The findings also demonstrate the impact of the so-called ‘placebo effect,’ or the phenomenon seen in clinical trials when people given inactive, fake ‘treatments,’ such as a sugar pill or saline, show improvements.

‘My honest opinion is that a lot of medicine is the doctor-patient relationship,’ Kaptchuk told Reuters Health.

‘A lot of doctors don’t know that, they think it’s their drugs. Our study demonstrates that the interaction between the two is actually a very strong component of healthcare.’

All of the 39 patients, each of whom had mild-to-moderate asthma, thought the placebos were just as effective as the real therapy.

Those who got albuterol reported a 50 percent improvement in symptoms. The ones who got phony albuterol said they improved by 50 percent as well, while those getting sham acupuncture had a subjective improvement rate of 46 percent.

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