Mlive.com, April 15, 2008 Dr. Howard Brody writes in a column about the "adherence effect" about patients who follow directions and take medications as prescribed. He cited a 1970s study that found that people who took real medication as prescribed and those who took a placebo had better results than the people in the study who did not take their medication, real or not. Brody ends his column this way: "Can you harness the ‘adherence effect' to improve your health? We don't know. But it seems to be worth a shot, at least."