>Proof
>-The “placebo” is asorbic acid (Vitamin C)
now, that is funny because I once peer reviewed a paper regarding a controlled trial of alpha lipoic acid (ALA) for Parkinson's disease conducted by a neurologist funded by NIH. In that study, which found no therapeutic effect of ALA they had used quercetin (a bioactive flavonoid) as the placebo! I rejected the paper outright because they had used an "active" placebo and I pointed out that more than 30 papers had been published on the therapeutic effects of quercetin for Parkinson's disease. They grovelled with the editor about my rejection and claimed that they only used quercetin because it was yellow, the same color as ALA. I countered by pointing out that they could have just as easily used lactose, which is a common "placebo" that is also yellow. I got the last laugh in the end by making the authors revise the paper to include a very large limitations section in the discussion forcing them to point out all the reasons that their trial failed.