NCT06299254

Placebo Effect About Fatigue in Obesity

The Modulation of Individual Level of Fatigue Through Placebo Effect in Obesity

• Status: Completed
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 80 (actual)
• Sponsor: Istituto Auxologico Italiano · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 20 Years – 50 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Fatigue is a central symptom of obesity: it significantly impacts daily functioning, psychological well-being, compliance with physical therapy, and quality of life. However, the full understanding of the origin and treatment of fatigue in obesity is still a matter of debate, requiring further research, especially from new perspectives. From a neuroscientific perspective, fatigue is more than the subjective perception of tiredness resulting from mental or physical exertion or illness. It results in the complex interaction between (bottom-up) sensory input coming from the periphery, and motivational and psychological input, which is related to top-down cognition. In this framework, placebos may affect the output of the top-down cognitive processing by altering the individual evaluation of the ongoing peripheral performance. Indeed, evidence from both healthy conditions and clinical contexts suggests that fatigue can be modulated. The after-effect of such a modulation can be observed not only at a behavioural level, in terms of physical endurance, but also a psychological (i.e., decreased of perceived fatigue) and neurophysiological (changes in brain activity, especially in the fatigue-related components as the RP) levels.

Conditions

• Obesity

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Placebo-Natural History	Half of the participants will receive a placebo (i.e., motivational/verbal) cue before and after an experimental session in which they will perform several lifts. Half of the participants will receive no placebo before and after an experimental session in which they will perform several lifts.

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-03-01
• Primary completion: 2025-02-28
• Completion: 2025-02-28
• First posted: 2024-03-07
• Last updated: 2025-08-27

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Italy