Acupressure wristbands might help cancer patients experience almost a 25 percent less nausea during radiation treatments.

It is common belief that such non-Western medical treatments act more as a placebo than an actual pain reliever.

Nausea is also an adverse effect of various drugs, opiates in particular, and may also be a side-effect of a large intake of sugary foods.

Placebo is attempted to manipulate the information we gave to patients to see if their prospect about nausea could be changed.

As it turned out, our information to change people's expectations had no cause, but we still found that the wristbands reduce nausea symptoms."

The wristbands put pressure on a "nausea point" identified by established Chinese acupuncture.

The study involved 88 people who experienced nausea after radiation treatments for cancer. Some were given wristbands to wear, and the others were not.

And about half of those in the wristband group were also given information that explicitly said the wristbands cut down on nausea, whereas handouts given to the others with wristbands contained more neutral information.

Those with wristbands experienced a 24 percent decrease in nausea, regardless of which set of information they were given before the experiment. The group without wristbands reported just a 5 percent lessening of nausea.