PICK OF THE DAY

THE PLACEBO EXPERIMENT — CAN MY BRAIN CURE MY BODY?, 9PM, BBC2

EVERY year, the NHS spends more than £400 million on painkillers and, as a nation, we swallow almost five billion over-the-counter tablets. But do we really r need to take so many m drugs? In this illuminating i Horizon film, f Michael Mosley (pictured) — always to t be relied on for a healthy dose of common sense — launches Britain’s largestever trial to investigate the placebo effect, with the help of 117 sufferers of chronic back pain. Can the brain really produce its own pain-relieving chemicals, given the right encouragement? The results are quite astonishing.