Any purported benefits can be chalked up to placebo effect.
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Former surveys that demonstrated the positive benefits of ingesting placenta were flawed, says Mark Kristal, Ph.D., behavioral neuroscientist at the University at Buffalo who studies placentophagy (ingesting the placenta). “They included only women who expected a positive effect, without a placebo control,” he says, explaining that their results were a “clear indication of a placebo effect.” However, Kristal believes the new research is accurate since it was “a well-controlled, well-designed objective study.”