About the Authors

Michelle L. Dossett

mdossett@mgh.harvard.edu

Current address: Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Division of General Medicine and Primary Care, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Lin Mu

Affiliations Department of Medicine, Division of General Medicine and Primary Care, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Clinical Research Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Roger B. Davis

Affiliations Department of Medicine, Division of General Medicine and Primary Care, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Iris R. Bell

Affiliation Department of Family and Community Medicine, The University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson, Arizona, United States of America

Anthony J. Lembo

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Ted J. Kaptchuk

Affiliations Department of Medicine, Division of General Medicine and Primary Care, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Program in Placebo Studies, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Gloria Y. Yeh

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Division of General Medicine and Primary Care, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors of this manuscript have read the journal's policy and have the following competing interests: AJL has served as an advisory board member and consultant for Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Forest Laboratories, Salix Pharmaceuticals and Prometheus Labs. He has received a research grant from Prometheus Labs. IRB serves as a consultant for Standard Homeopathic/Hyland’s Inc. MLD has served as a consultant for TJL Enterprises. No products from any of these manufacturers were involved in this study. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MLD GYY TJK AJL IRB. Performed the experiments: MLD LM. Analyzed the data: MLD RBD. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: RBD GYY. Wrote the paper: MLD LM RBD IRB AJL TJK GYY.