Ig Nobel: the craziest prizes in medicine

Every year, under the vaulted ceilings of Harvard’s Sanders Theatre, scientists are showered with applause, paper airplanes, and the kind of recognition you can’t quite put on a CV without a smile. The Ig Nobel Prizes, founded in 1991 by the Annals of Improbable Research, reward discoveries that “first make people laugh, then make them think.”

The medical category is a perennial crowd-pleaser. It’s where researchers test questions no ethics committee could have anticipated and where the methods are sometimes so bizarre that they deserve their own comedy sketch (yet the insights can be surprisingly serious).

To date, 34 Ig Nobel prizes have been awarded in medicine. Some of the most recent medical research is listed below (but if you have time, take a look at the older ones too, there's plenty to laugh about).

2007 - A blade down the hatch

In 2007, Dan Meyer, a professional sword swallower, teamed up with radiologist Brian Witcombe to pull back the curtain on the risks of their unique art form. Their BMJ paper, based on 46 performers worldwide, catalogued sore throats, internal abrasions, and even cases of perforation when concentration faltered or the sword was damaged. Part anatomy lesson, part occupational health report, the study offered a clinical perspective on a practice dating back centuries, reminding us that “unusual” doesn’t mean unworthy of study.

2009 - The long game of knuckle science

California allergist Donald L. Unger approached science with patience that most randomized controlled trials could never match. For more than 60 years, he cracked the knuckles of his left hand daily, scrupulously avoiding the right. The outcome? No difference in arthritis prevalence between hands. His n=1 trial may lack statistical power, but it provided an entertaining, stubbornly thorough answer to a question millions have argued over at family dinners.

2010 - Breathless in the best way

Dutch researchers Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest stumbled upon a peculiar observation: a patient’s asthma symptoms seemed to improve after riding a roller coaster. This led to a formal study showing that the adrenaline and altered breathing patterns from “positive stress” could temporarily change symptom perception. While no pulmonologist is prescribing theme park season passes, the work hints at complex interactions between emotional states and respiratory health, territory still ripe for exploration.

2015 - The immunology of a kiss

Hajime Kimata, a Japanese allergist, has long been fascinated by how emotions and intimacy affect the immune system. In 2015, his team reported that prolonged, passionate kissing reduced allergen-specific IgE levels and altered cytokine profiles in patients with atopic dermatitis and seasonal allergies. The results may have raised eyebrows - and heart rates - but they also suggest that reducing stress and boosting oxytocin could have measurable anti-inflammatory effects.

2018 - Big thunder lithotripsy

When urologist David Wartinger heard a patient claim that his kidney stone had passed after a roller coaster ride, he decided to test the claim. Using a 3D-printed silicone model of the human kidney filled with urine and real kidney stones, Wartinger and colleague Marc Mitchell rode Disney World’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad dozens of times. Stones in the model’s lower calyces passed far more often when the model was in the back seat, proving that, sometimes, clinical inspiration strikes far from the hospital ward.

Lieven Schenk and colleagues turned the placebo concept on its head. They found that inert treatments causing unpleasant side effects were perceived as more effective than painless placebos. This “no-pain-no-gain” effect underscores the power of expectation: patients often associate stronger sensations, pleasant or not, with more potent interventions. The work could inform future studies on patient adherence and the ethics of harnessing such effects in practice.

30 years of incredible scientific research

The charm of the Ig Nobels lies not just in their eccentricity, but in their ability to reframe science. Over the years, medicine has celebrated some truly unforgettable winners. In 1992, researchers from the Shiseido Research Center in Japan isolated the chemical compounds responsible for foot odour, concluding, after careful analysis, that people who believe their feet smell generally have odorous feet, while those who don’t, usually don’t. In 1993, three U.S. Navy physicians documented the acute management of the zipper-entrapped penis, a painstaking emergency-medicine classic.

The year 2000 brought perhaps one of the most famous studies: the first MRI images of couples having sex, a groundbreaking and slightly surreal view of human anatomy in action. In 2006, clinicians documented the use of digital rectal massage to stop intractable hiccups, while in 2013, a Japanese group tested whether opera music could improve survival in mice after a heart transplant. There was the 2014 case where cured pork strips were used to control a severe nosebleed, and the 2019 epidemiological analysis linking authentic Italian pizza consumption with reduced risk of certain diseases.

Each sounds absurd, but each reflects genuine curiosity, creative methodology, and occasionally, unexpected clinical insight. They remind us that medicine is not only about protocols and p-values, but also about asking questions no one else thought to ask. In that space, between the serious and the silly, science often finds its most human face.

Improbable Research. Ig Nobel Prize Winners by Year. Available at: https://improbable.com/ig/winners/ (Accessed August 2025).
Wikipedia contributors. List of Ig Nobel Prize winners. In: Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners (Accessed August 2025).
Witcombe BJ, Meyer D. Sword swallowing and its side effects. BMJ. 2006 Dec 23;333(7582):1285-7. doi:10.1136/bmj.39027.676690.55. PMID: 17185732.
Unger DL. Does knuckle cracking lead to arthritis of the fingers? Arthritis Rheum. 1998 May;41(5):949-50. doi:10.1002/1529-0131(199805)41:5<949::AID-ART26>3.0.CO;2-U. PMID: 9588755.
Rietveld S. Rollercoaster asthma: when positive emotional stress interferes with dyspnea perception. Behav Res Ther. 2006 Nov;44(11):1501-9. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2005.11.004. PMID: 16375967.
Kimata H. Kissing selectively decreases allergen-specific IgE production and modulates cytokine production in atopic patients. Acta Derm Venereol. 2006;86(3):219-21. doi:10.2340/00015555-0065. PMID: 16650596.
Mitchell MA, Wartinger DD. Validation of a functional pyelocalyceal renal model for the evaluation of renal calculi passage while riding a roller coaster. J Am Osteopath Assoc. 2016 Oct 1;116(10):647-652. doi:10.7556/jaoa.2016.128. PMID: 27669068.
Colloca L, Barsky AJ. Placebo and Nocebo Effects. N Engl J Med. 2020 Feb 20;382(8):554-561. doi:10.1056/NEJMra1907805. PMID: 32074423.