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For several years I鈥檝e been preaching in the pages of the Harvard Heart Letter about the importance of taking part in clinical trials. Why? Because I believe they improve medical care, telling us what works and what doesn鈥檛. Figuring it was time to put up or shut up, I volunteered for a clinical trial. I鈥檓 glad I did鈥擨 learned a lot, received excellent care, and saw first-hand the effort it takes.

The trial was called Targeting Inflammation Using Salsalate in Type 2 Diabetes, or TINSAL-T2D for short. It was being conducted at 16 centers, including the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, a short walk from my office. Its aim was to see if an old drug called salsalate (a cousin of aspirin) could arrest low-grade inflammation that may鈥攅mphasis on may鈥攎ake muscles resistant to the effects of insulin and eventually tip the body into type 2 diabetes.

I responded to an ad for TINSAL-T2D and, after undergoing a few preliminary tests, was accepted to take part in it. I was given a bottle of blue pills and asked to take several of them every day. No one鈥攏ot lead investigator Dr. Allison Goldfine, not study nurse Kathleen Foster, and certainly not me鈥攌new if the pills were the real thing or a placebo. I was also asked to check my blood sugar every morning, and to show up monthly for blood tests and questions galore.

I just finished my year-long stint, still not knowing whether I was taking salsalate or a placebo. I really don鈥檛 care, though I鈥檓 keen to know if salsalate worked as hoped, something I鈥檒l learn when the results are published.

Why bother?

For people with cancer or other potentially deadly conditions, joining a clinical trial might give them access to new drugs or procedures that may work better than existing ones. For the rest of us, taking part in a clinical trial may have more subtle benefits:

• the possibility of better medical care and monitoring than you currently receive
• learning more about your condition and how to manage it
• feeling good that you are improving care for others by helping answer important medical or scientific questions

There are downsides, too. You don鈥檛 get to choose whether you get the 鈥渘ew thing鈥� or the placebo, which can be difficult for folks who don鈥檛 like uncertainty. 聽The new drug or procedure may have unwanted or unexpected side effects. And volunteering for a clinical trials takes time鈥攐ver the course of a year I spent about 20 hours at the Joslin, and twice wore a portable blood pressure monitor for 24 hours.

Still, I鈥檇 do it again. And I hope you will think about taking part in a clinical trial. I had such a good experience with the TINSAL staff that I鈥檇 like to plug a second trial they are running, called TINSAL-CVD, that鈥檚 looking for volunteers. (You can check it out .) It is testing whether salsalate lowers the risk of heart disease which, like diabetes, may be an inflammation-related condition. To see the wealth of clinical trials that are currently looking for volunteers, explore , the National Institutes of Health鈥檚 up-to-date listing of the 18,000 clinical trials now underway in the U.S.