The Science Of Homeopathy

[Eternal_Bliss 0]

Hii Everyone, I always wanted to ask this particular question eversince I saw a particular show on the TV ,it says that the science of Homeopathy is a mystrey.And there is nothing in the medicine which cures the pateint rather its a placebo( i.e. the pateint cures himself/herself by getting the assurance that he/she is getting well by taking the medicine).... What do you all think about this ?????

[Vyoma 0]

Well, that is not what I thought was Homeopathy. As far as I know - but be aware that I am not a expert in the field - Homeopathy deals with treatment of symptoms. Say some one has a particular ailment, a dose of substance is given that would make the patients body to generate antidote for it. Hence, if you know about Homeopathy, you would not that the doseage given is very minuscule. The Homeopathy does just serve the purpose as to trigger the actual generation of the medecine or anti-dote in the body of the patient. This is the basic philosophy or modus operandi of Homeopathy.Now, it is my strong opinion that Homeopathy, if sought after must be used against slow acting or chronic diseases and not the fatal and quick ones, due to the way Homeopathy works. This is strictly my opnion, and I think it is a topic of debate among the circle.

[Eternal_Bliss 0]

I got you,but I will like to say what l saw on that particular show They said that what they used as medicine was nothing more than super diluted acid (Sulphuric acid)It was diluted like thousand times and the strength of the medicine increases with more dilutionIn one of the sample the dilution was equivalent to five drops in the whole water of the a ocean . The medicine which was so diluted that it contained not even a molecule of Sulphuric acid could treat the ailments(As if the water molecules have the memory of there association with the molecules of acid)By the way the show was aired on the Discovery Channel... This are not my personal view. I am just repeating what was shown on the show..

[Vyoma 0]

Well that is quite contrary to what I knew about Homeopathy. But it might be... I am not sure of it.

[webintern 0]

There are experiments termed "prospective randomized controlled trials" which are expressly designed to control for the presence of the placebo effect. You randomly divide your sample population into groups. The treatment group includes patients who are further divided into the drug and the placebo subgroups. To minimize bias, NOBODY involved in the study knows who has the actual drug or the placebo until after the trial is over. The patients don't know. The doctors don't know. The pharmacists don't know. Even the interviewers who then record the results of the treatment (e.g., presence or absence of disease, change in blood pressure, etc.) don't know.At the end, the patient identifiers are matched to the type of treatment they were provided, and biostatistical analyses are performed. If a drug is shown to provide a significantly different (defined mathematically) result from the placebo and no-treatment groups, then the drug is considered to have caused the recorded effect (e.g., decreased incidence of disease, reduction in tumor burden, decrease in blood pressure, etc.).There are many complex equations that define minimal test conditions (e.g., number of patients, length of trial) for an adequate study. A Phase III drug trial performed by the pharmaceutical industry for a single drug (which is already at 4 years into development) can literally cost tens of thousands of dollars to perform. The patient population for this phase of trial is also massive.With regards to homeopathy, the reason why the medical community has not embraced this form of "medicine" is because the alleged homeopathic treatments have not been proven to work under well-defined conditions. Some people may anecdotally say a certain herb had cured their asthma or their heart disease. On the other hand, can one attribute this phenomenon to reality, a confounder, an isolated experience, bias, placebo, deception, etc.? There was a thread in this forum about a cure for all cancers. It saddens me that opportunistic shysters would prey on people at their most vulnerable moments for the greed of money. In short, caveat emptor.Some side notes ...I agree that the placebo effect is real. Yes, it is very real. I have witnessed people claim their headaches have disappeared after being given a placebo. There are, of course, ethical questions that revolve around knowingly giving a placebo.Also, I do not work for the pharmaceutical industry, so I have no vested financial interest in their success. I am nevertheless a proponent of medical drug regimens that have been shown by well-founded and reliable clinical trials to work with a reasonable degree of efficacy. Do not, however, generalize my words as a black-or-white statement. There are many possible side effects from any foreign chemical compound you ingest into your body. If you have a question about a drug or disease entity, consult your physician.

[mitchellmckain 0]

Hii Everyone,


I always wanted to ask this particular question eversince I saw a particular show on the TV ,it says that the science of Homeopathy is a mystrey.And there is nothing in the medicine which cures the pateint rather its a placebo( i.e. the pateint cures himself/herself by getting the assurance that he/she is getting well by taking the medicine)....



What do you all think about this ?????

I think that the determination to eliminate the placebo effect is part of what is wrong with Western medicine. Logically it seems that if the placebo effect can cure something then a drug which has a significantly greater effect than the placebo effect must be better. But the fallacy lies in the fact that these drugs with their objectively measurable effect have undesirable and insuffienciently understood side effects. The problem is that the drugs are often too strong and even harmful. In the pursuit of this ideal to rule out the placebo effect, Western medicine has violated the Hippocratic oath, which was to, at least, do no harm. And so in the effort to cure one ill, modern doctors damage other parts of the body. The use of chemotherapy in the treatment of cancer is typical of Western medicine in the attempt to kill off the cancer before you kill the patient himself with the poisons you put into him.

With these alternative forms of medicine, whether it is homeopathy, herbs, nutrition, crystals, accupunture or even a chant, at the very least you are employing the power of the placebo effect (which is very real and substantial) without doing harm in the process! Furthermore, I would not discount the possibility of effectiveness beyond the placebo effect. They could very well fail to produce statistically significant results because they only work on some people and not others. Certainly nutritional healing has a very sound rational to it. But regardless, I would prefer all of these alternative forms of medicine for the simple fact that they are far more likely to be harmless if they are not successful.
Edited November 6, 2006 by mitchellmckain (see edit history)

[webintern 0]

Despite the infamy of pharmaceutical drugs and their putative side effects, herbs and related substance are not completely benign either. Beyond having poorly understood physiologic effects and variable dosing patterns (a gram in one batch may be equivalent to two in another), they are frequently contaminated with other unstudied or unknown chemical residues. Some popular herbal compounds such as St. John's Wort, Gingko Biloba, and Kava Kava have been demonstrated scientifically and anecdotally to cause their own set of adverse reactions.I am not discounting the usefulness of the placebo effect or alternative medicine as a whole. Complementary medicine is practiced by many licensed allopathic physicians (mostly family practitioners) throughout the United States. There is even active research in this field at several major universities spanning the Pacific Rim and continental United States. There is nevertheless much yet unknown; this is a niche of the healing trade where "art" is generally more descriptive than "science", and where caution is more advisable than blind faith.Let us not forget the shenanigans who make exaggerated yet unproven claims to make a quick buck. These alternative "remedies" are not cheap. How do we separate truth from lie? At this point, if a friend were to develop a fever, headache, neck stiffness, and rash, I will be jumping for the beta-lactam drug with its panoply of side effects than take a chance with the cure-all magnetic head band. ... just my humble opinion. Feel free to disagree.

[mitchellmckain 0]

Let us not forget the shenanigans who make exaggerated yet unproven claims to make a quick buck. These alternative "remedies" are not cheap. How do we separate truth from lie? At this point, if a friend were to develop a fever, headache, neck stiffness, and rash, I will be jumping for the beta-lactam drug with its panoply of side effects than take a chance with the cure-all magnetic head band.

LOL

Yeah sure, there are limits. There are a certain type of symptoms (especially the combination of fever and rash in that example), not to mention broken bones, open wounds and other life threatening symptoms, where a physicians help is wise to say the least. These are after all the sort of situations in which Western medicine especially excels. In other types of sympoms like chronic annoyances and discomforts, rushing to Western medicine for a rescue may be over doing it.

LOL

Some degree of reasonable belief is required for the placebo effect to work and not every one is dumb enough to believe in cure-all magnetic head bands. ................But if it works?..............shrug....

[toby 0]

I tried it, I didn't like it and it didn't really work. So if it was a placebo, should be more believeable.

[Eternal_Bliss 0]

I have also seen incidents when a placebo surgery is done and it even works ! The concept of placebo is really mysterious and makes me wonder how a thing like that works . This probably shows the tremendous power the human brain has. And maybe we are unaware of itI will also like to know if a placebo will work if a person takes it knowing that it is actually a placebo

[webintern 0]

The mind-body link is extremely powerful. Consider stress ulcers (self-explanatory), pseudocyesis (false signs of pregnancy in a woman eager to conceive; it even fools the home pregnancy kits!), somatoform disorders, pain disorders, conversion disorders, and the list goes on.

[Chamomile 0]

I have used belladonna in children for viral fevers that are not controlled by Motrin alone, pulsatilla for ear infections, podophyllum for stomach flu, rhus tox for poison ivy rash, bryonia for severe back ache, urtica urens for urticaria and hepar sulph for post-operative knee infection. The patient population included my kids and 6 friends (most from the scientific community) who have not used homeopathic remedies previously. A positive effect as measured by a lowering of temperature (in fever), decreased diarrhea with a single dose of podophyllum, a 50% visible reduction in rash within 6 hours of initiating treatment (for poison ivy rash), ability to get up and walk (back ache), decreased urticarial rashes and visible reduction in inflammation of knee are not placebo effects. For those who experienced placebo effects-clearly, you did not pick the right remedy.I am a pharmacist myself and a pharmaceutical scientist in Research and Development. My conclusions at work are always driven by data, however, in this case, the only data that I have is when I have seen the positive effects. Clinical trials using homeopathy is challenging due to the fact that the system is personalized for the symptoms shown by the patient. So, the same remedy may not be effective in 2 individuals showing different symptoms for the same illness.The absence of a theory to support the dilution and potency effect does not mean that the remedies are ineffective. They really work.