Author: Erik Fraunberger, M.Sc.
Have you ever been inside a drug or natural health store and wandered into the herbal remedies section mixed in with all the vitamins? I’m not talking about the herbal teas and spices that have a tangible taste or smell. I am referring to the remedies with interesting names in Latin and dosages in the c-scale instead of milliliters. These are not your ordinary remedies: these are homeopathic. Unfortunately, whatever clinical efficacy homeopathic remedies may display is hidden within highly theoretical and, some would say, implausible science. How do we separate fact from fiction? Let me take you through the underlying ideas and science-surrounding homeopathy and see what we can find.
What is Homeopathy?
Originally conceived by Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician in the late 18th century, homeopathy is based upon the principle of “like cures like” or “law of similars.” Effective medications are ones that, in high doses, produce symptoms like the disease they are prescribed to treat. It is documented that Hahnemann had volunteers ingest numerous substances to gauge their effects and best match them up to a disease that produced similar symptoms. Following these tests, these plant or animal extracts would be diluted using copious amounts of water to increase their potency thanks to “water memory.” What this means is that homeopathic medicines do not rely on measurable amounts of active ingredients. They are just water that is thought to possess a chemical signature of a previous interaction like how a carbon copy maintains a signature from a piece of paper.
Does Homeopathy Work Through “Water Memory”?
The idea that water has memory is an incredibly controversial topic since it goes against one of the most central concepts in science: the second law of thermodynamics. In layman’s terms, the second law of thermodynamics states that chaos and disorder in the universe will always increase. In other words, any order that we may observe, including interactions between molecules, is temporary and will eventually decay into the most disordered state possible. What the concept of “water memory” suggests is that even though a 30mL remedy contains roughly one septillion water molecules (that’s 24 zeroes or 1 trillion times more than the number of stars in the Milky Way) interacting with each other in an infinite number of ways every 50 quadrillionths of a second (0.00000000000005 seconds), it manages to maintain a unique structural network. Another thing to consider: if water has a memory then it would also keep a record of all the substances that everyone has urinated or dumped into our water supply including, but not limited to, illegal drugs, toxic waste, and fecal matter. Feeling thirsty?
Source: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org
Does Homeopathy Work in Practice?
For the sake of argument, assume that the “law of similars” and “water memory” are proven to be theoretically valid. As it turns out, many pre-clinical and clinical trials have been conducted to analyze whether homeopathic medicines work. Two primary findings are worth noting: homeopathic medicines are either equivalent to a placebo or may have an effect but the underlying studies are of low quality. What can we conclude from this? Homeopathic medicines, when tested repeatedly in high quality clinical trials, have little therapeutic value. The best explanation as to why they work in practice is through a phenomenon known as the placebo effect. What seems more personable and leaves a better impression in your mind: a 15-minute whirlwind diagnostic session ending in a prescription for a drug with a name that nobody can pronounce or a minimum 30-minute conversation, including small talk, ending in an individualized treatment?
Is It Harmful?
Homeopathy appears to have 1) little to no theoretical basis given our current understanding of physics and medicine and 2) no objective therapeutic value compared to conventional medicine except for a strong placebo effect on an individual level. With that being said, the placebo effect is a widely recognized and powerful tool that has many legitimate uses in medicine. When this idea becomes dangerous is when individuals begin to substitute the placebo effect for proven medical care. Unfortunately, due to the shaky theoretical foundations of homeopathy, many proponents have resorted to increasingly hard-to-test hypotheses, irreproducible results, and make judicious use of buzzwords such as ‘quantum’ and ‘ultra-molecular’. While this sounds great, the meaning behind any of it is often little more than intellectual sleight-of-hand that reinforces bad science at the expense of proper healthcare.
What Can We Learn from Homeopathy?
Regardless of your perceptions of homeopathy when you started reading this article, I hope you have learned something new or encountered an engaging, alternative (no pun intended) point of view. Here are two key lessons that I think we can take away from the homeopathy debate:
1) Spending more time with patients appears to facilitate positive health outcomes.
2) Rigorous scientific research is vital to provide evidence for or against alternative medicine regardless of the perceived scientific legitimacy.
Until next time, take a look at the links below and bookmark this page for updates on any of my future articles!
For More on Homeopathy:
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/opinion/homeopathy-labels-1.3882746
https://nccih.nih.gov/health/homeopathy
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Homeopathy/Pages/Introduction.aspx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cA_oGiNTOk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LFp6ASW0Ao