Slashdot Mirror
Homeopathy Turns Out To Be Useless For Treating Medical Conditions
MightyMartian writes It should prove to be no surprise for most rational people, but a group of Australian researchers have determined that homeopathy is completely useless at treating medical conditions. Researchers sifted through 1,800 research papers on homeopathy and found no reliable report that showed homeopathic remedies had any better results than placebos.
Of course, anyone with compelling evidence to the contrary (or better yet, proof to the contrary) is encouraged to post links in the comments below.
I'm Cured
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
I think I saw some research somewhere showing that the same people who believed this also bought thousand dollar specialty speaker cables, HDMI cables, and specially crafted wooden volume control knobs for their home stereos, 'because it improves sound quality'.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Of course they found similar results when compared with placebo. Placebos can actually be effective. To infer that the treatment is useless is actually false. The treatment consists of tricking someone into thinking they're going to get better. Occasionally, this will psychosomatically heal them.
LOL, I guess some men really do want to watch the world burn.
Products purporting to be medical treatments backed by zero evidence and pseudoscientific gobbeltygook theories don't work? Whodathunk!
Finding God in a Dog
Yeah, but aren't placebos effective? I thought even the FDA agreed ;-)
Expecting to find positive results at a dilution of 1/1800 is not the homeopathic way. Positive results are diluted by approximately 10^-12 amidst the null results.
...wait a minute...
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
In other news, water turns out to be wet.
Cue the crowds jumping in to say that "no better than placebo" means homeopathy is useless, while "works as placebo" means psychiatry is better than nothing.
Yeah, yeah, you just poured hot grits down Lennart's pants. Get over it - he's not that spicy.
and thirst.
no reliable report that showed homeopathic remedies had any better results than placebo
And yet placebos have been shown to be pretty effective, and are steadily becoming more so when compared against the drugs being tested. The mind can be a powerful tool.
Maybe it's best to let the fools believe that the sugar pill is medicine in some cases.
...the Earth is not flat.
Table-ized A.I.
Just a few days ago I made the case why homeopathy or other "magical medicine" and the way it might be practiced today can offer at least one significant upside vis-a-vis regular medical treatment ... or should I say council?
That homeopathic substances probably offer no better remedy than placebos is not really news. However, they *do* offer cheap placebos, which also can be a good and useful thing. And placebos are effective, or at least have an effect, there are enough studies that prove that.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Many pharmaceutical drugs lose to placebos as well. So given a choice I'd chose the cheaper homeopathy "solutions".
Yes, that's why we do double blind drug testing so those pharmaceuticals aren't released. Why pay anything for something that doesn't work? It doesn't matter how cheap these scam pills are. On the other hand, most pharmaceuticals are very effective, even the very cheap ones you can get without a prescription.
If homeopathy achieves cures as a result of the placebo effect, it's not 'useless'. There is a complex moral argument as to whether we should allow this route to flourish, but that's not the same.
Numerous homeopathic remedies can treat mild dehydration(though you have to watch your electroyte balance; because there isn't much there there). Take that, Big Pharma!
I'm fairly sure the Placebo Effect is effective. If it wasn't we wouldn't have an issue with it in medical studies. Who am I to take away someones perfectly functioning Placebo by convening them it's not actually doing anything? Also there are medications that are less effective than the placebo effect for some people. Some people are just far more susceptible to it. Good for them. They can feel better as long as they think they're doing something that'll make them feel better. Much harder to pull off that trick when you know where the man behind the curtain is. As long as we're not talking about the nuts who do Homeopathy in spite of an effective medical treatment being available.
I've been homeopathically poisoning the planetary water supply of this study's authors with sewage, every time I go to the bathroom.
... just have a small glass of water. You'll feed much better.
Incidentally, alternative medicine doesn't exist. There's medicine. And there's stuff that doesn't work.
Relevant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0
He offered $1,000,000 to anyone who could prove homeopathy works. Nobody won though some quack named George Vithoulkas, whose International Academy for Classical Homeopathy is based on an island in Greece, claims Randi backed out of a previous challenge issued early in the 21st Century; don't know about that and the new challenge was instated in 2011 and not a peep from George Vithoulkas as far as I'm aware.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/ar...
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
they didn't test the right medical condition.
Water does have memory (or at least self-correlation); it lasts about 1 picosecond. Unfortunately, it's hard to get the medicine to the right part of your body in less than a trillionth of a second.
... if symptoms persist, take one.
yeah. homeos.....essentially, i just wanted an excuse to post that.
I like to think of stuff like homeopathy as the chlorine in our gene pool. We've made the world so safe for stupid people that if they didn't have outlets like this, we'd be devolving into lawyers and politicians faster than we already are. You know the saying that's popular around here, "You can't cure stupid"? If there's one thing homeopathy might be able to cure, it's that. It'd just take a couple generations to do it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
<SARCASM>
It's clear that the Aussie researchers were paid off by Big Pharma®!!!
</SARCASM>
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Of course the medical science will say that, they don't understand anything else.
Is it safe? Imagine if someone drank absolutely pure water - wouldn't you overdose and die? Thank goodness for natural minerals and man made pollution in my water that saves my ass every day.
If they think Homeopathy doesn't work, they're just not using enough.
Or, wait, sorry, they're using too much.
The less homeopathy you use, the stronger it is.
The logical conclusion is that if you use none at all, you'll see the greatest improvement, especially financially.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
The correct headline is that there is no clinical evidence that homeopathy is useful.
That is not the same thing as saying that homeopathy is useless.
If you are going to criticize people for being irrational, then make a rational argument.
What's the matter, you don't want to take a pill that may cause anal bleeding or death when you want to treat a migraine? Live a little!
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Selling a "convincing" placebo to people might be a good idea if homeopathy confined itself to "treating" harmless conditions. But Homeopaths think they can treat real diseases for which we have medical treatments of known effectiveness.
Homeopaths think they can treat cancer, diabetes, hypertension, arrhythmia, allergies, viral illnesses of all sorts (from the common cold, to influenza and ebola), gout, parasites, etc.
If people believe that their homeopathic remedy "cured" them of insomnia, they might turn to it for a condition for which not doing something that actually works might be crippling or fatal. One of the first homeopathic "remedies" was for malaria, which can be quite fatal if you don't take ACTUAL drugs to treat it. (It's ironic because the a$$clown came up with this at the time when we actually HAD an effective treatment for malaria, so he killed some of his first patients with this "medicine". OTOH, he did, undoubtedly, "save" others, since many of the drugs he was replacing had things like arsenic and mercury in them.)
I have used it for a variety of ailments. The one that has brought me most benefit is histaminicum which lowers my histamines levels in my body when I use it. I am allergic to dairy and when I eat it, I get a histamine reaction. I just take this homeopathic and it goes away within a few minutes (this allergic reaction). I get allergic reactions such as ringing ears, anxiety, etc. and it goes away with just a few granules. I don't think this is something you can measure that much with science though. The second one that I have used to great benefit is cannibus indica homeopathic which I use when I get too stoned and can't handle it. It sobers me up pretty fast and kind of neutralizes my high. How would you measure this with science? Another one that has been amazing for me is juniperus communis which is a juniper root homeopathic. It helps your liver detox and I use it when I drink coffee or alcohol, neutralizes some of the bad effects of these drugs. How would you measure that? I also use a variety of them that help me sleep, works not as good as the others because I have chronic insomnia...results vary lol.
If Homeopathy confined itself to conditions that are not curable with medicine, are medically harmless, or amenable to the placebo effect, you might have a point of simply letting people indulge themselves.
But Homeopaths allege they can "treat" all sorts of harmful (and sometimes deadly) diseases for which we DO have rather effective medical interventions. (Cancer, diabetes, malaria (that was one of the first homeopathic "remedies" when even at the time we had an effective drug to treat it), influenza, manic-depression, hypertension, etc.)
If somebody eschews an effective remedy because they believe that homeopathy "cured" them of some inconsequential thing, then it does real harm to that patient.
It's not a "complex moral argument" at all here.
I was sick like all the time as a small child (constant sinus infections, often also in my ears and throat and lungs, it was awful). First stop was all kinds of doctors that put me on all kinds of medication, at the end of which I was even worse. Finally my mom tried taking me to an alternative place that turned out to be a homeopathic clinic, not that she actually believed in it, but she was about ready to try just about anything. She actually called the pills they gave her to give me "placebo pills", which being like 5 or 6 at the time, I didn't get why that was so funny until a couple years later, I just thought that's what the medicine was called.
Anyway, I got better! Not all the way better, but better than I'd been before, just because they told her the first step was to *stop* drowning my immune system in all kinds of antibiotics, which is what had been happening before.
Of course, I could've gotten the same effect, and saved my mom some money, by just not going *anywhere*, but still. ;)
Anyone who thought it could possibly do anything useful was just fooling themselves.
Double-blind randomized clinical trials are the "gold standard" for medical research, not necessarily placebos.
Sometimes the control in such a study is indeed a placebo. This is the case for which there is no treatment of overwhelming effectiveness and/or ones amenable to psychosomatic healing, like psychiatric illnesses or some forms of pain.
But for many other conditions, you could bring up a research up on criminal charges for using a placebo instead of the current standard treatment. We'd never do such a thing in, say, a study for curable cancers, diabetes, blood pressure, serious infections, heart attacks, or even a birth control pill.
In a study for a drug to treat, say, Type I diabetes, we'd NEVER use a placebo. The control group in such a study would be Insulin, since no treatment at all would be swiftly fatal.
Those that believe the placebo effect or homeopathy works and have kidney disease should test their theory. Enter a medical experiment where they are given a choice of of this treatment or the medically approved treatment of dialysis followed by kidney transplant when a kidney is available or homeopathy and check the results. We all know pretty much what the results will be: death for the homeopathy treated patients and likely much longer life for the traditionally treated patients.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
1) If homeopathic remedies could lower histamines, this could be easily "measured with science".
2) Intoxication is a condition that easily lends itself to psychosomatic "cures". We could easily measure the actual effectiveness with science by giving patients water vs. Homeopathic "remedies" and comparing the two groups (reaction tests, blood draws, mood surveys, whatever.) It would not be a difficult study to design at all.
3) The very idea of "Liver Detox" is a crock. There are lots of different poisons, and the idea that a single remedy could the effects from alcohol AND caffeine (which aren't even remotely chemically related) is ridiculous. (Though no more ridiculous than Homeopathy itself, which to actually work would require completely throwing out a whole pile of rather well-settled parts of chemistry, physics, and biology.)
4) Insomnia is another heavily psychosomatic condition. (Indeed, therapy works better for insomnia than any other remedy.)
The idea of a Double-Blind Clinical trial is not hard to grasp. When a homeopath tells you that somehow their remedies "can't be measured" with such a trial, they are simply moving the goalposts. If they are actually "cures" for anything, then that will show up in a trial. Period. End of story. To think otherwise is nothing more than irrational "magical thinking".
... on alternative "medicine" generally, especially homeopathy: Simon Singh, PhD and Edzard Ernst, MD, "Trick Or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine", Norton, 2009 (ISBN 0393337782)
licet differant, aequabitur
I wish the article was more than a link to a commercial news site that was itself a link to a press release. There's no direct information here, and I'd have liked to see if the review had included an analysis of any disclosures of funding or affiliations.
Personally, I'm in an annoying position in regards to Homeopathy. My ex got involved in homeopathy for things that conventional medicine didn't seem able to cure or ameliorate - before we divorced. It seemed to help her and it seemed to help our (young) kids when she used it to reduce the duration of a cold or reduce some pain or control nose-bleeds. She'd stick with conventional medicine for real injuries, etc. And because she said that my disbelief interfered with the treatments, and because this didn't interfere with conventional treatments - and because I needed peace in the family, I tried to go along.
But the whole anti-corporate, conspiracy driven, magical thinking defense was hard to accept (although it would make entertaining storytelling.)
Somehow, it seemed to work for her. That's easy to explain away as the "placebo affect", but there's also a social effect too that occurs when you have a community of people you can interact with who will take an interest in you, etc. It's really hard to self-administer a placebo - unless it's wrapped up like homeopathic treatments are. As for the cost of homeopathic treatments - well, they cost more than sugar pills and a kit of homeopathic medicines (with a handy-dandy guide for administration) will set you back a lot of money (especially if you're going through a divorce - ending with loosing your job in the Great Recession). But my (largely unused) kit has lasted me nearly 10 years now, sitting in the back of my linen closet underneath a pile of old towels.
If you can keep your wits about you about using homeopathic remedies only on things that conventional medicine doesn't treat AND which aren't chronic, etc. -- well you might be able to use it successfully. But you're on a dangerous edge. Still, it's better than self-medicating with alcohol or other intoxicating substances. And (potentially) about the same as just ignoring the aches, pains, etc. of life until they get so bad you can barely make it into urgent care.
Can't measure psychosomatic stuff man Have you ever tried homeopathics and/or do you have any health problems? I'm all messed up man and this stuff gets me better, got a ton of stuff that they can't diagnose via regular doctors. Ever lived with toxic mold to see what it does to you?
Back when I was in public health school we read about the history of quinine which was thought to work because of the drug inducing a malaria-like set of symptoms. Thus the theory that "like cures like".
It was the original drug that got people thinking of homeopathy as a viable and valid way of treating people. 400 years later it seems to still be working.
So it is a homeopathic remedy which actually kills malarial parasites as well, by interfering with parasite reproduction somehow.
Maybe coincidental and maybe nothing to do with homeopathy as it is today, but the original post with the statement "completely useless at treating medical conditions." would seem to be invalid by just this one instance which was the first instance of homeopathy.
Should be the collective outcry of the people who use ultrapure water spiked with a smaller amount of pure homeopathic grade alcohol (say, 40% w/v) to treat "daily routine".
So given a choice I'd chose the cheaper homeopathy "solutions".
Given a choice I'd chose the even cheaper placebo "pills" ;^)
(unless of course actually spending money on your cure in a non-single-payer healthcare system is an integral part of the placebo effect)
Why would any rational person try bullshit non-therapies?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I like James Randi's joke about the man who accidentally overdosed on homeopathic medicine when he forgot to take it.
I have a feeling you spend a lot of time on these forums debating people because you think are you so smart, I can tell...you've developed quite a skillset. I don't spend that much time doing this lol, first time commenting on slashdot in like 10 years or something. Anyways check out unda: http://www.seroyal.com/ca/bran... If they were crock, why are they still in business and why do the have an education wing? Why are people against one of the first medical industries that existed before the immoral current system developed by carnegie and ford foundations?
I saw this article first on IFLScience, and wowee... the comments were the equivalent of repeatedly thwacking multiple hornets nests with sticks. The sheer number of people up in arms about this study is jawdropping.
While not really surprising, it is depressing. Especially when you consider the fact that the majority of people who were outraged had no idea what homeopathy actually was. Countless comments about how willow bark, st. johns wort, etc worked for them and therefore the study was just a big conspiracy by big pharma, etc. They were completely oblivious to the fact that what they were talking about wasn't even homeopathy.
I'm torn between wanting to try to educate these people, or just declaring it a lost cause and troll them until they burst a blood vessel or something.
http://xkcd.com/765/
The mouseover text is pretty good, too.
Cuz they like their own bad system and are suppressing others.
I agree that the majority of the "remedies" are full of it, but there is some utility to be had from a couple of the treatments. They put lemon and eucalyptus in cough drops all the time, yet we're mocking people for cutting out the sugar coating and using just the extracts? Just doing a causal search on pubmed with melaleuca return 345 peer reviewed articles in respected journals. These guys weren't looking that hard.
Homeopathy works, but the preservatives cause autism.
Everything you wanted to know is fully explained here: http://www.howdoeshomeopathywo...
Placebo can have physiological effects.
"Physical changes are real. For example, studies on asthma patients show less constriction of the bronchial tubes in patients for whom a placebo drug works."
https://www.psychologytoday.co...
You must not be aware of the definition of psychosomatic: "caused or aggravated by a mental factor such as internal conflict or stress." IOW, you're making *yourself* sick and the homeos exert a placebo effect.
Turns out so is regular medicine - great so treating the symptoms - but useless for identifying and treating the cause.
What a complete and utter bullshit title. It even says right in the summary, they're "no more" effective than placebos, which have been proven over and over and over to actually be somewhat effective. So I guess they have "an effect" unlike the title specifies.
... the placebo effect is real, and only works if people believe in the remedy.
Arnica is something I have used in treating broken ribs. I have had broken ribs 4 times and each time it takes about 5-6 weeks for the pain to completely subside. It takes about 3 weeks for the bruising from the bleeding to go away.
I used Arnica after a heavy board bound up and spun back out of my table saw, knocking me to the ground, and caving in my ribs. My anectote is that, in this instance, I used topical Arnica Cream and Arnica tablets. This one bled the most and yet the bruising went away after about a week. By 2 weeks I could no longer feel the pain, when I moved or breathed. It was quite astonishing. Far cheaper than the 8k the hospital charged for the ER and CT to make sure my organs weren't leaking.
Sloane Kettering has this nice link.
http://www.mskcc.org/cancer-ca...
"Sesquiterpene lactones in arnica have anti-inflammatory properties and inhibit binding of transcription factors AP-1 and NF-B to DNA (14). Using a tincture prepared from arnica flowers, this led to suppressed collagenase-1 (MMP1) and interstitial collagenase-13 (MMP13) mRNA levels in human articular chondrocytes in vitro (14). MMP13 and MMP1 enzymes are thought to play a significant role in cartilage and joint destruction and inflammation seen in osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Both arnica tinctures and sesquiterpene lactones were found to suppress NF-B activation and IL-12 production in dendritic cells at high concentrations, but can also have immunostimulatory effects when diluted (2). Another study found that sesquiterpene lactones inhibit platelet function by interacting with platelet sulfhydryl groups, probably associated with reduced phospholipase A2 activity (12). In addition to sesquiterpene lactones, the allergenic potential of arnica may be partly due to other allergens such as polyacetylenes (15)."
I have also read a double blind research paper from an Orthopedic group in South Africa which showed great benefit in using Arnica in post surgery of ankle patients.
I think Arnica is a homeopathic remedy which would also make me skeptical of anyone claiming it is "Completely Useless in Treating medical Conditions"
Perhaps they are referring to other homeopathics which they think are useless, but it seems there may be a few which are "Useful".
If symptoms persist, take one.
...
If symptoms persist, take one-half.
If symptoms persist, take one-quarter.
By the way, has anyone seen what dogs do with grass? Ok, it varies a bit by dog. Some eat grass (and throw it up later) while others simply bite at the grass (swallowing little or none and not throwing it up later).
The point is, why do they do it?
I postulate, with the second category of dog, that they are getting a hint, an "essence of grass", and using that as an intentional "almost at homeopathic levels" treatment.
Our dog memorizes where the grass patches are and will want to head down certain blocks just to get to that grass.
BTW, regular lawn grass doesn't work and they will shun it. The best grass is "weed" grass that grows wildly, is longer than lawn grass and the best of the best has a wide blade -- the grass is several times wider than lawn grass.
I come here for the love
In other news, scientists have discovered that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
As someone who is resistant to 'alternative medicine', I assume that people will do the mainstream route first, and so receive mainstream care. Only if that has failed would I expect them to go off to more 'interesting' possibilities. But you're right, people don't follow that route, and it could be a serious problem. Thanks for making me think!
In Dr Goldacre's talk at nerdstock 2009, he mentions a study in which there were measurable physiological changes. Particularly in the non-placebo group those that were given a muscle relaxant had high muscle relaxant levels in their blood plasma than those who were given the muscle relaxant and were told it was a placebo.
We have used something called Whole Baby Salve for each of our infants.
It has been amazing in treating scalded skin from diaper rash to mastitis and other burn like symptoms.
I was amazed that weeping scalded skin could be completely normal by the next day with zero sign of injury.
The biggest proof for me was when my son fell onto an electric burner.
His forearm skin melted and became spagetti like as we pulled his branded and charred arm off of the burner.
for 2 weeks we kept his arm most and redressed it 2-3 times daily with this whole baby salve.
By the end of 2 weeks there was barely any injury noticeable. His arm had only faint deep discoloration, but by about 2 months out we could not see any damage.
His arm to this day shows no sign of the concentric curcular brand he got, the melted skin depressions, or scarring and discoloration. It looks every bit like his other arm.
Why does it work? I dunno.
But it does and I would trust putting it on any damaged skin.
http://www.thelittleseedling.c...
Of course anyone can have their anecdotes like mine so take it with a grain of salt, but if you know someone who needs a baby gift, this is something nice. It has stead us well for 3 babies.
The less you use, the more powerful the effects, so if you use none at all, you run the risk of dying from a MASSIVE overdose...
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
So given a choice I'd chose the cheaper homeopathy "solutions".
Yes, but in this case you are forgetting about the even cheaper third option of "doing nothing".
Placebos have undoubtedly successfully treated more people than any medical procedure. [We can say this because treatments are rarely twice as effective as placebo. As such, placebo can be considered to be responsible for typically 50-100% of a treatment's effectiveness.]
There are many health issues where treatments don't outperform placebo by 10% eg mental health.
Now if you or your public health service is on a budget, a cheap placebo might well be the best option.
A couple more points:
- Many treatments are impossible to test against placebo eg osteopathy and the like. Homeopathy is perfect to test against placebo -- it is scientifically indistinguishable from water. Therefore we know with far more certainty than anything else that homeopathy doesn't outperform placebo. We could still be wrong but we can be surer of that than any other complementary treatment.
- Double blind is a necessity for testing against placebo. Single blind cannot give a positive result -- but a negative one means your treatment is pretty bad. But double blind methodologies are often flawed and should always be tested by asking the patient what they think they took. If > 55% guess correctly, you have a problem.
Whilst for us geeks it's 'obvious' that a healthy dose of scepticism and a demand for evidence is de rigeur, if you were never taught to think like that, then it's not entirely your fault that you fall for the latest internet fad. Blaming the victim of a well constructed scam for being deceived is usually unfair. And we do have to remember that 'science' has made some howling mistakes in the past, only to recant later.
The fraud is this bullshit article.
homeopathic, in that they actually do contain actual measurable amounts of plant extracts.
Nobody with any sense disputes that some plants have beneficial medicinal applications. But you have to actually use the plants or their chemical constituents, not just take some water and milk sugar that is somehow "impregnated" with the vibrations of the plant by being shaken and mumbled over by some guru...
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
OK, I think all of us (or, most of us, anyway) are clear on the "It's just distilled water, and doesn't do anything that distilled water doesn't do" thing, but one thing has always bugged me.
How come the homeopathy people always discuss the components that aren't in their nostrums using Harry Potter Latin? They just stick a "um" or "ium" on the end of everything
(Actually Rowling's Latin was better than this...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It should prove to be no surprise for most rational people, but a group of Australian researchers have determined that homeopathy is completely useless at treating medical conditions. Researchers sifted through 1,800 research papers on homeopathy and found no reliable report that showed homeopathic remedies had any better results than placebos.
Well, gee, you could have knocked me over with a feather!
Even some arguably intelligent people get it backwards...
http://gawker.com/5851835/stev...
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
Right right. One tends to think of the education system as "uniform." This despite the fact that I am keenly aware that my educational experience was highly unusual. Moving every 5 years shakes things up a bit. And I had books around the house that sent me down a scientifically inquisitive path as well. They need to add a class in not believing everything someone tells you to the common core.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The reason that so many people believe that homeopathic medicines is that most of them actually WORK, because they are "contaminated" with actual medicine. For instance, there's this zinc-based nasal spray that is advertized as homeopathic, but in fact it contains a non-trivial amount of the active ingredient. It's advertized as homeopathic (a) as a marketing gimmick for those who buy into this stuff (note: people who believe in homeopathy don't read labels or even understand what's on those labels) and (b) probably some way to get around FDA regulations.
Ever heard of grapefruit seed extract? Supposedly it's this powerful antimicrobial agent. Except it's not. Often the product also contains an actual antimicrobial compound as an "inactive ingredient."
I have no idea how companies get away with this. I mean, if it works, that's fine, but to lie through their teeth about what does what in the product?
The harm done by homepathy is equal to the net benefit of the actual drug for which it is substituted, minus the difference in cost.
Seems to be a big push against Homeopathy.
That Camomile tea, ya it won't cure the disease directly, but that relaxed feeling you get is going to be super beneficial on that road to recovery.
That joint you just smoked cause your cancer curing drug makes you puke, well that is going to help your appetite and make you sleep better.
You can go on and on with a lot of medicine that is direct from nature.
Had a stye in my eye.
The first morning piss, dabbed in the eye...made it go away.
Some things work to HELP, don't forget that.
I first tried some Hylands runny nose pills on my daughter, who was already on medication from a doctor without success. They worked. I later used them with my son and I never had to resort to anything else.
If that's not enough for you, my wife just recently used some kind of homeopathic medication in our aged cat's drinking water that she had picked up from the pet store. The cat is around 18 years old and frequently gets a bladder infection which has never been stopped with anything but antibiotics. Using the homeopathic preparation resulted in her doing a complete turn-around within two days.
We've got a friend who opened an integrative medical practice (she is an MD), and utilizes homeopathy within it. As I said, I can't buy the bizarre explanation that accompanies the practice, but there does seem to be something to it, although I've never used it for myself. I can say that if it is valid for the reasons they state, we're all toast due to the amount of medication which ends up back in our water supply.
You *can* measure psychosomatic stuff.
It's easy. You just ask the patient "Do you feel better?". If the answer is yes, great! write that down. Now do the same test to ten thousand other people with the same condition, half of them given the treatment, and half of them given a placebo, with neither the patients, or the testers knowing who gets what (the classic double blind test). At the end of the trial, tally up the results and see if there's a statistically significant difference between the two.
If there is no difference, you can conclude that your treatment has no effect greater than a placebo.
Of course, we don't know everything. If this stuff works for you better than doing nothing, then I say go for it.
We have cigarettes for that.
You take a perfectly obvious statement, that should be common sense to anyone who things logically about the ridiculousness of homeopathy and what it is. Then you pay a bunch of scientist a bunch of money to conduct a scientific study to determine the efficacy of homeopathy. Low and behold they determine it is useless, and that the only thing that works is there scientifically approved methods that only they know about and only they are smart enough to understand. All you have to do is pay them a bunch of money, and they will give you their scientific fix all. I am prepared to believe in homeopathy even though it does not make any sense just because the scientist say it doesn't work. I know scientist don't do anything if they can not figure a way to make it pay a buck, so I figure there must be something that they are hiding and don't want the public to know about.
-Remember kids do not think for yourself. Just trust scientists. They know everything, and speak with the authority of God. Dare to question a scientist, and you shall be labeled a heretic, a pedophile, a terrorists, a racist, a Nazi, and a communist.
Ok- I have never really taken a side on homeopathy. But for years I used a topical cream for pain (I labor- and,from various causes, have a lot of nerve and joint damage). This cream worked better then any OTC or prescription treatment. And, after 6+ years of using it, I realized it was homeopathic.
And let's get real for just a second, shall we? Many prescription (and OTC) drugs likewise have little to no better sucess rate then placebo. For prescription drugs manufacturers need only produce 2-3 studies showing "effectiveness". And if you do your reseach you will find many of these drugs go through dozens or even hundreds of studies to get those 2-3 positive results.
And a parallel- accupuncture. Which has gained some acceptance. Despite a quantifiable understanding. I never thought anything of it until a friends aging german shepherd, with bad hips/joints had exhausted every "Accepted" treatment and went for accunpuncture. After a single treatment she was moving better and after 3 was like she was 7 years younger.
And let's not forget- everything from placebo to prayer have track records matching many accepted treatments.
My personal take- there is much we don't understand about the human/animal mind/body/energy/whatever...that our issues are often not the treatment forms themselves- but our lack of understanding how to apply them in each individual case. And let's face it- homeopathy at least lives up to the medical standard of "first do no harm". If it works in even a small percentage of cases we should not be so fast to bash it considerring the harm caused by many accepted treatments.
A final caveat- my wfe is a doctor. And like so many doctors here has, to one degree or another, embraced "integrative medicine". Trying to find what- from the pool of western, ayurvedic, chinese, accupuncture, herbalism, cranio-sacral, etc, etc...in some compination usually, wworks best for each patients specific needs.
And my father was a veterinarian, classically trained, who came to see treatments from accupuncture, chinese medicine, massage, and yes homeopathy offer results he could not.
"Homeopathy" is a strange beast - it is a way for other people to put thousands of different compounds under one umbrella. The only thing uniting these compounds is that they have been derived from plants or animal matter (or otherwise from "nature") without significant manufacturing / chemical processes.
As soon as a "homeopathic" compound is proven effective - it becomes traditional medicine, of course (so it is no longer counted to homeopathy credit). :)
Vitamins, for example, are homeopathic compounds (because they occur in nature), yet their effects are fairly well studied.
Here are a few links at random:
Vitamin D: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/929.html#Effectiveness
Valerian Root: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerian_%28herb%29 (check extensive list of references at the bottom)
Probiotics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probiotic (Feel free to follow all links to more descriptions and research articles)
I could go on, but there isn't much point. If it is known to "work" - medical industry considers it standard treatment, and does not credit homeopathy with the use of given compound. Selection bias is even more powerful than placebos
Of course, anyone with compelling evidence to the contrary (or better yet, proof to the contrary)
Homeopathy that has been proven to work is called "medicine." That's how a lot of medicine gets invented; people use some tree bark and goat liver concoction to cure prickly heat, and lo-and-behold, it works! So researches come along and break it down to find the active ingredients, put it through proper testing, synthesize it, and get a patent if they can. Even if they can't lock down the active ingredient, they tweak the formula a bit, slap a trademark on it, and run a media blitz combined with distribution channel pressure to take market share. They make a shit-ton of money doing it, and they're not just letting the good answers sit there unexploited.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Good work from this group -
Faith healing should be the next challenge - Apparently it's even more powerful and heals quicker than homeopathy ....
Testing it against something that doesn't exist, such as a placebo, should very quickly establish any flaws in modern medicine....
ic medicine, a week without it.
I've even been yelled at several times for referencing homeopathic "cures" as quackery. Apparently I'm "closed minded" for expecting evidence that they work. In short, I don't think an infinite number of studies that indicate that homeopathy is essentially snake oil will put dent in the industry. The homeopathy industry isn't much different than the religion industry. Some people want to believe what they want to believe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0
Homeopathy is not useless in treating medical conditions if there's a placebo effect. Sometimes the placebo effect can be greater than other intended effects.
We already knew this.
Example: The 3rd Reich wanted an alternative to the medical establishment, since thy did not like it as there where "philosophical" differences. So they evaluated Homeopathy. This was a complete bust, the rates of people being cured and/or surviving in the evaluated homeopathic "Hospitals", was comparable to untreated people and far below conventional medicine. And remember that conventional medicine was not all that great at the time.
Now, Nazi medical research was utterly unethical and repulsive, but they did not falsify results as they needed the results for their war-machine.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
So all those poor toads and bats died for nothing. :(
which, it turns out, means "very useful", depending on condition and patient. Also, homeopathy has no side effects, which given how so many medicines cause more harm than good, is a big positive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
found no reliable report that showed homeopathic remedies had any better results than placebos.
And there's your problem right there. Homeopathy is a placebo, it cannot have better results than itself.
That said, there is a place for placebos. Not in proper medicine, but in daily life. You may have a condition (chronic pain, seasonal allergies) that you don't feel is adequately handled by traditional medicine without side-effects (lethargy, etc). Take a placebo. Doesn't work? That's fine, no harm no foul. It works? Great, keep taking that placebo. The reason medicine is test against placebos rather than against no medicine at all is because of "the placebo effect"--in some cases, to some degree, placebos can work. Don't take it (or any other placebo) for something more serious, of course, but for these kinds of things, go right ahead.
Homeopathy isn't the end of medicine. It's just a trendy, expensive placebo.
True homeopaths (properly trained ones) don't just give you pills and expect a cure. It doesn't work that way. The patient undergoes extensive interviews and if properly done, interviews with close family/acquaintances until a picture emerges of the patient's symptomology. This includes the mental state as well as well defined physical internal and external bodily locations places, times and processes. This picture is compared with thousands of possible remedies until the closest match is found. The progression of a cure isn't a 1 pill treatment but can be over a period of months using different remedies.
The prescribed regimen of taking a selected pill, it's concentration and form is complex as well. There are certain foods that can't be taken because they will negate the effects of the remedy.
The other aspects are also significant being:
A 'proven' homeopathic remedy is just what it says. It's been known to work. Many remedies (especially from manufacturers) aren't proven and consequently you will find that homeopaths make their own if mother tinctures or specific sources can be found and used. Some manufacturers are very good at making certain types of remedies but weak with others.
A true homeopathic practitioner has documented successes and will continue to practice. Others I have known have given up because their methodology was poor, took shortcuts and failed or didn't have enough successful treatments.
Hahnemann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... is worth a read if you can get a copy of his original work.
In the end, he has a point and that is under the right conditions, the action of 'like cures like' does work. Not for everything though but when it does work it is miraculous in speed and effect.
I don't particularly care what modern allopathic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... doctors and/or researchers come to conclusions about homeopathy because I've experienced cures on myself (whilst under training) and treated patients who had given up. To say it is a placebo becomes a bit nonsensical as there is little to distinguish that from a homeopathic cure. In other words "Hey I'm cured! I don't give a crap if you think it's placebo."
Homeopathic remedies are extremely weak and can lose their strength totally if exposed incorrectly.
Homeopathy has been run down consistently since the advent of Sulfa drugs and anti-biotics.
Homeopathy is very popular in 3rd world countries because they are cheap to produce.
If you go to a naturopath who also practices homeopathy, then my first thoughts is to just accept their naturopathic diagnoses. You really need a good homeopath who just does that. Mixed holistic practitioners are ok, but not when homeopathics are involved unless their primary skill is homeopathy itself.
If you need to know some of my case histories, then reply here.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Of course homeopathy is useless for treating medical conditions. But that doesn't mean it's fake or worthless. How many of the conditions that people take medicines for are in fact spiritual or emotional or attitudinal conditions that can only be acknowledged physically- AKA "psychosomatic"? The vast majority of them! AND, despite the common assumption that Western medicine cures everything it's applied to, it does not- just ask any nurse in a family practice clinic. What a vast pool of maladies that leaves that are susceptible to Homeopathy. No wonder it keeps "working", when the only thing people actually need from it is reassurance or the chance to believe that things can be better. And then there's the everpresent danger of medical science claiming that it knows all there is to know about how the body works.... let's not go there.
I'm all messed up man ..., got a ton of stuff that they can't diagnose via regular doctors.
Then I suggest you try other types of doctors, such as psychologists. They are actually good at their jobs, and can actually cure you permanently, rather than forcing you to rely on repeated use of temporary placebo remedies.
When a treatment is effective, both people who support homeopathy and people who oppose homeopathy stop calling it homeopathic.
One of the first "homeopaths", cited extensively by modern practicioners, was Samuel Hanneman. And Samuel did _research_ in medicine. Rather than merely citing from leaned tracts, he investigated local practicioners and conducted experimented. Many of his his claims have turned to be misguided, such has his "law of similars". But his dedication to actual experimentation and verification of treatment was exceptional in his time. He was not, perhaps, a _great_ scientiest. But his claims about modest doses of dangerous substances being used to treat related illness was key to the development of vaccination for infectious diseases, and to desensitization for treating allergies. And his study of "miasms" was surprisingly close to the later discovered theories of infectious diseases: he lacked the microscopes and later, more sophisticated chemical tools to research it much further.
So please do give credit to the originator of the field, much as one gives credit to religious prophets whose ideas have been perverted. Perhaps much like one can give credit to Isaac Newton's early work in mathematics and optics and ignore most of his later, confused work in alchemy. If only the very followers of his work would understand the beginnings of scientific testing and methodology in his work and carry on from that, they might be much more helpful to their clients.
We should be fair to homeopathy. There is exactly one medical condition it really can cure: dehydration.
Researchers sifted through 1,800 research papers on homeopathy and found no reliable report that showed homeopathic remedies had any better results than placebos.
To which the knee-jerk response is: absence of proof is not the same as proof of absence.
Oh wait, wrong topic to trot that argument out on. Please ignore the above ramblings of my mind.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
I was explicitly referring to the diabetes itself, not it's side-effects. But you, AC, obviously just want to be pedantic.
And I ALSO obviously wasn't talking about animal studies. Obviously the rules there are much different, because you don't care if your control group is going to die.
So no help with our subluxations from that side, Dr. Bob.
"Homeopathy Turns Out To Be Useless For Treating Medical Conditions"
But it does wonders for the wallet conditions of its practitioners.
Should it be considered a scam?
"Lying is ok as long as you earn money"
-- Sun Tzu
To order the complete collection of homeopathy-based quotes, please give me money.
That actually happens to be the course synopsis for Marketing 101 at Harvard Business School.
Except that many homeopathic treatments are actually water that has no active ingredients dropped onto sugar pills then dried. So no, not even dehydration. Just hypoglycaemia.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Can't measure psychosomatic stuff man
Oh man is your mind going to be blown when you find out there's an entire field of medicine that does exactly that.
Blindly guessing treatment options is asking for a disaster.
But against all odds, the manufacturing process principle was what researchers used to discover graphene. They also kept dividing over and over again.
So the second part yet waiting to be rediscovered could be in the area of material science and topography of chemical reactions. That would require also some statistics to end the nonsense of guessing mostly ineffective medication with a placebo like sometimes positive feedback. And push the whole area into a responsible methodologies.
Placebos do NOT work on my migraines. Hell, over the counter pharmaceuticals don't either. For that matter, the other types only half assed work, except for some I'm rather scared of so my doctor won't prescribe them in the first place. (Yes, I have been asked, and said, I'd rather not, even if it was only to avoid getting mugged for my meds.)
I was looking at Homeopathy guides that state the more diluted, the better.
When I worked out the total actual level of dilutions of some of the "mixtures", it lead to using water combined with cyanide which was at such an infinitesimally diluted state in some cases that to locate water molecules for the mixture which had NEVER touched any of the additive molecule in such a rarefied state you'd have to sift through every molecule of water (and I mean this literally, not "literally" literally) in the ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM to find ONE water molecule.
You'd have to find a single water molecule in the solar system which has NEVER touched hydrogen cyanide - one of the most abundant organic molecules in the universe - and then dig up enough to make a "tincture"
Fail.
[sarc]I didn't see this one coming.[/sarc]
That so many just bobble their heads up and down against Homeopathy instead of really understanding its place. You can belittle and insult those who practice it all you want but it won't stop us from taking part in a medicine that works for us. Australia is heading down a dark road in which the state is being led by their noses by a band of scientism adherents and are going to outlaw swaths of the CAM industry for no reason than because they can.
Don't be silly. Conventional medicine doesn't work for everything. Homeopathy doesn't work for everything either.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Toxic mold causes real symptoms that cannot be treated with water. If you're living with toxic mold you'd probably better move away.
You're confusing having a slick web site with having medical knowledge.
Why are they still in business? Because maintaining a web site is very inexpensive, and maybe they host the site and operate in a country where the authorities leave them alone.
Why do they have an "education" wing? To get people like you to think they are a legitimate operation.
Why are people against...? Because it is not based on science and has been demonstrated many times to be essentially worthless.
Look around you. Your phone, TV, the internet, your car, everything you have is the result of applying science. None of it is based on magic or wishful thinking, or prayer. It's based on people figuring out what works and what doesn't and leaving behind the things that don't, including homeopathy.
How is homeopathy any different from traditional medicine in that regard? Yet people still use it, and on their kids. I immediately thought if this recent news story up here in Canada... sad.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/aborigi...
http://www.sciencebasedmedicin...
http://news.nationalpost.com/2...
remedy for any condition?
Let's say I'm a competitor who wants to produce a homeopathic medicine for which I do not have the original substances that need to be diluted. All I do is buy one dose of the competitor's product and dilute it further and repackage it with my label. The more it is diluted the better, so my diluted stuff is better than the original.
Now multiply that by thousands of people who would like to be in the homeopathic remedy business. Why would anyone "research" and look for new "active ingredients" (or should I say activum ingredientium to confer the scientific sound that latin sounding names lend this sort of magic)?
What about rain? Rain hits just about everything and ends up in our drinking water supply, so drinking water is an extremely dilute form of virtually every "active" homeopathic agent. Why buy any sort of homeopathic remedy when all you have to do is drink water and you'll get them all?
Human stupidity expands without limit.
But making a living out of selling only placebos should be considered a fraud. And I am not talking about producing placebos for randomized trials, but about the profession of homeopath.
A friend of mine has shown me why homeopathy works and it all comes to a bug in the matrix when we were programmed in the machine.
The formula for the effect of poisons in the body is now:
health = health - health * (poisonPercentageTaken - 1.0f);
but was supposed to be :
if (poisonPercentageTaken > 1.0f) {
health = health - health * (poisonPercentageTaken - 1.0f);
}
else {
health = health - health * poisonPercentageTaken;
}
Seems simple, doesn't it ? :)
ringing ears is a symptom of histamine intolerance look it up
What I am saying is that I got messed up with toxic mold and I could not be treated with traditional medicine so I went an alternative route with vitamins, supplements, and some homeopathics. I have gotten much much better and can now tolerate molds. They can't really diagnose mold toxicity and related problems, this is because science isn't as great as you guys think it is.
I work at a natural health clinic where I have watched doctors who actually understand homeopathics make VERY effective use of them.
Something to know about "homeopathic remedies" is that the effective agent is not the trace of some chemical or another. Read some of the source material. Homeopathy is another form of energy medicine. The point is that the "essences" and energies of the various substances are the important part. Not the liquid's trace chemical components.
Because they don't understand this, a great many companies produce very ineffective homeopathic products. Many researchers find nothing when they look in to them. And a crooked, increasingly bloodthirsty pharmaceutical-empire-run medical system finds yet another way to discredit potentially powerful medicine and procedures in favor of their own destructive approach to maintaining both perceived and real authority over Your body.
They have a bunch of medical studies on the unda website that I linked to that it does work. They are being used by millions of people worldwide and are bringing great relief and benefit to the people who use them. Just because some studies say it doesn't work, doesn't mean this is reality. Can't measure everything with science. I mean why did they ban the one's with penicillium if it doesn't work?
Homeopathic medicine often had an advantage with respect to iatrogenic medicines. Many diseases are self limited and may clear themselves or at least stabilize. Many medical treatments were outright injurious (e.g. mercury, arsenic, war gas based based) and homeopathy could actually produce head-to-head better results. Even now many mainstream cancer treatments and last ditch medical treatments will have fearsome adverse effects that people have to decide when doing nothing **IS** better.
The whole problem with homeopathy is that it does not follow it's own principles. To effectively use homeopathy, you can't just apply it liberally to the patient! You need to dilute it until your therapy just contains the essence of homeopathy without actually using homeopathy directly.
That's why the best homeopathic practitioners are medical professionals. They have been exposed to homeopathy but don't use it directly on their patients. This makes a powerful modality which utilizes homeopathy at its full strength.
And all of the research being talked about here backs me up - directly applying homeopathy is ineffective, but diluting it and indirect applications via medical professionals is very effective! This is a complete vindication of homeopathy and rebuke of medical science!
for instance: i found this high end solid silver, gold plated, diamond encrusted ethernet cable greatly improved the quality of audio that i recieved from my super fast 28k fibrous broadband modem. I know all those nay-sayers... those common people with their primitive untrained ears, who don't encode their vinyl at 5.6448 MHz sampling rate because of that unproven "nyquist shannon sampling theorem", say the ethernet frame check sequence, CRC-32 and ultimately transport layer protocols mean that data transmission loss at the physical layer is completely invisible before it gets anywhere near the DAC.
Now i don't claim to know what all that stuff means, but i Dooo know that electrons are electrons, and electrons are like water and water has memory, and those other electrons know they are clones, and my ears can tell those electrons are not the original electrons from my 28k modem that's downloading my 5.6448 MHz encoded flac files over a TOR network to my $1 a year shared server located in some kitchen in Russia on top of which somone is making toast... you know how i can tell? i can smell the toast when i use my new high end solid silver, gold plated, diamond encrusted ethernet cable, that's how good it is, it acutally induces a state of synaesthesia.
high end solid silver, gold plated, diamond encrusted ethernet cable: better than crack cocaine.
I also heard on the pedoaudio forum that they are going to release a limited edition version that is made from conductible water with 10e-1073741824 percent gold aparently this makes it a billion times more conductive than pure gold and will sell for twice the price, with a limited edition of made from water blessed by the Pope.
Placebos are just that, lies... so the question is what the net positive impact of a particular placebo is. I guess homoeopathy has a net negative impact for the world...
Placebos administered by a professional are the least adulterated form of lie, you are told it is real medicine and it is not (nothing more). The potential negative impact is loss of trust in the person or organisation who administered it.
Placebos from a pseudo-science background on the other hand have a greater potential for weighing on the harmful side because they come with a huge back story that attempts to create a false sense of trust in place of reality. This has the potential to greatly mislead and confuse people.
I favor homeopathy and yes, I do also favor "alternative" medicine. From a dietary perspective, I suppose you could have labeled me "alternative" because I still ate cholesterol-high foods even when the US FDA advised against it. Come 2015 and US FDA has now reversed their stance on Cholesterol. There will always be "alternative" and "homeopathic" things happening which eventually in time are accepted by the larger medical community.
I haven't had a single cold, cough, or flu symptom since December 2012. I've worked in various places, gone to concerts, danced in sweaty hot night clubs - and there are sick people everywhere. I have a sick coworker every week. They all go to doctors, sometimes getting antibiotics, then get sick again in a month or so. As for myself - I've gone totally unvaccinated; hugged and kissed sick people with the flu; and have double-dipped and shared bites to eat with strangers. I love how healthy I feel.The only thing which brings be down are dehydration from caffeine's diuretic property, build up of cortisol / stress from work, sometimes lack of sleep, and occasional consumption of alcohol. I take tons of Vitamin C, N-Acetal-Cystine, 2-AEP Magnesium, Vitamin D3 all of the time. At least one a day I also take Ashwaganda, Ecklonia Cava, Choline/Inositol (B vitamins), and Acetyl-L-Carnitine. I attribute my good health to these supplements, plenty of non-acidophilus/non-diary probiotics, avoidance of gluten, and avoidance of sugar.
What's remarkable to me is the number of people who clearly don't believe in homoeopathy, never have, think it's totally obvious that it's wrong and yet still feel the need to bang on about it when something like this comes out. It's obviously not a cause they need to fight for their own personal benefit. So who are they saving? The "stupid" people they regard with scorn and disdain? It's an odd kind of point scoring that says "I'm smarter so I'm better off" when clearly there is some crippling insecurity beneath it all. Ignorance is bliss and these stupid and ignorant suckers get benefit from drinking specially labelled water. Think about that for a second. They take a substance that has zero therapeutic capabilities and they actually feel better and get something out of it. While the nerds sit back and laugh cynically, thinking up more smart things to say as if it actually contributes anything to the world. Who's really better off?
i feel very strongly that homeopaths should be allowed to marry.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Any article or ad or product which uses the word detox I immediately automatically dismiss. Also the word toxin, unless it's in the specifically scientifically correct denotation of the word. Also cleanse. Stepping back, all these and similar concepts show an odd view of the world, that our bodies are these pure temples that are polluted by such impure things as coffee or gluten or staying up all night doing drugs. That's not how it works, honest. Might as well go detox your car by doing a muffler cleanse after you've build up toxins from using low budget gasoline.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
The british knew that infared light treatment by the chinese cured asthma years ago. I have a friend who had asthma at 10 and had infared light treatments in the UK and has never had asthma since and he is in his 70's. I had asthma as an adult not as a child, and it was very severe. I had 4 inhalers and used a nebulizer 3-4 times a day. I did 6 months of infared light treatment using the migun massage bed and I have not needed an inhaler for over 5 years now. This was all the proof I and my doctors needed to know that it worked. An entire part of my lung that did not used to show up in xrays now is very visable.
Depending on the severity and frequency, you might want to look into holistic approaches. Everyone's body is different, but if you try enough things you might find the magic combo that works in your case.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
So given a choice I'd chose the cheaper homeopathy "solutions".
but the drugs that lose to placebos don't get approved by the FDA.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
For chipping away at this pernicious BS. Thanks to everyone who yet again steps up to slowly and patiently demonstrate that, yes, AGW is real, yes, vaccines are fine.
A placebo is, by definition, a "sham" treatment, whether it be a drug, surgery, meditation technique, whatever.
Using the currently-accepted treatment is not, by definition, a placebo. I don't know how you can say it "isn't substantially different".
Control-groups MAY use a placebo, but there are many other ways of creating a control group. (Using the currently accepted treatment, drawing on statistics from a sample population, etc.)
And it would STILL be unethical to use homeopathy in ANY study in which there is a current accepted treatment, and total non-treatment could be medically harmful to the patient.
I don't know much about homeopathy, but I can attest to the effectiveness of essential oils. (a little off topic, I know)
For example, lavender helps with skin issues such as dry skin; peppermint oil fragrance is very uplifting; peppermint oil is effective at warding off mice; cinnamon oil wards off ants; clove bud oil for toothaches, lemon oil for cleaning; to name a few.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Medicine is a political practice.
Ibuprofen puts a dent in mine, but the only thing that really works is sleep. It's not as if I'd be getting any quality thinking in, so I may as well rest.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Wilbur stood on the corner with a jar of rabbit shit. Freddie came by," hey man what you got there?"
"It's smart pills, try some."
Chewing up a large handful, Freddie exclaimed" this tastes like shit!"
"See you're getting smarter already."
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Starvation. A dilutant frequently used in homeopathy is sugar. Several tablespoons of any such homeopathic medicine will help cure starvation.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Prior to the understanding of proteins as little machines, it was theorized that enzymes worked by somehow changing the structure of water so that the reaction being catalyzed was accelerated; the prevailing model was the colloid, where the properties of the suspension are due to its bulk properties, rather than quasimechanical activity of the individual molecules.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
This is why we need to stop letting stupid ideas rule the universe like it's a right. Generally the type of people who being in Homepathy also believe in Gods, Spirits, Ghosts, Magic and all manor of bat shit crazy. Didn't science fix this problem century's ago? If you can't repeat the test with verified results then it doesn't work, what ever happened to teaching this line of reasoning?
Homeopathy is extremely pure, distilled water. Anybody thinking it has any effect is a complete moron.
These science-based articles are limited to western science. Go to Czech republic or India and you'll see comm miracles.
nice to see if you understand spanish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gKhJVV-6Jo
Lots of discussion about placebo effect. Denigration of alternative medicine. What about the nature of the research? We're a government entity. We read a bunch of papers. We decided which of the papers to use. We derived a conclusion from the papers we decided to include.... This is the gold standard of making a determination of medical effectiveness?
Not much of a secret that Big Pharma owns the government is it? Ya think they're going to included positive clinical research? Think that within most Western societies any positive clinical work is even going to get published in the first place?
Google nattokinaise (I know it's not homeopathic). If you want, look further at serrapeptase and other digestive enzymes. You'll find lots of clinical research - mostly done in Asia. But Western docs are still writing scripts for warfarin and the like. Why is that? Oh, you can't patent enzymes?
The third leading cause of death in the US is prescribed pharmaceuticals. A government entity going to declare on that?