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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.
Because research has shown placebo's do have in fact, while small, a significant effect on health. As noted this is likely purely due to psychosomatic effect rather than any medical benefit but nonetheless it happens. It is a bit of a catch 22 though, since it is psychosomatic, for it to be effective, it has to actually seem like legit treatment even though it's nothing more than a trick. We humans are very strange in that regard.
though in some cases, reporting you feel better is the same as actually BEING better. Antidepressants, for instance.
This still isn't quite correct. For example: patients may want their doctors to feel as though a treatment is working and thus report an effect that isn't real ("yeah, sure - I feel better"). But the minute they walk out the door they feel just as crappy as when they entered. Other "effects" from placebo are simply bias in the study on the part of the researchers. Or the "observer" effect where people change simply because they're being watched. Placebo is a catch-all for any reported result that isn't explained by a real treatment.
Also - something quacks^Hhomeopaths never want you to know is that any reported effect *size* is minuscule from both homeopathy and placebo. So a small percentage of people reporting a tiny improvement? Your money is best spent elsewhere.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
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.
The problem is when the placebo effect is not powerfull enough to overcome a medical issue but
Yes it is. Go read about the placebo effect. e.g. there was an operation that was carried out for some time for angina. It was pretty effective for a lot of patients, resulting in long-term symptom relief. I don't recall the exact details, but I think it involved tying up some superficial blood vessels under the assumption that this would reduce pressure on the heart. Some time later a surgeon did a study where some patients received a sham operation. Turns out the sham was as effective as the real operation. Because it was "no better than placebo" the operation got canned. Yet it worked. The reference is in Ben Goldacre's "Bad Science" book.
soylentnews.org
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?
It's not that complicated: it's really hard to make a profit selling people their own mind's ability to heal them.
We've known dogs and rats can readily detect lung and many other cancers just by smelling a person's breath since at least the 50s (or was it 20s), but when was the last time you saw a cancer-sniffing dog offering instant, non-invasive cancer screening at the hospital? You haven't - there's no profit in it. Plus I think doctors are a little insecure - they have a lot of centuries of leaches and snake oil to live down, and seem to prefer the soulless gleaming of technology over anything that might suggest they're not 100% competent today (and never mind the statistics showing how incompetent they generally are - hell, most don't even understand the basic statistics necessary to properly interpret the accuracy of a medical test - testing positive for X with a 90% accurate test does NOT mean you have a 90% chance of having X, unless X is so common that most people have it.)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
It's not that small.
Placebos have as high as a 30% response rate for many things. That's why the gold standard is to compare double blind placebo controlled data. It isn't no response rate that matters, it is the response rate relative to sugar pills that somebody tells you are medicine. Telling somebody that roasted rat pellets (convincingly) are medicine means that you will get a positive response.
Add to this data dredging, confirmation bias driven studies, tenure decisions made in your favor only if you see a positive response in your new cancer treatment, and the fact that "significant" is generally a statistical absurdity like p = 0.05, and it's no real surprise that we end up with lots of (ultimately) silly conclusions.
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Wasn't there a study that found that placebos had positive effects even when the patients were told that they were placebos?