Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Homeopathy Turns Out To Be Useless For Treating Medical Conditions

Posted by timothy on from the ask-your-doctor-if-placebex-is-right-for-you dept.

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.

22 of 447 comments (clear)

  1. First Post by MerlynEmrys67 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm Cured

    --
    I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
    1. Re:First Post by mellon · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, that's too weak. You need to dilute it until it's a .0000000001st post.

    2. Re: First Post by silentcoder · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most rational people agree that placebos have their place, the effect is a valuable part of treatment and current medical establishment ought to be adjusted to maximise it's benefits.

      But charlatans selling nothing else and claiming to be selling medicine end up killing LOTS of people every year.

      The thing is - real medicine gets you the placebo effect ANYWAY - and ALSO gets you actual TREATMENT.
      We can possibly increase the placebo effect if we copy a few things from the charlatan's playbook - like making appointments one-hour and actually connecting with patients, getting to know them, helping them feel emotionally better.
      They are experts at that, the trouble is - that's ALL they are experts at and they LIE about offering anything more - which kills people, lots of people, every year.

      I read an article recently by an oncologist about the serious difficulties they face because so many cancer patients are ALSO on supposedly alternative treatments which has no medical value but CAN severely interact with the treatments they ARE on (like chemo) and make those less effective. Interestingly she points out how those alternative providers never request files from them, never contact them to discuss a patient - never talk to them.
      Any real medical professional you go see while on something like chemo would PHONE your oncologist and discuss his planned treatments whatever they may be to make sure there is no unintended cross reaction. A real doctor wouldn't remove an ingrown toenail from a cancer patient without first talking to the oncologist in case the local anaesthetic can cross-react with the chemo.

      The alternative lot never do that, because they know the real doctors will tell them NOT to do anything. So instead of not doing something potentially VERY harmful or even deadly, they do it in secret and leave the oncologists to clean up the mess.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    3. Re: First Post by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That claim is horse shit. The meaning of the word "homeopathy" implies its major tenant, which is that problems can be cured by diluting things that cause symptoms similar to what a person is experiencing. If it was preventative, then there would be no symptoms for the homeopathy to be paired with. Instead, homeopathy is NEVER preventative and is ALWAYS reactive. If your woo doctor says otherwise, it is because they are selling you bullshit for problems you don't even have.

      --
      while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
  2. "Water has a memory" by kheldan · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!
    1. Re:"Water has a memory" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well humans are about 65% water and we remember things so clearly 65% of what we remember must be remembered by water QED.*

      *The science in this statement was diluted at least 1e10 times before being used.

    2. Re:"Water has a memory" by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah, there' plenty of rip-offs out there, but some high end audio products are really worth the money Just a few months ago I shelled out $500 for a digital audio enhancer that sits between my receiver and amp You can really hear the soft roundness of the 0's and the 1s are so sharp and crisp.

  3. Unfair comparison by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Unfair comparison by Derekloffin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:Unfair comparison by Atzanteol · · Score: 5, Informative

      This represents a gross misunderstanding of the placebo effect.

      Placebo has no physiological effect (like homeopathy). Often people taking placebo, homeopathy, etc. will *report* feeling better - but this does not mean they are better in any meaningful sense of the word.

      More info here: http://www.csicop.org/si/show/...

      It is very unethical to sell somebody a treatment which does not *treat* anything.

      --
      "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"

      - Charles Darwin
    3. Re:Unfair comparison by Derekloffin · · Score: 5, Informative

      Significant as in statistically significant.

    4. Re:Unfair comparison by Atzanteol · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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
    5. Re:Unfair comparison by RandomAdam · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is not true there are documented negative effects from placebos;
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo
      http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/08/21/the-other-side-of-the-placebo-effect/

      --
      @Random_Adam

      Sometimes a sig doesn't have to be funny!!
  4. Post your proof in the comments? by Higaran · · Score: 5, Funny

    LOL, I guess some men really do want to watch the world burn.

  5. researchers will be sorry by ralphsiegler · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've been homeopathically poisoning the planetary water supply of this study's authors with sewage, every time I go to the bathroom.

  6. And if you find this result upsetting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... 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.

  7. Re:Well, they're wrong. Plain and simple. by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    The problem is when the placebo effect is not powerfull enough to overcome a medical issue but real pharmaceuticals are and the people instead choose the placebo homeopathy because its natural and better when it really isn't. Or when the people selling the diluted sugar pills are charging equal or more that real effective pharmaceuticals.

    Secondly the placebo effects also works when there are real medicines as well so you get two benefits (real and placebo). were homeopathy is just one(placebo).

    --
    ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
  8. They're doing it wrong. by smellsofbikes · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
  9. It's not a "complex moral argument" at all by sirwired · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  10. Placebos are NOT the "gold standard" by sirwired · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  11. http://www.howdoeshomeopathywork.com/ by KPexEA · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Everything you wanted to know is fully explained here: http://www.howdoeshomeopathywo...

  12. Homeopathy that works contains actual medicine by Theovon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?