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Homeopathy "not good for anything" report says

PeterPositive

Senior Member
Messages
1,426
As should all evidence, regardless of source. Which of course leads to the rationalists dilemma I have written about elsewhere: who has the time?
In that case, it would be best to know exactly the kind of position, or in the case we're talking about, agenda that the authors have.

If one is looking for confirmation of his own beliefs then openly biased resources such as "Rational Wiki" will work. On the other hand if one is looking for a more balanced overlook (with pro and against arguments) he should look for something less biased.

Since bias as a bad beast, reading a couple of well referenced articles from proponents and critics will require just a little extra time than going with a single opinion.

cheers
 

brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,266
Location
UK
I found my statement to be true when I lived in Germany. Of course many are naive about drugs but I met many more who looked for natural remedies first. Natural health was of course much more popular in the past but the tradition sticks. Where I lived in Berlin, many MD's also practiced Chinese medicine.
 
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Gijs

Senior Member
Messages
690
Placebos can give a mood boost. This can make people "feel" better even though the underlying disease/disability remains.

There is also the effect that many conditions fluctuate or resolve naturally, and this is what control/placebo groups are used for in studies. The placebo hasn't cured them, they were improving anyway.




No. Vaccination is the introduction of an actual physical foreign substance into the body to provoke an immune response. Homeopathy is water with nothing of substance in it. Completely different.
O my god. Some people don't know anything about the principle of homeopathy. For example Lachesis is made of snake toxin (just a little).
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
In that case, it would be best to know exactly the kind of position, or in the case we're talking about, agenda that the authors have.
Always. You really need to understand a lot more than that though. This is a complex area in analysis that after several decades I am still working on it.

Single source confirmation is always dangerous. However multiple sources may not be any better. It depends on the sources, and on the analysis you bring to them.

Professionals who should know better screw these things up regularly. Its easy to do. Rational analysis is not easy and worse, its not infallible. Its a tool, like any other.

I would personally be very pleased if homeopathy could be proved. Or indeed any of the other reality altering claims out there. I would really like to meet aliens (well, maybe not Kzinti or puppeteers). I would really like psychic powers to be proven, or life after death, or so many other things. The world would be a much more interesting place.

Not everything is covered by science. However within science there is a demarcation, though sometimes a little vague, and potentially fallible, as to what has robust scientific evidence and what does not.
 

PeterPositive

Senior Member
Messages
1,426
Placebos can produce subjective improvements. Yet when you use objective measures no such improvement is found. This was the case with asthma patients.
Yes, it was the case with asthma patients.
But not the case with Parkinson's disease patients:
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=210854

Or in placebo modulate endogenous opioid activity:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16120776

I don't think we can claim we really know how the placebo works at this point. There are too few studies done on the placebo itself, besides the usual clinical trials against an active molecule.
 

brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,266
Location
UK
Moshe Frenkel, MD, and colleagues at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, treated two different human mammary cancer cell lines with homeopathic preparations of Carcinosin (an ultra-dilute preparation of cancerous tissue), Phytolacca (poke weed), Conium (Poison hemlock) and Thuja (a cedar-like evergreen). Outside the US, these remedies are used for cancer care, often in conjunction with conventional treatment.

All four remedies—diluted well beyond the point where one would expect a biochemical effect—none the less showed pronounced cytotoxic effects, arresting cell growth, inducing apoptosis, and altering expression of genes that regulate cell cycles. There were no such effects when the remedies were applied to non-neoplastic breast epithelial cell lines. Carcinosin and Phytolacca had the strongest cytotoxic effects (Frenkel M, et al. Int J Oncol. 2010;36(2):395-403).
http://holisticprimarycare.net/topi...ll-study-casts-a-new-light-on-homeopathy.html
 

PeterPositive

Senior Member
Messages
1,426
Always. You really need to understand a lot more than that though. This is a complex area in analysis that after several decades I am still working on it.

Single source confirmation is always dangerous. However multiple sources may not be any better. It depends on the sources, and on the analysis you bring to them.

Professionals who should know better screw these things up regularly. Its easy to do. Rational analysis is not easy and worse, its not infallible. Its a tool, like any other.

I would personally be very pleased if homeopathy could be proved. Or indeed any of the other reality altering claims out there. I would really like to meet aliens (well, maybe not Kzinti or puppeteers). I would really like psychic powers to be proven, or life after death, or so many other things. The world would be a much more interesting place.

Not everything is covered by science. However within science there is a demarcation, though sometimes a little vague, and potentially fallible, as to what has robust scientific evidence and what does not.
Good point Alex.
In this case in my referring more to a personal research than a rational analysis for the scientific purposes.

Additionally there is also a matter of context. In a non life threatening situation I might decide that, even in light of controversial evidence, I want to try some homeopathic remedies that may have a chance to relieve a certain health condition.

In a completely different scenario wasting time on dubious or non significant evidence may only increase the risk of serious complications or worse.

cheers
 
Messages
38
Germans are exactly as naive about medicine and drugs as every other nationality. And Germans don't emphasise on natural remedies wherever possible.
The market for natural remedies is a lot bigger in Germany than in many other European countries. You won't believe how many well-educated Germans working in science actually pay a lot of money for homeopathic pills, Bach flower remedies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach_flower_remedies) and similar stuff.

Saying that a placebo effect can't provoke a real, measurable improvement is a bit like saying that a nocebo effect can't provoke real, measurable deterioration - isn't it? I don't have any high-standard scientific link, but what about that study where patients who thought they were receiving chemotherapy treatment (but only got placebo!) suffered from hair loss?
 

GracieJ

Senior Member
Messages
772
Location
Utah
The studies on homeopathy are most likely flawed in that they are looking at it as a chemical compound. Until there is a reliable way to measure picowatts, they will always fail. Also, they seem to be applying it to subjects as a chemically based therapy. It is energy medicine. I know many of you find that quackery. Keep an open mind. Energy medicine just may well be next century's medicine of choice. Take a look at all the exciting "new" electrical devices on the market. Take a look at portable chi machines.

@alex3619 It is not pseudoscience. It just hasn't been well illustrated yet.

Fill a room with toasters. Put bread slices in each, push the slider down, wait. Yep. We have proof. None of these toasters work. Toasters are quackery. So it would look if you did not know that toasters need electricity.

I do not get into much of this on this forum because people in general do not believe in energy medicine. It is totally ironic to me that we are fighting for recognition of a disease, but can offhandedly declare something else to not be valid. The earth is not flat. Declaring it is and laughing at others describing the curve in the horizon ideally should be passé.

Homeopathy is one of those descriptions. It has to be used in accordance with its particular properties, like anything else. It works on babies and animals, but few here are really hearing that. Apply it correctly, you see reduction in symptoms.
 
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GracieJ

Senior Member
Messages
772
Location
Utah
There is also a huge double standard going on between allopathic medicine and natural medicine that is ludicrous.

If a natural remedy does not totally cure a person of a malady, it is declared to not be working.

If a prescription drug does not totally cure a person, one is admonished to stay on it for life, put up with the side effects, and imagine really hard that it is helping.

That pretty much sums up my experience with prescription meds, and believe me, I used enough of those over several years. If you want to go after what doesn't work, please start there.

@JPV, we should ban drugs if we know they do not work at all.
 
Messages
38
That pretty much sums up my experience with prescription meds, and believe me, I used enough of those over several years. If you want to go after what doesn't work, please start there.
Personal experience is not a very scientific approach. Just because I don't respond to *insertyourfavouritemedicinehere* that doesn't mean that it's not effective. That's why we need large RTCs.
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Yes, it was the case with asthma patients.
But not the case with Parkinson's disease patients:
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=210854

Or in placebo modulate endogenous opioid activity:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16120776

I don't think we can claim we really know how the placebo works at this point. There are too few studies done on the placebo itself, besides the usual clinical trials against an active molecule.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to show other than Parkinson patients reacting like every normal person to what they believe is a helpful treatment they're glad to receive.

Maybe it shows more. I'm no expert. It seems far from the original claim of placebos being able to cure patients.
 

Snow Leopard

Hibernating
Messages
5,902
Location
South Australia
I tried it when I was young. I used to believe it worked. Except that it didn't. :(

One thing that I'd like to point out though, if you don't 'believe' in the efficacy of homeopathy, then you also believe that placebos are worthless.
 

DanME

Senior Member
Messages
289
The market for natural remedies is a lot bigger in Germany than in many other European countries. You won't believe how many well-educated Germans working in science actually pay a lot of money for homeopathic pills, Bach flower remedies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach_flower_remedies) and similar stuff.

Saying that a placebo effect can't provoke a real, measurable improvement is a bit like saying that a nocebo effect can't provoke real, measurable deterioration - isn't it? I don't have any high-standard scientific link, but what about that study where patients who thought they were receiving chemotherapy treatment (but only got placebo!) suffered from hair loss?

I do believe that in a heartbeat, but I would be careful about any generalisations. Especially about health issues. I don't think, we are that different. Homeopathy is big in many other countries as well. Like in the UK, France, and India. And the majority of doctors definetly doesn't believe in most natural remedies. If you talk to pharmacist, most of them are absolutely aware of the quackery, they sometimes offer. Of course they do, they studied chemistry and biology extensively and have a scientific background. But they sell it anyways. They get the money and the customers feel satisfied. Win Win isn't it? Despite, that a lot of health issues aren't properly dealt with placebo natural remedy treatment.

I didn't say the Placebo or Nocebo effect isn't real. It maybe is. But I am still sceptical. As Alex pointet out wonderfully, the test against placebo includes spontaneous remission, regression to the mean, the subjective feeling of beeing better (despite of not being better objectively) and maybe, just maybe a form of "mind healing". But we a very far from having any substantial evidence for that. E.g. large studies came to the conclusion, that a positive attitude doesn't create a better outcome in survival rates of cancer patients in comparism to a negative attitude. No "mind healing" has been found in this case.
 

jimells

Senior Member
Messages
2,009
Location
northern Maine
Do keep in mind this has the same limitations as the study this thread is about. Do not expect the mainstream thinking will ever embrace homeopathy while the science is so poor.

There was a story on this on CBC Radio. A conventional pharmacology professor wants to run a robust, well-designed clinical trial of homeopathy (I can't remember what she wants to treat!). She was immediately attacked by another researcher for wanting to spend money on something we "know" doesn't work. That doesn't seem very scientific to me. So maybe there's not much good research because it is just not allowed.

Where have I seen this story before? ME, perhaps?
 

PeterPositive

Senior Member
Messages
1,426
I'm not sure what this is supposed to show other than Parkinson patients reacting like every normal person to what they believe is a helpful treatment they're glad to receive.

Maybe it shows more. I'm no expert. It seems far from the original claim of placebos being able to cure patients.
I don't think this is correct. Placebos are not supposed to cure patients more than drugs are supposed to cure illnesses. Levodopa doesn't cure Parkinson's either.

The study (and there's more than one on that subject) shows that placebo is not all about reporting bias and subjective perceptions. There is an actual physiological response.
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
There are several reasons homeopthy might seem to work for animals.

Pavlov discovered the phenomenon of ‘conditioning’ in animals, and ‘conditioning’ is considered to be a major part of the placebo-response. So, depending on the circumstances, animals do respond to placebo (my dog, for instance, used to go into a distinct depressive mood when he saw me packing a suitcase).

Then there is the fact that the animal’s response might be less important than the owner’s reaction to homeopathic treatment. This is particularly important with pets, of course. Homeopathy-believing pet owners might over-interpret the pet’s response and report that the homeopathic remedy has worked wonders when, in fact, it has made no difference.

More at:

http://edzardernst.com/2014/01/homeopathy-does-it-really-work-in-animals/

Edzard Ernst (born 30 January 1948) is an academic physician and researcher specializing in the study of complementary and alternative medicine. He was formerly Professor of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter, the first such academic position in the world.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edzard_Ernst
 
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Sherlock

Boswellia for lungs and MC stabllizing
Messages
1,287
Location
k8518704 USA
This has been an interesting thread, from both sides. I want to include a famous story, which is said to be true, or maybe it's not. The story fits both sides - or neither.


The story goes that a visitor to the country home of famed Nobel-Prize-winning physicist Neils Bohr immediately noticed a good luck horseshoe that was nailed above the front door. "Surely a man of science such as yourself", the visitor said, "doesn't believe in such superstition?"

"Of course not," said Bohr, "but I've heard that it works whether you believe in it or not!"
 
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