Homeopathy "not good for anything" report says

[deleder2k]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_effectiveness_of_homeopathy

I think this sums it up good!

 

[alex3619]

Don't forget that vaccination is the same principle as homeopathy.

They are not comparable at all.

 

[JPV]

I am not saying that placebo does not work. I am saying that the meds they give you does not.

This seems like a complete contradiction to me. A placebo IS, for all practical purposes, a medicine that doesn't work. It has no active ingredients. If placebos are indeed effective, it is because of some method that is not completely understood yet by science.

 

[alex3619]

How Placebos Change the Patient's Brain (US National Library of Medicine)

First, as the placebo effect is basically a psychosocial context effect, these data indicate that different social stimuli, such as words and rituals of the therapeutic act, may change the chemistry and circuitry of the patient's brain. Second, the mechanisms that are activated by placebos are the same as those activated by drugs, which suggests a cognitive/affective interference with drug action. Third, if prefrontal functioning is impaired, placebo responses are reduced or totally lacking, as occurs in dementia of the Alzheimer's type.

This paper is extremely weak. Its an hypothesis. Its not been tested. The claims made are based on suggestive evidence. Let me make a counter point though in a new post.

 

[deleder2k]

This seems like a complete contradiction to me. A placebo IS, for all practical purposes, a medicine that doesn't work. It has no active ingredients. If placebos are indeed effective, it is because of some method that is not completely understood yet by science.

Well, I do not think many would agree on that.

A study with a medical drug and the first group who is given medicine sees a 70% improvement, and the other group who gets a sugar pill sees a 30% improvement. Why do you think the placebo group got better? Because of some method that is not completely understood yet by science? Lol

 

[JPV]

A study with a medical drug and the first group who is given medicine sees a 70% improvement, and the other group who gets a sugar pill sees a 30% improvement. Why do you think the placebo group got better? Because of some method that is not completely understood yet by science? Lol

I have no explanation. But studies seem to indicate that people do get therapeutic benefit from placebos. You just admitted so yourself in the example that you gave.

So, how would you explain why they got better?

 

[A.B.]

Anyone taking part in a discussion about placebos needs to be aware that there is very little evidence that placebos can produce a mysterious healing effect, even if this is commonly believed. The person who originally wrote on this topic attributed any improvement in patients taking placebos to the placebo itself, not considering alternative explanations such as natural recovery.

If a trial of an antidepressant finds that 40% of patients responded to a placebo, it's not evidence for a mind body healing effect. There are many other reasons for an apparent improvement in health, and the placebo control group is meant to capture the sum of these effects so that we know how large they are. If you do not understand this, you risk misunderstanding every single clinical trial.

And several large reviews failed to find any evidence for the substantial clinical effects that are commonly attributed to placebos.

A good article that explains these things much better than I can is here:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-are-you-there/

I think the idea of the curative placebo is a medical myth that came to be due to poor science and uncritical acceptance of certain claims.

 

[alex3619]

The arguments against the methodology used in the report in this thread do, in some cases, have validity. One of the huge problems that occurs in Evidence Based Medicine is that methodologically its not science, its administrative decision making.

Doctors, administrators, government ministers do need to make decisions. The evidence is not strong enough to support homeopathy as a therapy. However the same methodology cannot prove that homeopathy is invalid.

What can be said though is that the principles of homeopathy are not scientific. That is indisputable. Its not science. Claiming it as science is a claim to pseudoscience. Is everyone aware that its based on the two magical principles of similarity and contagion?

However this does not mean that at some point in the future something will be discovered that changes this. It also does not mean that we can be sure that no treatments work. Some might indeed work if they are not diluted too much and have active ingredients, but this also allows the interpretation that its fraudulent. If they had more active ingredients, up to a safe dose limit, would it work better? Do they ever test this?

So the worst case scenario is that homeopathy is wrong. The best case scenario is that some treatments used in homeopathy, which may or may not conform to homeopathic principles, have some effect. In which case I suspect they are not homeopathic at all.

Homeopathy is an extraordinary claim scientifically. It does not conform to any known scientific principles. Its magical thinking. The evidence for it is suggestive at best. I have yet to read a paper that I consider robust. Yet I have not read that many papers on this, so cannot claim such a paper does not exist.

For another EBM review, see:
http://www.cochrane.org/CD003974/COMMUN_placebo-interventions-for-all-clinical-conditions

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.

In part this is similar to the problem that occurs in ME. We have had very little research. All the breakthroughs in the past few years have been substantially ignored by mainstream thinking. That all changes with biomarkers and large effect sizes.

Homeopathy lacks biomarkers for any known mechanism. Effect sizes in every study I looked at are small. While it can reasonably be argued that rejecting a hypothesis on the basis that it does not have a robust large scale repeatable result from dbpcRCTS is not valid, its a different case with arguing that suggestive evidence proves its right.

Even with large scale RCTs many drugs are eventually shown to be ineffective or dangerous. RCTs are not foolproof either. They are just better than the alternatives.

Until there is a demonstrated, reproducible, independently validated mechanism, OR until there is very clear objective results from large scale RCTs, I will continue to regard homeopathy as unscientific. So far I have seen nothing on this that has even close enough to sufficient evidence to change my mind.

Now, there is a separate question here. Should patients have the right to such treatments. That is an entirely different question as to whether or not there is a scientific basis to homeopathy.

 

[Gijs]

They are not comparable at all.

O yes it is: http://www.homstudy.net/Research/

 

[PeterPositive]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_effectiveness_of_homeopathy

I think this sums it up good!

Argh!
Rational Wiki is a politically-driven, uber-biased resource that sells scientism instead of science

They cherry pick the information that fits their agenda and leave everything else. Notice how positive studies, according their website, are riddled with methodological issues, while we should assume on faith that those they cited to support their conclusions are perfectly sound.

The most sad part is that RW is infamous for continuos character assassination, derision and ridiculing of anything anyone that falls outside their dogmatic propaganda.

Their material should be scrutinized with the same amount of critical thinking that they allegedly profess to disseminate.

 

[lansbergen]

O yes it is: http://www.homstudy.net/Research/

Och boy.

 

[deleder2k]

I have no explanation. But studies seem to indicate that people do get therapeutic benefit from placebos. You just admitted so yourself in the example that you gave.

So, how would you explain why they got better?

Because they believe they are getting better. They think they are getting better. I am not saying that placebo doesn't work.

 

[alex3619]

So, how would you explain why they got better?

In all cases? You would have to do a deep analysis. One of the huge problems I have with placebo controlled trials is that you also need a natural control group. That is, a group with no treatment at all. How do you know 30% will not get better in the natural course of illness? Until you know what the natural improvement and recovery rate is you have no basis for comparison.

Another problem is this. Placebos can produce subjective improvements. Yet when you use objective measures no such improvement is found. This was the case with asthma patients. I would argue its the same with CBT/GET for ME. Subjective improvement, on a minority of patients, with small effect sizes, and no substantive objective improvement.

Are there any studies that show homeopathy might work for heart attacks, HIV AIDS, severe stroke, late stage renal and heart failure, stage four cancer, and so on? Most modern medications fail at these. If homeopathy can ever get robust evidence for curing any of these kinds of things then it would be a game change.

 

[PeterPositive]

So the worst case scenario is that homeopathy is wrong. The best case scenario is that some treatments used in homeopathy, which may or many not conform to homeopathic principles, have some effect. In which case I suspect they are not homeopathic at all.

You make some good points.
I still don't understand while most people fail to understand that there is a large portion of homeopathic products that contain active substances. I guess this is due to some "evidence-based" propagandists.

But you maybe right, the homeopathic effect might be much more simple that what it is purported to be.

As regards the extraordinary scientific claims of homeopathy there is good evidence that water has indeed some form of "memory", with ultra high diluted substances.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2822343/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16813507
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437103000475

The work of Luc Montagnier could also shed more light on this too:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/DNA_sequence_reconstituted_from_Water_Memory.php

 

[Gijs]

O yes it is: http://www.homstudy.net/Research/

Are you not yhe same women who believed in XMRV and the Meirlier.... o my dear.... you don''t get the point, do you.

 

[JPV]

Because they believe they are getting better. They think they are getting better. I am not saying that placebo doesn't work.

Again, this seems like a contradiction to me. I'm really baffled as to what distinction you're trying to make.

You're saying that it's a forgone conclusion that homeopathic remedies don't work. If they don't work, according to traditional science, and people still obtain relief from them, then it might be through some sort of placebo effect.

Maybe it's a semantic problem.

 

[alex3619]

O yes it is: http://www.homstudy.net/Research/

The study cited appears to be an unpublished claim, as in published in reputable peer reviewed journal. Where is it published? What reviews did it go through? Who was the person doing the study?

It appears to be this study: http://www.homstudy.net/Research/Isaac-Golden-Research.pdf

We also have these books he has written: http://www.homstudy.net/publications/

I am not convinced that this claim has withstood the kind of scrutiny it would require to be considered scientific.

Are there any other studies?

There are definitely risks with vaccination, but also benefits. I find both extremes of argument, the all good and the all bad camps, have a problem coming to grips with the evidence.

 

[eafw]

But studies seem to indicate that people do get therapeutic benefit from placebos.

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.

vaccination is the same principle as homeopathy.

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.

 

[alex3619]

Their material should be scrutinized with the same amount of critical thinking that they allegedly profess to disseminate.

As should all evidence, regardless of source. Which of course leads to the rationalists dilemma I have written about elsewhere: who has the time?

 

[DanME]

If homepoathy is quackery, then vets who use it extensively, would not be able to continue. It is used extensively also in Germany, and believe me, Germans are not easily hoodwinked when it comes to health matters. They are way ahead of most other countries in this and the emphasis is on natural remedies wherever possible.

As a fellow German, I have to say, your statement is absolutely not true. Germans are exactly as naive about medicine and drugs as every other nationality. And Germans don't emphasise on natural remedies wherever possible. Homeopathy is quackery, it was proven over and over again with all sizes of studies and all possible methods. And by the way it doesn't even make sense as a theoretical concept. The fact, that some doctors and vets use it, doesn't mean anything and doesn't prove, it's worth it. This can only be clarified in a scientific context. Anectodal evidence is worthless in this case. The bettering could be caused by the regression to the mean, spontaneous remission, the placebo effect, the feeling of being cared of or people just tell themselves it helped, because they want desperately to believe in it.