homeopathy DOESN'T WORK

[bite_me]

If anyone has studies showing a proven improvement in health after homeopathy in humans or animals please provide them. Perhaps my tone is too agressive but this comes down to cases such as the one I mentioned.

[Draugr]

Holistic and homeopathic are not synonymous, by the way.

I think some of the confusion might be stemming from that.

[jocoyn]

Your user name implies that perhaps you have joined for the sake of argument and confontation?

I remain to be open minded, having seen some strange, wonderful and unexplained results from a homeopathic course. I am probably going to take an allopathic course on something acute and life threatenting but will try homeopathy for other things where giving it a chance is not going to endanger health or life.

[JakodaCD OA]

I am also quite open minded when it comes to results of homeopathic remedies.

while I am not into the 'studies', I guess unless you've never experienced results, well you wouldn't be so open minded to them.

There's alot of alternative treatment stuff going on out there, and what works for one may not work for another.

I suppose you think Chinese Medicine doesn't work either?

[annie]

Well if it did not work, why is it being practiced all over the world?

[arycrest]

Originally Posted by Draugr

Holistic and homeopathic are not synonymous, by the way.

I think some of the confusion might be stemming from that.

Could you please explain the difference for me ... I always use the two terms interchangeably and have really never known what the difference is.

[Draugr]

Originally Posted by arycrest

Could you please explain the difference for me ... I always use the two terms interchangeably and have really never known what the difference is.

Sure! And don't feel bad because I used to do the exact same thing. I'll make a quick note of another term here too which I also used to use interchangeably. There is some overlap between the three things I mention but they are still distinct.

And a word of warning, homeopathy is something I feel strong enough about that I can't really phrase it neutrally and feel honest about myself. This board doesn't have spoiler tabs so I guess I'll just visually separate it from the rest.

Natural medicine is fairly broad, but generally you're looking at anything which uses natural forms of treatment (yes, bad me, I used the word in the definition! If Webster can do it so can I! :P). A purely natural form of treatment philosophy would eschew chemical compounds for treatments in favor of substances in a more elemental form. For instance, you'd be more likely to be prescribed medicinal marijuana rather than Codiene.

Holistic, as it relates to health, refers to a philosophy of medicinal practice which considers the entire body (holos - Greek for "whole") for purposes of treatment, or at least recognizes that you can't always reduce an ailment down to a single isolated area of a single body system. In this sense, modern western medicine is "holistic" in some regards, though not to the same degree as other treatment methodologies. In modern medicine, for example, we realize that an upset in the endocrine system can radiate outwards and affect other bodily symptoms, such as the immune system. We don't consider body systems to be isolated, and we'll even treat according to that. In dogs, for instance, problems related to prostate enlargement are often treated by castration - we're using the endocrine system to affect something in the urogenital system.

It's hard to put in words, I guess, but you could consider "holistic" to be "whole body" medicine. That can mean a lot of things. Eastern medicine is more "traditionally" holistic, I guess (and things like acupuncture are what people more commonly think of when they hear holistic), but I'd even consider modern medicine holistic on a literal interpretation of the words.

~~~Semi-Rant stuff Follows~~~

Homeopathic refers to treatments related to an...and here, I guess I'll show my own bias, because frankly, I guess I'm of strong enough opinion about it that I can't phrase it neutrally.

But, to move on - treatments related to an outdated and disproven system of medicine based on an also outdated and disproven theory of disease transmission. It was developed by a German in the...I think, early 1800s? Maybe really late 1700s? At the time, bloodletting was the commonly accepted treatment for most ailments - something so harmful doing nothing at all would give you better results.

The tenets of homeopathy claim things which frankly fly in the face of proven laws in hard, evidence-based sciences. Although the OP phrased it in an extremely combative manner, he is right - studies have shown no different success rates with homeopathic treatment than what placebos offer. Placebos have a remarkably high success rate in pain treatment (what homeopaths often are consulted to treat). There have been multiple reviews and scientific trials which fail to show any efficacy whatsoever, and to be honest, I'm not sure why you need them - for homeopathy to work, as written by its founder, you'd have to throw away the foundations of at least mathematics, biology, physics, and I'm sure several other hard sciences.

The way to know if you're being treated by a homeopathic practitioner, rather than a holistic practitioner - is if you're getting "tinctures" - which are basically a "remedy" that has been diluted so far down that no molecules of the substance originally intended to treat remains. It's literally just a vial of water. A holistic practitioner (in practice, rather than theory, since natural is not synonymous with holistic) is more likely to give you natural remedies for ailments.

Originally Posted by annie

Well if it did not work, why is it being practiced all over the world?

Annie, that's not necessarily proof of anything. As I mentioned above, bloodletting used to be a very commonly accepted medicinal practice, as was trepanning (drilling holes into the skull). We now know these are extremely harmful and more likely to kill you than not, but at the time, they were practiced over much of the world. To determine whether something "works," you want rigorous, well-developed trials proving that they either do or don't. The simple fact that people do something, no matter how many, is not proof or disproof of anything. To phrase it in a manner your mother probably often told you - if all your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you?

In large enough numbers it probably indicates that maybe it's at least something to take a look at, but it's hardly proof/disproof.

~

Look, in the end, what I will say is this - some people are a lot more willing to take things on faith. I'm a fairly rigorous guy. I need hard, scientific evidence. Definitive proof that would hold up under a court of law. I can't look at the foundational tenets of homeopathy and take them seriously, as they fly in the face of everything we've known about the world around us for centuries (yes, some of it even predating the development of homeopathy). Some people will say, "I've seen it work, with my own eyes," and while I know how I'd explain that, some people will not be dissuaded and I guess that is their prerogative. Homeopathy requires a lot of faith, to put it nicely. I'm reasonably open minded, in that some cases I'm willing to accept the potential or possibility of things (as distinct from believing in it) based on little proof, but I just honestly cannot see any room for homeopathy in the modern world.

[Draugr]

Ran out of edit time, I wanted to change the last bit:

Look, in the end, what I will say is this - some people are a lot more willing to take things on faith. I'm a fairly rigorous guy. I need hard, scientific evidence. Definitive proof that would hold up under a court of law. I can't look at the foundational tenets of homeopathy and take them seriously, as they fly in the face of everything we've known about the world around us for centuries (yes, some of it even predating the development of homeopathy). Some people will say, "I've seen it work, with my own eyes," and while I know how I'd explain that, some people will not be dissuaded and I guess that is their prerogative. Homeopathy requires a lot of faith, to put it nicely. I'm reasonably open minded, in that some cases I'm willing to accept the potential or possibility of things (as distinct from believing in it) based on little proof, but I just honestly cannot see any room for homeopathy in the modern world. Holistic or natural practices? Absolutely! 100%! I think those two have a lot to offer us, and is also where a lot of strides are being made in modern medicine.

A lot of people see things differently, though. All I say to that, is, if you're someone who takes stock in homeopathy...just be careful, please. And don't take your pet to a homeopathic veterinarian which excludes modern or even other alternative forms of medicine. Get someone who will take things from all systems of medicine, at the very least.

[jocoyn]

Well, I have a graduate degree in chemistry and went to a seminar where an improved response was seen at an incredibly low dilution of a drug. I asked about it and was told "probably an artifact"......One problem with science is we often see what we want to see, going into it with our own mental filters. I often wondered about that study and others and quantum states of energy etc.

After all, if you get down far enough, you realize all matter is......energy......

We are the consummate generalizers. Doors of Perception and all that 60s stuff (not advocating drugs but the concept of the doors we put up to block our overwhelmed senses is intersting)

FWIW, Leeches are now a widely accepted medical tool as are maggots
Treplaning - well we know that pressure on the brain kills brain cells. Primitive technique but they were doing it for the right reasons.

[crackem]

I have no experience with homeopathy at all, never took a remedy, never even seen on. Heard of a few though.

I wouldn't discount something just because "science" let alone "western medicine" can't explain or find a reason why.

We used to think atoms were the smallest particle around, it's why it's called the "atom" it's from a greek or latin word atomus which meant indivisible. Science was sure we found the smallest thing something could be made of, so they called it the atom. Then we had contributions from Bohr, Pauli, Born..... then Chadwick and recent ones like Leon Lederman and his search for the "god particle" have all been able to further define and break down and "divide" the "indivisible" atom.

I highly doubt much is in the way to prove or disprove homeopathy. "science" doesn't care at this point, maybe there is nothing to detect, maybe they don't know what they're looking for, maybe they can't detect what is there with the science we have available.

and western med type people find it easy to say, there's nothing there but water, and dismiss it that way. Those that do use it, don't care, because it works for them and don't really care if you believe it or not. I doubt there is much need or push for "research" in this area. I wouldn't look to hard for breaking research.