Friday, December 24, 2010
Randomised controlled trials
• By the end of 2009, 142 RCTs comparing homeopathy with placebo or conventional treatment had been published in peer-reviewed journals. In terms of statistically significant results, 74 of these trials were able to draw firm conclusions: 63 were positive for homeopathy and eleven were negative.1
• Three double blind clinical trials of diarrhoea in 242 children ages 6 months to 5 years were analyzed as one group.2 The results of this meta-analysis showed a highly significant result (P=0.008) confirming that individualised homeopathic treatment decreases the duration of acute childhood diarrhoea.This research was placebo-controlled, randomised, had a clear outcome measure, was repeated three times and the results subjected to meta-analysis. These conditions exclude the possibility that the results were due to placebo, bias or poor research design.
Homeopathy in practice
• A service evaluation at the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital recorded the outcome of homeopathic treatment in over 6,500 consecutive patients. In this study, carried out over a six-year period, 70% of patients reported an improvement in their health.3
The best clinical results were seen in the treatment of children with eczema and asthma, and adults with inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, menopausal problems and migraine. Other conditions which improved after homeopathic treatment included arthritis, depression and chronic fatigue syndrome.
• A German study involving 493 patients seen in general practice found that treatment by a homeopath gave better outcomes than conventional treatment for similar costs.4
This study was commissioned by a German health insurance company to see whether they should continue to cover homeopathic treatment. The outcomes and costs of homeopathic and conventional treatment were compared in patients being treated for chronic conditions including headache, low back pain, depression, insomnia and sinusitis in adults, and atopic dermatitis, allergic rhinitis and asthma in children.
In the laboratory
• 75% of in vitro experiments have found that substances as dilute as homeopathic medicines have specific effects.5 For example, homeopathically-prepared Thyroxine can slow down metamorphosis of tadpoles into frogs.6 These results were replicated by five separate laboratories in Austria and confirmed by the results of similar experiments carried out by an independent team in Brazil.7 The homeopathic thyroxine used was a 10-30 dilution i.e. a dilution at which you would no longer expect any molecules to be present.
• Experimental results from different independent laboratories have confirmed that there are physical differences between homeopathically prepared samples and control samples (such as plain water or other solvents). These differences have been measured using scientific techniques such as: calorimetry,8 spectroscopy,9,10 and thermoluminescence.11
• In 2009 Nobel prize winner Professor Luc Montagnier (known for co-discovering HIV) published the results of a series of rigorous experiments in which he found that samples of disease-causing bacteria and fragments of DNA prepared in a similar way to homeopathic medicines gave off specific electromagnetic signals at extremely high dilutions (e.g. dilution of 10-12 , equivalent to the homeopathic medicine strength ‘6c’).12
References
1. Mathie, R. The Research Evidence Base for Homeopathy. British Homeopathic Association,
2009.
www.britishhomeopathic.org/export/sites/bha_site/research/evidencesummarymay09.pdf
2. Jacobs J, Jonas WB, Jimenez-Perez M, Crothers D. Homeopathy for childhood diarrhea:
combined results and metaanalysis from three randomized, controlled clinical trials. Pediatr
Infect Dis J 2003; 22: 229–34
3. Spence D, Thompson E and Barron S. Homeopathic treatment for chronic disease: A 6-Year,
university-hospital outpatient observational study. J Altern Complement Med 2005; 5:793-8.
4. Witt C, Keil T, Selim D, et al. Outcome and costs of homeopathic and conventional treatment
strategies: a comparative cohort study in patients with chronic disorders. Complement Ther Med, 2005; 13: 79-86
5. Witt CM, Bluth M, Albrecht H, et al. The in vitro evidence for an effect of high homeopathic
potencies – a systematic review of the literature. Complement Ther Med, 2007; 15: 128–138
6. Endler PC, Heckmann C, Lauppert E, et al. The metamorphosis of amphibians and
information of thyroxine. In: Schulte J, Endler PC (eds). Fundamental Research in Ultra High
Dilution and Homoeopathy. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998
7. Guedes JR et al, Homeopathically prepared dilution of Rana catesbeiana thyroid glands
modifies its rate of metamorphosis. Homeopathy, 2004; 93(3): 132–7
8. Elia V, Niccoli, M. New physico-chemical properties of extremely diluted aqueous solutions. J
of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry, 2004; 75: 815-36
9. Rao ML, Roy R, Bell IR, Hoover R. The defining role of structure (including epitaxy) in the
plausibility of homeopathy. Homeopathy, 2007; 96: 175–182.
10. Roy R, Tiller WA, Bell IR, Hoover MR. The structure of liquid water; novel insights from
materials research; potential relevance to homeopathy. Materials Research Innovations, 2005; 94: 577–608
11. Rey L. Thermoluminescence of ultra-high dilutions of lithium chloride and sodium chloride. Physica A, 2003; 323: 67–74
12. Montagnier L et al. Electromagnetic signals are produced by aqueous nanostructures derived from bacterial DNA sequences. Interdiscip Sci Comput Life Sci, 2009; 1: 81-90
Further information
For more information about homeopathy research please visit the Society of Homeopaths website at www.homeopathy-soh.org/whats-new/research/default.aspx.
