Study says homeopathic medicines don’t work!

[Tiffany]

What is your response to the article below?

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Study says homeopathic medicines don’t work
Evidence suggests remedies offer placebo effect, but no real benefits

Reuters
Updated: 12:14 p.m. ET Aug. 26, 2005

LONDON - The world may be beating a path to the doors of homeopathic practitioners as an alternative to conventional medicines, but according to a new study they may just as well be taking nothing.

The study, published in Friday’s edition of the respected Lancet medical journal, is likely to anger the growing numbers of devoted practitioners of and adherents to alternative therapies that include homeopathy.

“There was weak evidence for a specific effect of homeopathic remedies, but strong evidence for specific effects of conventional interventions,” the study concluded.

“This finding is compatible with the notion that the clinical effects of homeopathy are placebo effects,” it added after examining findings from 110 homeopathy trials and an equal number of conventional medical trials.

In an editorial, the Lancet urged doctors to tell their patients they were wasting their time taking homeopathic medicines -- but also to make more time to connect with the patients rather than just prescribing and forgetting.

“Now doctors need to be bold and honest with their patients about homeopathy’s lack of benefits, and with themselves about the failings of modern medicine to address patients’ needs for personalized care,” the journal said.

Entitled “The end of homeopathy”, the editorial queried how homeopathy was growing in popularity by leaps and bounds when for the past 150 years trials had found it ineffective.

“It is the attitudes of patients and providers that engender alternative-therapy seeking behaviors which create a greater threat to conventional care -- and patients’ welfare -- than do spurious arguments of putative benefits from absurd dilutions,” it said.


Booming sales
Practitioners of homeopathic medicine, invented in the late 1700s by German physician Samuel Hahnemann, believe that the weaker the solution, the more effective the medicine.

In Britain alone, sales of homeopathic medicines have grown by a third in the past five years to 32 million pounds in 2004.

The study’s lead author and statistical analyst Matthias Egger of Switzerland’s University of Berne, said once data from small, less rigorous trials was extracted and evident bias in both taken into account, the conclusions were inescapable.

“We acknowledge that to prove a negative is impossible, but we have shown that the effects seen in placebo-controlled trials of homeopathy are compatible with the placebo-hypothesis,” he wrote.

But the British Homeopathic Association (BHA), which says it has 1,000 doctors on its books, strongly disagreed.

“The report should be treated with extreme caution. It is being heavily spun,” Peter Fisher, clinical director at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, said on behalf of the BHA.

“For a prestigious medical journal it is a strange bit of reporting. It is a small sample and they don’t even tell you what they are basing this on. Yet they come to these very sweeping conclusions and write this very strongly worded editorial,” he told Reuters.

“Homeopathy has been suffering these types of attacks for 200 years but it goes from strength to strength because people want it and many studies prove it works.”

Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
© 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9078909/

[raspberrymoondoula]

homeopathic teething tablets and arnica are life savers, are they kidding?

[Tiffany]

I've been giving Olivia teething tablets and there are liquid capsules too, I'm not sure they work, but I would like to think they do. It seems to me that she becomes calmer and stuff, so my verdict for that is they work well enough for me to keep using them.

[Matrescence]

I've used homeopathy for 2 years and have had good results.... how would children be able to fake it working?

[raspberrymoondoula]

i cant imagine a toddler with molars coming in would fake it lol

[Babies_Bellies_Boobies]

i had a client who was an ob. she had mastitis. it didnt respond to antibiotics. she was ready to wean. i talked her into trying phytolacca and hepar sulfur. she was better the next day- no sore breast, no hard spot, no fever, no flulike symptoms.

the people who did this study can kiss my tush. :

[raspberrymoondoula]

yup i used homeopathics and herbal echinacea tincture to cure my mastitis, worked like a charm and didnt need antibiotics.

[DL]

I guess you could say that I'm somewhere in the middle on this topic:

Homeopathics sometimes work very well in my experience; sometimes they don't seem to do anything at all. Just like other meds.... For me, I can't say "always works" or "never works". I DO think they're worth trying. It is great when they work so we don't have to try the other "stuff"!

Just my

[Matrescence]

Something I was thinking about earlier... I wonder if people were careful about not antidoting the homeopathics? It's so easy to do... coffee, mint, strong smells, drinking or eating soon before or after a remedy is taken... I'd bet that's why some get ineffective results

[Tiffany]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MamaBellies Something I was thinking about earlier... I wonder if people were careful about not antidoting the homeopathics? It's so easy to do... coffee, mint, strong smells, drinking or eating soon before or after a remedy is taken... I'd bet that's why some get ineffective results

I think you may be right on!

[Need2read]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doula_Lori I guess you could say that I'm somewhere in the middle on this topic: Homeopathics sometimes work very well in my experience; sometimes they don't seem to do anything at all. Just like other meds.... For me, I can't say "always works" or "never works". I DO think they're worth trying. It is great when they work so we don't have to try the other "stuff"! Just my

The human body is amazing, and everyone's body is different. That being evident, it should be obvious that homeopathics can work, just as the other meds can sometimes work. People are different therefor thngs work out differently for everyone. But, I do believe homeopathics are always worth a try because there isn't really much to lose in tryin'.

and that, is just my

[newbirth]

I have had enough experience with homeopathics to KNOW they work, but the proper conditions must be met, like no antidoting as stated above, and also making sure you have the right match with your remedy.

And, as a good doctor friend of mine (microbiologist, knows his stuff) said, "the placebo effect is a strong effect" and shouldn't be discounted or minimized. Perhaps what we think of as "placebo effect" is one way these things work. The medicines in themselves are not potent enough to do anything, but they prod our own immune system and physiology to take the necessary steps to heal ourselves.

Plus, they're a lifesaver for pregnancy. I've thought about becoming a homeopathic practioner in the future. It may be my next life, though.

I'd like to see the actual studies and how they tried to test homeopathy.

[earthgirl]

ARNICA HAS BEEN WONDERFUL! IT SEEMS TO WORK INSTANTLY. I'M LUCKY TO HAVE A HOMEOPATHIC PEDIATRICIAN (I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW HE WAS UNTIL I INTERVIEWED HIM), OTHERWISE I PROBABLY WOULD HAVE BEEN GIVING MY KIDS TYLENOL FOR FEVER, INSTEAD OF LETTING THEIR OWN IMMUNE SYSTEMS FIGHT IT OFF OR USE BELLADONNA.
COME TO THINK OF IT, EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE SEEMS SERENDIPITOUS! OR MAYBE I'M JUST LUCKY. LOL!

[Luv2bemommy]

I didnt vote because I think it works for some.. For me it didnt when we were TTC.. I used dong quai, vitex and several others to regulate my cycles and to help ovuate and it didnt work.

[erad76]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luv2bemommy I didnt vote because I think it works for some.. For me it didnt when we were TTC.. I used dong quai, vitex and several others to regulate my cycles and to help ovuate and it didnt work.

This is slightly off topic, biut have you done anything with light to help your cycle?