It is commonly assumed that homeopathic medicines are composed of extremely small doses of medicinal substances. And yet, does anyone refer to an atomic bomb as an extremely small dose of a bomb? In actual fact, there is a power, a very real power, in having atoms smash against each other.
Homeopathic medicines are made through a specific pharmacological process of dilution and vigorous shaking. However, when skeptics say that there is nothing but water in homeopathic medicine, they are proving their ignorance, despite the incredible arrogance in which they make these assertions. Dr. Martin Chaplin, a respected British professor who is one of the world's experts on water, has verified that "homeopathic water" and "regular water" are not the same, and his review of almost 2,000 references to the scientific literature on water (!) confirm this fact (Chaplin, 2009).
It should be noted that a large number of homeopathic medicines sold in health food stores and pharmacies are made in doses with known physiological doses. In fact, there are several thousand (!) studies in conventional scientific journals showing a wide variety of biological effects from extremely small doses of various substances on specific systems.
Homeopathic medicines can and should be considered to be a type of "nanopharmacology" (Ullman, 2006). Although the word "nano" also means one-billionth of a size, that is not its only definition. In fact, "nano" derives from the word "dwarf," and "nano" is the only word in the English language that is used on common parlance as denoting extremely small AND yet extremely powerful. Homeopathic medicines are both extremely small in dose and yet extremely powerful in their therapeutic effect.
For 200 years now, millions of physicians and hundreds of millions of homeopathic patients have observed and experienced the power and effectiveness of homeopathic medicines
The Power of Nano-doses
Precisely how homeopathic medicines work remains a mystery, and yet, nature is replete with mysteries and with numerous striking examples of the power of extremely small doses.
For instance, it is commonly known that a certain species of moth can smell pheromones of its own species up to two miles away. It is no simple coincidence that species only sense pheromones from those in the same species who emit them (akin to the homeopathic principle of similars), as though they have developed exquisite and specific receptor sites for what they need to propagate their species. Likewise, sharks are known to sense blood in the water at distances, and when one considers the volume of water in the ocean, it becomes obvious that sharks, like all living creatures, develop extreme hypersensitivity for whatever will help ensure their survival.
That living organisms have some truly remarkable sensitivities is no controversy. The challenging question that remains is: How does the medicine become imprinted into the water and how does the homeopathic process of dilution with succussion increase the medicine's power? Although we do not know precisely the answer to this question, some new research may help point the way.
The newest and most intriguing way to explain how homeopathic medicines may work derives from some sophisticated modern technology. Scientists at several universities and hospitals in France and Belgium have discovered that the vigorous shaking of the water in glass bottles causes extremely small amounts of silica fragments or chips to fall into the water (Demangeat, et al., 2004). Perhaps these silica chips may help to store the information in the water, with each medicine that is initially placed in the water creating its own pharmacological effect. In any case, each medicinal substance will interact with the silica fragments in its own idiosyncratic way, thereby changing the nature and structure of water accordingly.
Further, the micro-bubbles and the nano-bubbles that are caused by the shaking may burst and thereby produce microenvironments of higher temperature and pressure. Several studies by chemists and physicists have revealed increased release of heat from water in which homeopathic medicines are prepared, even when the repeated process of dilutions should suggest that there are no molecules remaining of the original medicinal substance (Elia and Niccoli, 1999; Elia, et al., 2004; Rey, 2003).
Also, a group of highly respected scientists have confirmed that the vigorous shaking involved with making homeopathic medicines changes the pressure in the water, akin to water being at 10,000 feet in altitude (Roy, et al., 2005). These scientists have shown how the homeopathic process of using double-distilled water and then diluting and shaking the medicine in a sequential fashion changes the structure of water.
One metaphor that may help us understand how and why extremely small doses of medicinal agents may work derives from present knowledge of modern submarine radio communications. Normal radio waves simply do not penetrate water, so submarines must use an extremely low-frequency radio wave. The radio waves used by submarines to penetrate water are so low that a single wavelength is typically several miles long!
If one considers that the human body is 70-80 percent water, perhaps the best way to provide pharmacological information to the body and into intercellular fluids is with nanodoses. Like the extremely low-frequency radio waves, it may be necessary to use extremely low (and activated) doses for a person to receive the medicinal effect.
It is important to understand that nanopharmacological doses will not have any effect unless the person is hypersensitive to the specific medicinal substance. Hypersensitivity is created when there is some type of resonance between the medicine and the person. Because the system of homeopathy bases its selection of the medicine on its ability to cause in overdose the similar symptoms that the sick person is experiencing, homeopathy's principle of similars is simply a practical method of finding the substance to which a person is hypersensitive.
The homeopathic principle of similars makes further sense when one considers that modern physiologists and pathologists recognize that disease is not simply the result of breakdown or surrender of the body but that symptoms are instead representative of the body's efforts to fight infection or adapt to stress.
Using a nanodose that is able to penetrate deeply into the body and that is specifically chosen for its ability to mimic the symptoms helps to initiate a profound healing process. It is also important to highlight the fact that a homeopathic medicine is not simply chosen for its ability to cause a similar disease but for its ability to cause a similar syndrome of symptoms of disease, of which the specific localized disease is a part. By understanding that the human body is a complex organism that creates a wide variety of physical and psychological symptoms, homeopaths acknowledge biological complexity and have a system of treatment to address it effectively.
Although no one knows precisely how homeopathic medicines initiate the healing process, we have more than 200 years of evidence from hundreds of thousands of clinicians and tens of millions of patients that these medicines have powerful effects. One cannot help but anticipate the veritable treasure trove of knowledge that further research in homeopathy and nanopharmacology will bring.
Nobel Prize-winning Scientist on Homeopathy...
Brian Josephson, Ph.D., (1940-) is a British physicist who won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 for work he completed when he was only 22 years old. He is currently a professor at the University of Cambridge where he is the head of the mind-matter unification project in the Theory of Condensed Matter research group.
Responding to an article in the New Scientist (October 18, 1997) that expressed skepticism about homeopathy, Josephson wrote:
Regarding your comments on claims made for homeopathy: criticisms centered around the vanishingly small number of solute molecules present in a solution after it has been repeatedly diluted are beside the point, since advocates of homeopathic remedies attribute their effects not to molecules present in the water, but to modifications of the water's structure.Simple-minded analysis may suggest that water, being a fluid, cannot have a structure of the kind that such a picture would demand. But cases such as that of liquid crystals, which while flowing like an ordinary fluid can maintain an ordered structure over macroscopic distances, show the limitations of such ways of thinking. There have not, to the best of my knowledge, been any refutations of homeopathy that remain valid after this particular point is taken into account.
A related topic is the phenomenon, claimed by Jacques Benveniste's colleague Yolène Thomas and by others to be well established experimentally, known as "memory of water". If valid, this would be of greater significance than homeopathy itself, and it attests to the limited vision of the modern scientific community that, far from hastening to test such claims, the only response has been to dismiss them out of hand. (Josephson, 1997)
Later, when Josephson was interviewed by the New Scientist (December 9, 2006), he chose to emphasize that many scientists today suffer from "pathological disbelief"; that is, they maintain an unscientific attitude that is embodied by the statement "even if it were true I wouldn't believe it." Sadly, such scientists are simply showing evidence of an unscientific attitude.
Quantum Medicine
Quantum physics does not disprove Newtonian physics; quantum physics simply extends our understanding of extremely small and extremely large systems. Likewise, homeopathy does not disprove conventional pharmacology; instead, it extends our understanding of extremely small doses of medicinal agents. It is time that physicians and scientists began incorporating both Newtonian and quantum physics into a better understanding of what healing is and how to best augment it.
The founder of homeopathic medicine, Samuel Hahnemann, MD, rewrote and updated his seminal work on the subject five times in his lifetime, each time refining his observations. Homeopaths continue to refine this system of nanopharmacology. While there is not always agreement on the best ways to select the correct remedy or the best nanopharmacological dose to use, the system of homeopathic medicine provides a solid foundation from which clinicians and researchers exploring nanopharmacologies can and should explore.
Dana Ullman, MPH, is America's leading spokesperson for homeopathy and is the founder of www.homeopathic.com. He is the author of 10 books, including his bestseller, Everybody's Guide to Homeopathic Medicines. His most recent book is, The Homeopathic Revolution: Why Famous People and Cultural Heroes Choose Homeopathy. Dana lives, practices, and writes from Berkeley, California.
References:
Chaplin, Martin. 2009 (updated regularly) http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/index2.html
Demangeat, J.-L., Gries, P., Poitevin, B., Droesbeke J.-J., Zahaf, T., Maton, F., Pierart, C., and Muller, R. N. Low-Field NMR Water Proton Longitudinal Relaxation in Ultrahighly Diluted Aqueous Solutions of Silica-Lactose Prepared in Glass Material for Pharmaceutical Use, Applied Magnetic Resonance, 2004, 26:465-481.
Elia, V. and Niccoli, M. Thermodynamics of Extremely Diluted Aqueous Solutions, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1999, 879:241-248.
Elia, V., Baiano, S., Duro, I., Napoli, E., Niccoli, M., and Nonatelli, L. Permanent Physio-chemical Properties of Extremely Diluted Aqueous Solutions of Homeopathic Medicines, Homeopathy, 2004, 93:144-150.
Josephson, B. D., Letter, New Scientist, November 1, 1997.
Rey, L. Thermoluminescence of Ultra-High Dilutions of Lithium Chloride and Sodium Chloride. Physica A, 2003, 323:67-74.
Roy, R., Tiller, W. A., Bell, I., and Hoover, M. R. The Structure of Liquid Water: Novel Insights from Materials Research; Potential Relevance to Homeopathy, Materials Research Innovations, December 2005, 9(4):577-608..
Ullman, Dana. "Let's have a serious discussion of nanopharmacology and homeopathy". FASEB. 2006;20:2661.
Follow Dana Ullman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/HomeopathicDana
Dana Ullman: How Scientific Is Modern Medicine Really?
Likewise, please again offer the following: 1. Those old papers by Stephenson, etc.;
2. Bill Gray's excellent but ill-fated medical journal;
3. THE GERMAN JOURNAL OF HOMEOPATHY;
4. Full issues of HOMEOTHERAPY: JOURNAL OF THE HAHNEMANN FOUNDATION, in earlier issues subtitled: JOURNAL OF THE CALIFORNIA STATE HOMEOPATHIC SOCIETY;
5. The CLASSICAL HOMEOPATHY QUARTERLY;
6. Reproductions of the old journals from Hahnemannians; and among others7. The early volumes of THE HOMEOPATHIC HERITAGE.Start scanning and stuff, please.
I primarily post at www.OtherHealth.com if comments to this are wanted responded to. See this posting here in that better forum: http://www.otherhealth.com/homeopathy-list-discussion/10966-how-homeopathic-medicines-work-nanopharmacology-its-best-new-article-huffingtonpost.html.
God bless!
As good as it is, I’m significantly disappointed that you didn’t quote the following three major authorities who’ve given us significant contributions to this major enigma:
1. James H. Stephenson, M.D. (President of the American _____ of Homeopathy, which changed names to the National Center for Homeopathy), who gave us a brilliant hypothesis from the 1950s and ‘60s suggesting that so-called “hydro-alchohol molecules” form into unique polymers (i.e., molecules that bond to each other into long-chain three-dimensional meshes, plastics and glues being common polymers) for each medicine, which they of course never otherwise do;
2. Shui Yin Lo’s astonishing photos of room-temperature ice (theoretically impossible) in nanometer-sized crystals, which of course corrects Stephenson’s hypothesis to crystallization of water molecules rather than polymerization of them; and
3. William A. Tiller’s brilliant papers arguing for deltrons being responsible for this phenomena, deltrons being etheric particles otherwise known as virtual particles, theoretical particles, massless particles and other academic sophistries that refute the existence of etheric particles and mindlessly sustain philosophical materialism, mechanism and reductionism even though only to total fools since virtual, theoretical, massless particles are simply another way of saying nonphysical particles.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/12/mercola_sells_the_delusion_of_homeopathy.php#more
The article does a sloppy job of summarizing homeopathic principles, but he states these 2 conditions at the end for making a case for homeopathy:
(1) homepathic remedies are distinguishable from the water used to dilute them and (Rustum Roy's studies don't count, given how crappy they are) and (2) they produce an effect that is easily distinguishable from a placebo.
1) - in its infancy. Montagnier, Bruno Robert and the pilloried Benveniste have made good first starts into this arena. (Please don't cite a magician/clown - Randi - as a qualified source to determine the validity of a study. "The idea of letting a former illusionist with a substantial financial stake in a negative result supervise a "double-blind" experiment is perhaps questionable. Double-blind experiments are supposed to eliminate bias. They do so at the price of transparency, quite an important value in the scientific paradigm. It is unclear why experiments should be carried out double-blind when the measurement process is automated." C.J.S. Picard
2) - see my 'first-hand' suggestion below.
2 - your "first hand" experiment is a joke and the protocol wouldn't get past a high school science project, let alone the rigors required by modern scientific methodology.
http://www.liebertonline.com/toc/acm/11/5
Very crude summary:
-comparison issues in number of studies of homeopathic/allopathic (few/many) - 2nd part of the title for that article is "Comparative study of
placebo-controlled trials of homoeopathy and allopathy.”"
-inability to re-analyze study due to poorly described selection methods
-obvious bias on the part of publisher and authors
-poorly defined usage of homeopathic protocols/methods
-no published aim of the study
and apologies, the entire issue is not devoted to refutation, just a significant section of it.
Take a little time and read at least some of these?
An exchange between the water memory scientist and someone at another UK University:
http://hawk-handsaw.blogspot.com/2008/01/memory-of-water-martin-chaplins.html
Science often quoted as supporting homeopathy:
http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2009/10/why-i-am-nominating-luc-montagnier-for.html
What all this memory of water stuff actually means:
http://www.badscience.net/2000/01/journal-club-the-memory-of-water-an-overview/
Basically you can't look for an explanation of something that doesn't exist and you can't just make stab-in-the-dark guesses at the reasons why things might work. Prove that there is an effect to study, then you can start to try and make sense of how it works. Otherwise you are in danger of finding the very thing you were looking for.
Just hoping that a few people sat on the fence might read just a little of this. I agree with the earlier poster Dyson that you don't actually need any current science to see why it doesn't work just consider that if it did, then that would be then end of any need for medical research as we would have cured everyone of everything by now anyway.
Who wants to go to a bartender who serves Cosmopolitans made with the principals of homeopathy?
A 12 C martini would have 60% chance of one molecule of alcohol in it, but should be more potent than a normal cosmo.
Of course, it goes without saying that a homeopathic martini should be shaken, not stirred.
.-)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0
If proponents are to be believed, it is capable of miraculous cures. Anecdotes suggest nothing is beyond it's scope. Yet where is the documented scientific evidence for any clinically repeatable effect? Studies should easily be able to verify these astounding events, but the best homeopathy seems to be able to do is come up with poorly designed trials which are poorly executed showing marginal improvements in certain clinicaly insignificant clinical parameters such as knee pain in arthritis or headaches.
Questions: Why is it that only the self-limiting disorders which are shown to improve spontaneously over time, or the diseases that naturally wax and wane over time, or the symptoms that are of little major clinical severity, or the symptoms that have considerable psychosomatic overlay the ones that seem to be "helped" by homeopathy?
Why is it that the explanation that homeopathy is nothing but an elaborate placebo (which has both plausibility and strong experimental evidence) is never considered by homeopaths?
What evidence would make a homeopath accept that homeopathy doesn't work?
Can we get a chiropractor or a naturopath on next, because I think we've done homoeopathy.
No-one is convinced, Christy.
As I've said throughout these pages, you are free to use any system of medicine you like. You are free to hold any opinion of homeopathy you like. Your opinion could not possibly change my mind or others' minds about what we've experienced.
We use it to treat our animals for their itchy flea bites, cuts and infections and boils. It works just as well for them as it does for us.
I could not recommend homeopathy more highly. It's wonderfully effective and curative on all levels--mental, physical and emotional.
You know, when I feel a cold coming on, when I just don't feel right getting up in the morning, I take a hot shower and put on my green Diesel sneakers heading out the door, it always works! Never once did I get a cold since buying those shoes!
How is your evidence different in any way that my green shoe anecdote?
(sorry for the rip off mc)
Can you not see the obvious problems with ascribing your healing examples here to homeopathy? Why would it be this and not the fact that you drive to work before 8AM or you eat a lot of garlic, or a black cat crossed your path?
"The idea of introducing a fabric for wholeness of the world is nothing new. The scientific findings provide numerous evidences, which support common sense, and every day experience that the world is an interconnected system. Many attempts to prove the wholeness has been tried which was not completely successful and could not get broad scientific approval. Even The great twentieth century physicist David Bohm tried to present his “Implicate Order” as a model, but unfortunately, he could not finish his Unbroken Wholeness Theory before he died. He believed that “at some deeper level of reality such particles (subatomic particles) are not individual entities, but are actually extension of the same fundamental something.”58"
Homoeopathy works at the subatomic level and is an extension of the same fundamental principles that hold the Universe together. I'm sure we'll understand that some day.
One is that homeopathy is true. This would invalidate much of the information that has been discovered over the past several hundred years about cell theory, germ theory, biology, chemistry, physiology, immunology, evolution. Both the law of similars and law of infinitesimals call into question the very basis of what we have determined about our universe.
The other is that homeopathy is a placebo effect and there is no measurable effect of homeopathic remedies and no way to distinguish a homeopathic remedy for water.
Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" The evidence supporting homeopathy is of poor quality, often very small trials. If an effect exists, to the magnitude of which homeopaths claim, it should be highly reproducible, and yet, it is not. When you examine the evidence in total it supports the conclusion that homeopathy is a placebo effect.
A dissertation on the scientific method doesn't disprove or prove homoeopathic.
One side demands proofs, but only within a framework set up by its own camp. All we on the other side can say is we don't understand how that works, but, have our own proofs that it does. Which we're happy to share, but really don't care whether it 'convinces' anyone or not.
Nor will quoting Carl Sagan further any argument, when even Einstein and Hawking can't reconcile their feelings about God? The ultimate unknowable? http://mypage.direct.ca/g/gcramer/relativity.html
So I'm off now, really, and my last words here are of my own proofs. Lifelong allergy sufferer. On asthma meds. Loss of lung function due to chemical exposure.
A one time series of intramuscular injections of homeopathic histamine, and I was cured. I have not had a seasonal allergy or asthma attack since 1996.
Some 'placebo' effect. Homoeopathy works for me and my family, and that's all I need to know.
Happy holidays and holy days to everyone!
They don't like the studies, they disagree with the hypotheses presented, then worse of all say "their questions haven't been answered" Sheesh, their dislike of homoeopathy seems almost, er, emotional, and their greatest emotion, funnily enough, seems to be related to Darwin and Evolutionary Theory, which raised the greatest quacks when told their god Darwin himself consulted a homoeopath for many years, benefited from it as well as the other water based 'cures' offered, but in true scientist fashion, doubted it was homoeopathy which helped him recover his health enough so he was able to complete his life's work; it just didn't fit in with his rationalist, anti-faith paradigm and he couldn't understand the principles involved.
And don't blame me if Barrett himself testified in court that he'd allowed his certification to lapse (or he'd have to keep paying malpractice insurance)
Nor has it been answered where he got the substantial funds required to keep 40 legal actions going or why he then claims poverty when he invariably loses and has to pay a fine.
I could then you to quackpotwatch but you've already made it clear you discount Bolen. As to the $50,000 question, when I find the article I read many years ago, I certainly will post it, but an investigator called up one of the Barrett/Baratz related orgs and asked how to make a small private donation and was told they were more interested in corporate partnerships, suggested amount $50,000. You can ignore what I say, or, wait till I dig it up.
Darwin's letters show that he dismissed homeopathy as worthless. He thought it defied common sense and what we see when he look at how the world works.
He went to a doctor who was a homeopath not because he wanted homeopathic treatment, but because the doctor believed and used 'water treatments' and Darwin believed in them.
Whether homeopathy worked or the water treatments worked or anything else or nothing else worked we just don't know.
Here's another take: "US Judge Rules Against Compulsory Vaccinations" "A preliminary injunction to stop mandatory vaccinations has been issued in the US District Court of New Jersey. The Court......states in the preliminary injunction that it appears the federal government has engaged in some amount of negligence with regards to failure to properly investigate the safety of the flu vaccinations scheduled for 2009-10 and the evidence (of the plaintiff in this case) does warrant a more thorough investigation into the safety of the flu vaccinations."
www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-335421?ref=feeds/latest-also
www.blissplan.com/wellness-fitness/vaccination-risks
Novartis swine flu vac contains polysorbate 80 (sterile agent), postassim chloride (neurotoxin), squalene (neurotoxin), thimerosal (neurotoxin). The same ingredients plus a carcinogen are present in other Novartis products, products of GlaxoSmithKlein, Sanofi, Medimmune and more.
http://preventdisease.com/news/09/103009_vaccine_sterility_immunotoxicity_neurotoxicity.shtml
The federal government has only suggested to the drug companies that these ingredients be removed from their products, NOT required their removal. Lots already shipped have been used despite these ingredients. There is no guarantee future lots will be free of these ingredients.
- Ambrose Bierce
Obviously Atomic Bombs work by BLASTEBO effect - the small amounts of enriched Uranium in the bomb could not possibly cause the widespread damage that they do. Also, has there been any double blinded laboratory controlled experiments in A-bomb detonations? Until there is we can't be sure that there is anything other than magic behind it. And those nuclear equations - too complicated! That can't be right because most laymen don't understand them!!
Let us apply some more sceptical "good common sense" to some modern medical theories - it is clear that the H Pylorii Bacteria explanation of pyloric ulcer etiology cannot possibly be right because of the acidic environment of the stomach. So what if, over a 60 or 70 year period of time, anomalous appearances of the bacteria were seen in this environment. Oh wait a moment.... such bacteria WERE in fact discovered by Barry Marshall, who got a Nobel for the discovery and to silence those sceptics who persisted in attacking him, he ate some of the bacteria and soon demonstrated (SURPRISE!!!) symptoms of pyloric ulcers. And it wasn't BACTEBO effect either!!
Oh darn, then science really does work and the arguments against a theoretical basis for Homeopathy are essentially worthless examples of SCEPTEBO effect.
James Pannozzi
Atomic theory and atomic bombs are also based in science. There are nuclear equations that explain why it all works. Are there any equations that even begin to explain homeopathy.
I would suggest that you take the time to actually understand science prior to trying to make sarcastic comments about how it actually works.
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Evolution is often described as the central organizing priniciple of biology. And it is pointed out over and over again, that if evolution didn't occur much of what we know in sciences beyond biology would have to be false.
I'd like to see a list of all the parts of science that would have to be wrong for homeopathy to work.
Here's my contribution. If homeopathy is true, then evolution is false.Because there is no reason why such an overarching principle of similars causing similars could be created through evolution.
H1N1 Vaccination: Now proven safe by millions and millions of people.
A brief answer would be that other aspects of biology and medicine would be thrown into chaos, as the evidential basis upon which all molecules interact to exert effects on receptors/target tissues cells and organs would be negated. This would undermine everything, from fetal development through to all homeostatic and therapeutic mechanisms.
I am not a physicist, but am sure there is plenty of scope in that field.
Biology and physiology would have to be be completely changed as you have cellular effects not mediated by receptors, proteins, lipids, etc. The law of simliars would also cause a great deal of changes here.
The difference here is that there actually are pheremone molecules available for the moth to smell, there actually are blood molecules for the shark to smell...once one is past 11 centisimal there aren't any molecules of the substance left in the homeopathic remedy.
If homeopathy is right then modern chemistry's assertions re: reaction rates depending on amount of reactants being available is wrong.