Homeopathy Does Not Work
What are the origins of homeopathy?
In the 1790s German physician Samuel Hahnemann developed the ancient Greek medic Hippocrates’ idea of curing ‘like with like’. He rejected the purgings and leeches that were common the medicine of the day and when he experimented on himself with quinine – used to treat ‘ague’, now known as malaria – he found that he could induce the symptoms of the disease by increasing the dose.
Hahnemann concluded that it was quinine’s ability to trigger malaria symptoms that made it a cure for the disease and he began to test other substances on patients to ‘prove’ them. He called the practice homeopathy from the Greek homoios (the same) and pathos (suffering). He observed that a smaller and smaller dose, of say the deadly plant belladonna used to treat scarlet fever, or even the poison arsenic, seemed to have a more specific effect on his patients. Bizarrely, to prepare his purported remedies, he had to shake them by bashing his vials against his Bible…
Hahnemann’s ideas spread throughout Europe and North America and by 1844 there was an American Institute of Homeopathy. However, by the twentieth century scientific modern medicine was flourishing and the practice of homeopathy had all but disappeared in the Western world.
In the last few decades or so more and more people have been turning to complementary medicine in general and homeopathy has become one of the most common practices.
What happens during a “treatment”?
As with other complementary health practices when you visit a homeopath they will usually ask you about your lifestyle, eating habits, medical history and state of mind and not simply look for symptoms. the mainstream medical profession, with its time-limited consultations, could do well to adopt this more holistic approach, as it does have the benefit of not only improving doctor-patient relations but may enhance any placebo aspect of conventional treatments prescribed.
With homeopathy, the consultation allows the practitioner to tailor to the remedy to your illness and your personality. After a diagnostic session a ‘classical’ homeopath would prescribe a unique remedy, for you based on your symptoms and your personality and medical history. If that’s the case, then how can any over the counter remedies one might buy in a health store work? Well, to put it bluntly, they can’t.
There are also homeopathic practitioners known as ‘complex’ homeopaths who base their prescription more on the overall disease. Two patients with similar illness might therefore be given the same prescription but rather than being a uniquely selected medicine this would usually be a mixture of substances. Again, more pseudoscientific claptrap.
The remedy may be given in the form of tablets, powders, tinctures, creams and ointments or solutions together with advice on diet and lifestyle. Homeopaths will usually suggest you avoid strong-smelling substances and coffee, while taking homeopathic remedies. They may also advise you not to use certain aromatherapy oils or take herbal remedies while undergoing treatment. A fully qualified and registered homeopath will never recommend that you stop taking a prescribed medicine and would refer you back to your GP first if they think you should. Suddenly stopping a prescribed medicine might cause severe problems.
What disorders might be treated with homeopathy?
Homeopaths claim to be able to treat many illnesses including the following, but none of these actually works in the way claimed any benefits of the treatment can only be ascribed to the placebo effect.
- Acne
- Allergies
- Anxiety and panic attacks
- Asthma
- Back pain and neuralgia
- Bruises
- Colic
- Coughs and colds and croup
- Cystitis
- Eczema
- Heartburn
- Insect bites and stings
- Irritable bowel syndrome
- Leg cramp
- Menstrual and menopausal problems
- Morning sickness
- Nausea
- Stress
- Teething pains
Some practitioners even offer homeopathic alternatives to antimalarials and vaccines for serious diseases. This practice is very, very dangerous. If you visit a homeopath and they offer a preventative for malaria instead of you taking proper antimalarials, then you run the risk of catching the disease if exposed to malaria-carrying insects. Not a good idea, at all.
Where’s the evidence?
There have been lots of tests carried out to see whether homeopathy works, including trials with animals. None of these stand up to scrutiny and those that are more scientific fail to show anything but a placebo effect. The majority of studies cited by homeopaths to support their claims are simply not scientifically rigorous enough to prove anything. The British Medical Journal and the Lancet two well-respected medical journals have published reviews of several trials into homeopathy and have found no support for its effects beyond a placebo.
Fundamentally, preparing a homeopathic treatment involves diluting the supposed active ingredient over and over again to the point where there will be not one single molecule of the ingredient in the final remedy given to the patient.
In the late 1980s, French scientist, Jacques Benveniste, tried to show that although the original drug might not be present it does leave a ‘memory’ in the water in which it was first dissolved and it is this ‘memory’ that causes the effects of homeopathic remedies. Of course, no scientist has succeeded in duplicating his experiments and the consensus now is that he was wrong.
What do doctors think about homeopathy?
Homeopathy does not work. Physicians know this and will not morally prescribe homeopathy to their patients. It is an ethical minefield to consider homeopathy except as a deliberate exercise in placebo of last resort either for hypochondriacs who are actually not ill or for cases for which conventional medicine has no further answers.
Does homeopathy work?
No! There is not a single clinical trial to support claims for anything more than a placebo effect. Practitioners use vanishingly low doses of a compound or drug that if given in large enough quantities would cause the symptoms of the disease they are trying to cure. The homeopathic remedy Allium cepa, for instance, is made from an extract of onions. Onions, of course, make your eyes sting and water and your nose run when you peel and chop them. The homeopathic ‘like for like’ principle says that a disorder with these symptoms would be cured by a small dose of onion. So, homeopaths may use Allium cepa to treat hayfever. But any effect will be purely placebo, as there is not even a single molecule from the extract left in the solution after homeopathic dilution.
The underlying idea is that the symptom-causing remedy kick-starts our body to begin the self-healing process. There are a wide variety of homeopathic preparations, common ones might be made from the deadly nightshade, belladonna, arnica, chamomile, mercury and sulphur, sepia (extracted from squid ink), snake venom and even compounds extracted from bodily fluids. But, again, none of these so-called remedies contain any active component, despite claims about water having a memory of the molecules that were once dissolved in it. If that were the case, then surely we’d all be cured of everything just by drinking a glass of tap water.
For more on why homeopathy is nothing but snake oil, quackery and seriously bad medicine, check out Singh and Ernst’s – Trick or Treatment and accompanying website, which at the time of updating this page (June 6, 2008) is still under construction.
15 Responses to “Homeopathy Does Not Work”
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June 30th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
I think the number of homeopaths claiming they can treat malaria or HIV is very low. Homeopaths treat people, not diseases. There may be people out there treating people with malaria, or HiV but claiming they can cure a specific disease is historically rare.
Part of the reason that so many clinical trials have failed, is because the trials are looking for “uniform” results which are difficult to obtain when you are looking at individual remedies for individual patients. Homeopath will never be able to conform to a scientific model. But that doesn’t mean you need to dismiss it as a scam. The many thousand practitioners, including medical doctors, lay practitioners etc…use it because they have obtained results, i.e. cured patients. They do not claim they can cure everyone, or that it can not be used in conjunction with other models of medicine. It is presented as an option. Why do things persist over time if they are not effective? Most homeopaths aren’t out there frantically advertising. They are consulted by people who have witinessed results.
June 4th, 2009 at 8:07 am
The actual numbers of medicinal drugs that have their origins in the botanical world are estimated at the 30-40% mark, but I totally agree if I have to take a tonic, I’d rather it one with some likelihood of working, one that was as pure as it could be, rather than a mish-mash of possibly or possibly not physiologically active components and certainly not one of essentially infinite dilution that contains nothing but water or alcohol and required bashing on a leatherbound Bible to make it work!
June 4th, 2009 at 7:07 am
It’s nice to see an intelligent counter argument to homeopathy. Scientific evidence supports that it just does not do anything beyond offering a placebo effect.
If I’m sick, I’m not going to fool around with delusions and tinctures of this flower or that flower. I’m going to take a medication that has been proven to work through clinical trials and has been passed by the FDA so I know I won’t be poisoning myself.
Most prescribed medications are rooted from botanical and natural sources anyways. They’ve extracted the effective compound and/or synthesised it and concentrated it and developed it to a point where there’s enough of it to be effective.
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:07 am
Kasinda. Thanks for your input. I do recognise that there are perhaps benefits to healthcare practitioners taking a holistic approach, indeed many GPs, even with their 10-min session limits do take a more holistic approach. What I object to are the outlandish claims one sees in advertising of alt med practices and media coverage in so-called lifestyle magazines.
March 3rd, 2009 at 4:23 am
“There have been lots of tests carried out to see whether homeopathy works, including trials with animals.” I am a university student currently studying homeopathy as a apart of my naturopathy degree and even I, with the little knowledge I have gained so far, know that to understand the medicinal effect of homeopathic rememedies on humans that only on humans can these remedies be tested. Homeopathy has a holistic approach to health and includes the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects to the human being… which is why testing of these remedies across humans and animals go against the priciples of Homeopathic practice.
No homeopath claims they can cure all… instead they offer complementary medice… which is to complement western medicine when harsh drugs are not necessary or for problems arrising from lifestyle choices.
being skeptical is healthy but when it stops you from growing and experiencing new things its only a hinderence to your well being and places boundaries on your awareness.