Homeopathy is a branch of medical treatment that takes the motto “Less is More” to the limit and blasts right past it. Mr. Webster’s definition of homeopathy is the theory or system of curing diseases with very minute doses of medicine which in a healthy person and in large doses would produce a condition like that of the disease treated.
This definition describes the two basic theories of homeopathy: “like cures like” and the “law of minimum dose”. The name homeopathy comes from the Greek word homoios, which means “similar”; homeopathic physicians believe that they can cure a disease by giving a substance that causes similar symptoms in healthy people, just in very, very, VERY small amounts. According to the homeopathic theory of the “law of minimum dose”, the lower the dose of a particular medicine, the more effective it is.
Homeopathic remedies are small dissolving tablets labeled with their active ingredient and the dilution, which is a number followed by an x. A 1x dilution would be one part of the original solution diluted by 9 parts of water, then dripped onto small sugar tablets. A 2x dilution would be repeating the dilution process of 1:9, one part of the original 1:9 dilution added to 9 parts water before adding it to the tablet. Most homeopathic remedies are dilutions of 100x, 1000x, or 10,000x, which means little to no molecules of active ingredient are left in the solution put into the melting tablets.
Homeopathy developed as an alternative to the medical practice of using very large amounts of toxic agents to stimulate the body back to health. A German physician and chemist called Samuel Hahnemann developed homeopathy in the late 1700s. Dr. Hahnemann was highly respected for his knowledge of the action of drugs and the author of several reference works on the subject, but was also openly critical of conventional medical treatments common at that time, which included repeated sessions of bloodletting, leeches and purging using large doses of compounds containing lead, mercury, and arsenic.
Dr. Hahnemann did something very different to treat his patients. He gave them very small doses of one medicine at a time and watched to see how they reacted before giving them any more.
The gold standard for an effective medicine or treatment today is scientific evidence, or proof that a medication can make a measurable and beneficial difference in the illness it is supposed to treat. This is called Evidence Based Medicine, or EBM. Using EBM has helped to change commonly held beliefs that don’t have any facts behind them and to sort out the treatments that can be beneficial from those that can cause harm.
Unfortunately homeopathy lacks any scientific evidence to support it. It’s not possible to logically explain how something that contains little or no molecules of active ingredient can have a specific effect on the body. It’s hard to imagine that there could be any effectiveness left after the original medicine has been diluted to the point where there’s nothing left but a sugar pill.
According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), there is little evidence to support homeopathic remedies as useful or effective to treat any particular condition.
The FDA does not require homeopathic products to prove safety or efficacy; in this way they are similar to how food supplements are regulated. An example of the contradiction of homeopathy is Arnica. Arnica is classified by the FDA is an unsafe herb if taken by mouth, yet is available in melt-under-the-tongue tablets for various indications and in various dilutions as an over-the-counter homeopathic remedy.
Is homeopathy still relevant? When the standard treatment for a particular medical condition was more dangerous than having the disease, homeopathy may have been a reasonable alternative. With today’s mainstream medical practice less barbaric and treatment with medicines less toxic, homeopathy no longer makes sense. The dissolving tablets of classic homeopathic remedies sold today are sugar pills without a molecule of any active ingredient and other products marketed as homeopathic but which really aren’t are doing that as a way to avoid the expense and oversight otherwise required by the FDA.
More information about homeopathy and other systems of alternative medicine is available from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative medicine at www.NCCAM.nih.gov.
