Homeopathic remedies are promoted as effective alternatives
to conventional medicine.
Is there any truth to that?
Nope.
In theory and application, homeopathy just doesn’t add up.
[SPLASH]
Homeopathy is its own category of “alternative medicine”
that emerged some 200 years ago.
Not all natural or herbal remedies in your pharmacy
are considered homeopathic.
Homeopathic medicines are based on a few theories of disease distinct
from conventional medicine, the most famous being “like cures like.”
That’s the idea that if something gives you a rash, that same
thing can be used to treat rashes.
A German doctor named Samuel Hahnemann
coined the term homeopathy in 1807.
He thought medicine then was doing more harm than good.
You can’t totally blame him, I mean, bloodletting was still a thing.
But that’s really all the credit you can give him.
He started doing experiments on a small group of volunteers as
well as on himself, which is not good scientific practice.
In one, he ate the bark of the cinchona (sing-KOH-nuh) tree,
which in his day was used as a treatment for malaria.
[Onscreen: we now know it contains the antimalarial drug quinine].
After he ate a bunch, he got symptoms he thought
were similar to malaria.
That led to his first principle of homeopathy: like cures like.
He thought that when a substance in large doses caused certain
symptoms, in small doses it could cure those same symptoms.
Here’s an example.
A homeopathic remedy if you can’t sleep is coffea cruda.
Which is just very, very, very diluted
amounts of unroasted coffee beans.
Dilution, aka reducing the concentration of something, is
the second principle of homeopathy.
Hahnemann thought a sick person
only needed a very small amount of an active ingredient.
He used a dilution scale that increased by factors of 100, a
scale denoted with a C. You can see that on a homeopathic label.
One way to make coffea cruda is to put one drop in a vial containing
nine drops of water, then take a drop from that vial and put
it in another vial with nine drops of water.
60 times.
That was a pretty standard dilution for Hahnemann.
The thing is, by the 60th vial you’ve diluted your coffee
so many times that there really isn’t any left.
Statistically, beyond a 13 C dilution you have zero chance of
finding a single molecule of the active ingredient in your vial.
Now, keep in mind that in Hahnemann’s age the concept of atoms
and molecules as fundamental units of matter hadn’t really been developed.
So maybe he couldn’t know that you could dilute something
until it was effectively gone.
Today, though, we know that full well.
But homeopaths still insist that dilution principle is sound.
They also claim that water can somehow remember what has dissolved
in it, and pass the effects of those absent molecules on to the patient.
But to date there has not been repeatable, convincing
evidence of this phenomenon, which violates some deeply held
principles of physical science.
So no, your homeopathic water doesn’t remember the coffee
that may once have been in it.
The foundational ideas of homeopathy are bunk.
The US National Institutes of Health have said that “several key
concepts of homeopathy are inconsistent with fundamental
concepts of chemistry and physics.”
But what if, somehow, it still works, in some mysterious
way we don’t yet understand?
Well scientists tested that too.
A 2015 report from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council
(ANHMRC) considered the results of about 200 studies on the the effectiveness of homeopathy.
After looking at the evidence, they concluded that homeopathic remedies
are no better than a sugar pill, a placebo.
The studies that have shown benefits of homeopathic
remedies, had flawed methodologies.
The Aussies concluded, “There are no health conditions for which there is
reliable evidence that homeopathy is effective.”
At best, homeopathic remedies are a harmless waste of money.
At worst, people might endanger their health by skipping
treatment or care they need.
For example, there are homeopathic asthma inhalers being sold.
These aren’t any better at stopping an asthma attack than a placebo.
An untreated asthma attack can be fatal.
And remember, homeopathic remedies aren’t held to the same standards
as U-S Food and drug administration- approved
medicine, although that might change.
That’s the science, but you should talk to a medical doctor
if you’re still curious about alternative treatment options.
Check out these videos on multivitamin supplements and aspartame.
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