Is Homeopathy medicine or quackery?

[Mike Elphick]

"Three components bring forth the placebo effect:
(a) positive beliefs and expectations on the part of the patient;
(b) positive beliefs and expectations on the part of the physician or health care professional; and
(c) a good relationship between the two parties.
Because of the heavily negative connotations of
the very words “placebo effect,” the term should be replaced by “remembered wellness.”
Remembered wellness has been one of medicine's most potent assets and
it should not be belittled or ridiculed. Unlike most other treatments, it is safe and inexpensive and has withstood the test of time."
Harnessing the Power of the Placebo Effect - Annual Review of Medicine, 47(1):193

While both B & C can add to, and substantiate this -> positive
beliefs and expectations on the part of the patient
neither B nor C are necessary. The healed have proven this many times over. Fact

I'm honoured you borrowed my link, but did you not notice your quote states that two of three required components to "bring forth the placebo effect" are "(b) positive beliefs and expectations on the part of the physician or health care professional; and (c) a good relationship between the two parties..."? Yet you then declare they are not necessary .

I'm surprised you didn't know that people get well after all sorts of illnesses and injuries without any treatment at all.

 

[Cabal]

I'm honoured you borrowed my link, but did you not notice your quote states that two of three required components to "bring forth the placebo effect" are "(b) positive beliefs and expectations on the part of the physician or health care professional; and (c) a good relationship between the two parties..."? Yet you then declare they are not necessary .

I'm surprised you didn't know that people get well after all sorts of illnesses and injuries without any treatment at all.

I'm also curious as to what the actual paper says rather than quoting the abstract.

 

[sk8Joyful]

I'm honoured you borrowed my link, but did you not notice ...
I'm surprised you didn't know
that people get well after all sorts of illnesses and injuries without any treatment at all.

Hi Mr. Elphick,
sorry I didn't make this more clear, as I was trying to say (with the Green-writing), that
YES! - more times than not, specific POSITIVE-beliefs a person acts on,
will from all sorts of injuries & illnesses, & yes (often without treatment.s), Allow people to heal.
expressed thusly: What the MIND expects, it will do all in its power to Manifest as body-REALITY
(CF-thread now here: > Painless in Childbirth?, about pain-free Childbirth)
I have healed numerous times, as have most other people. And I have helped guide people in successes as well. -
And we are able to so do,
ALL THANKS to how God us 1st. created: via a continuous supply of undifferentiated stem-cells,
the differentiation of which our mind directs...as well our Immune system, etc.

Thanks for giving me another opportunity to say it, Mr. Elphick

 

[Mike Elphick]

I'm honoured you borrowed my link, but did you not notice your quote states that two of three required components to "bring forth the placebo effect" are "(b) positive beliefs and expectations on the part of the physician or health care professional; and (c) a good relationship between the two parties..."? Yet you then declare they are not necessary .

I'm surprised you didn't know that people get well after all sorts of illnesses and injuries without any treatment at all.

Hi Mr. Elphick,
sorry I didn't make this more clear, as I was trying to say (with the Green-writing), that
YES! - more times than not, specific POSITIVE-beliefs a person acts on,
will from all sorts of injuries & illnesses, & yes (often without treatment.s), Allow people to heal.
expressed thusly: What the MIND expects, it will do all in its power to Manifest as body-REALITY
(CF-thread now here: > Painless in Childbirth?, about pain-free Childbirth)
I have healed numerous times, as have most other people. And I have helped guide people in successes as well. -
And we are able to so do,
ALL THANKS to how God us 1st. created: via a continuous supply of undifferentiated stem-cells,
the differentiation of which our mind directs...as well our Immune system, etc.

Thanks for giving me another opportunity to say it, Mr. Elphick

Well, in that case we are more in agreement that I thought. Sorry. My daughter is expecting her first child and she has a very positive attitude, even saying she'll walk to the hospital when her contractions start. Everybody else is horrified!

 

[sk8Joyful]

Well, in that case we are more in agreement, than I thought.

Hi Mike,
oh the www-limitations: a snippet's read, a flash-judgment's made; &
the richness of greater Awareness & Insights are missed.- Truth be told, we prolly agree on much more!

My daughter is expecting her first child and she has a very positive attitude,
even saying she'll walk to the hospital when her contractions start.

Everybody else is horrified!

Let's get this last part outa the way 1st: - You know why they're horrified: in Conventional-medicine, they (myopic) zero-in via biochemistry & physiology, at the expense of (the person) they are treating; thus they short-change 2/3 of each Sentient-being. - I am sure you know that when a person is 1/3ed of their most important part, the *mind* - that is at the very least a massive dis-service. - And I maintain, as students have also, that each of God's children deserves FAR better! - agreed?

re Medical-practice: Have you read my own beginnings, as a little child? : yup, in our 2000-peeps village, we had No-hospital, No-clinics, No-nurses, (No-curses: you read that right), & only 1-doc. He carried the entire pharmacy in his little black bag: plain Sugar-cubes, unto which a speck of Peppermint oil he'd drop, & right! as he'd put that in each person's mouth, he'd utter his saving oratorio: "THIS, is just what you need to help you be ALL better!!"<- yup, that was it (didn't matter what ailed somebody). - The point was, & is: whether it's Homeopathy, or whatever-Placebo, everyone BELIEVED it was so, & doc had EXPECTATIONS of uneventful healing, so of course, that achieves the Outcome(s).

Now. re your own daughter: Hoorah! Yeah!! Yippeee!!!

already told much of my story's chapters here before, incldg:
*Expecting to home-birth (crime denied me this)
*Slow-dancing/Birthing... this precious daughter into my eager arms.
3 hrs. after her birth, nurse-peers joked @ me teaching a class, to
student-nurses: 'get your Snuggli-pouch ready, woman; back in the saddle! lol' - for truth: I easily could have.
(after all, God created us this way)
*Teaching other moms the (life-long) skill of pain-free Birthing...
-----------
Once your daughter takes an empowered MIND-class, allowing her to experience just how powerfully she can Empower her own mind, she can also be taught to cross-contextualize these skills, for all kinds of helpful applications, the more the merrier - AND she can teach these skills to her children, and others...

Work, isn't really the word for this kind of wholistic-fun, where centered are both teacher & students:
meaning enriching the (whole-person: soul+mind+body). Know what I mean?

Developing & Growing & Healing: whataway to PRAISE God from whom all opportune possibilities originated...

in Him, live blessed your daughter & children, and your entire family Mike

 

[Exiledoomsayer]

Sk8, Im sorry to hear you where denied proper medical care to have something to compare to, I understand now why you actually think this stuf works.

 

[laconicstudent]

This thread scares me. We, as a global society, really need to intensify science education.

 

[Psudopod]

If homeopathy works, how to they wash the bottles out? It still amazes me that people can accept the idea of homeopathy but I suspect many people don't actually understand what it's about and believe it's some sort of herbal treatment.

 

[Cabal]

If homeopathy works, how to they wash the bottles out? It still amazes me that people can accept the idea of homeopathy but I suspect many people don't actually understand what it's about and believe it's some sort of herbal treatment.

Surely if dilution is the key, giving nothing at all is the most potent remedy? That's about as dilute as you can get....

 

[AV1611VET]

If homeopathy works, how to they wash the bottles out? It still amazes me that people can accept the idea of homeopathy but I suspect many people don't actually understand what it's about and believe it's some sort of herbal treatment.

The idea behind homeopathy is to dilute a substance -- let's say Pepto Bismol -- in H[sub]2[/sub]O, until not one molecule of it remains.

From there, it is taught that the water "remembers" what it diluted, and the water has more power to cure the disease or ailment, than the medicine itself.

Got diarrhea?

Pour water into a glass and drink it, and nothing is going to happen; but put Pepto Bismol into a glass and dilute it with water until not one molecule of the Pepto Bismol remains, drink that water, and you can expect to be cured.

 

[Cabal]

The idea behind homeopathy is to dilute a substance -- let's say Pepto Bismol -- in H[sub]2[/sub]O, until not one molecule of it remains.

From there, it is taught that the water "remembers" what it diluted, and the water has more power to cure the disease or ailment, than the the medicine itself.

Got diarrhea?

Pour water into a glass and drink it, and nothing is going to happen; but put Pepto Bismol into a glass and dilute it with water until not one molecule of the Pepto Bismol remains, drink that water, and you can expect to be cured.

Pseudopod's point is quite germane, given that one cannot clean storage containers out without producing a further dilution. So with repeated use the remedies should be becoming exponentially more potent, which they aren't.

And actually, if you have diarrhoea (given that homeopathy uses the substance provoking the symptoms to stimulate the body into curing itself) drinking mains water should be enough to cure it as it is a dilution of diarrhoea (as well as a whole bunch of other stuff - like I said, if this stuff were in any way true, mains water would be practically like the elixir of life given how many dilute solutes it contains).

 

[Psudopod]

The idea behind homeopathy is to dilute a substance -- let's say Pepto Bismol -- in H2O, until not one molecule of it remains.

From there, it is taught that the water "remembers" what it diluted, and the water has more power to cure the disease or ailment, than the medicine itself.

Got diarrhea?

Pour water into a glass and drink it, and nothing is going to happen; but put Pepto Bismol into a glass and dilute it with water until not one molecule of the Pepto Bismol remains, drink that water, and you can expect to be cured.

Except you won't be cured, not by the "remedy". You well get better after taking it, because most people get better from diarrhia anyway. But that's not a cure. If it worked, you be able to show in clinical trials that people who took the homeopathic remedy got better faster than those who simply drank water and waited for the symtoms to pass. Which no one has.

 

[AV1611VET]

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Except you won't be cured, not by the "remedy". You well get better after taking it, because most people get better from diarrhia anyway. But that's not a cure. If it worked, you be able to show in clinical trials that people who took the homeopathic remedy got better faster than those who simply drank water and waited for the symtoms to pass. Which no one has.

I suspect homeopathy relies on the Placebo Effect for maximum efficacy.

 

[AV1611VET]

I suspect homeopathy is Satan's cheap imitation of the events of John 5:1-4.

Or what we call diabolical mimicry.

 

[Mike Elphick]

This thread scares me. We, as a global society, really need to intensify science education.

I can imagine why you might say that. There's a detectable trend away from conventional medicine as can be seen by the growth in the uptake of alternative therapies. I particularly dislike the chain stores that sell herbal medicines, vitamins, homeopathic remedies etc. Faith healing has of course been with us for a very long time.

Medicine shook off its quackery when the scientific method was adopted, but in doing so, it seems to have lost sight of the human being it is caring for, and, significantly, forgotten about the age-old elicitation of the placebo effect:-

The placebo is the most commonly-employed treatment across cultures and throughout history (1). Today’s physician, resting on her evidence-based laurels, might have no trouble accepting this claim when considering the medical practice of yore. After all, what else can one make of the potions, herbs, leechings and rituals of our distant colleagues of an earlier age—medicine men, shamans, wizards—if not that they were, wittingly or ignorantly, purveyors of placebos? None of this ought to be relevant to our enlightened time, when we can exploit our understanding of physiology, pathology, pharmacology and the double-blind randomized placebo-controlled study to deliver scientifically-informed, empirically-validated, precisely-targeted therapeutic interventions.

Yet the placebo is here, a central item of our pharmacopeia, widespread and, certainly in the opinion of most clinicians, effective. This is the clear conclusion of a series of recent studies whose purpose was to gauge the extent of placebo use amongst physicians and to give some sense of how effective practitioners found them to be. Using decidedly low-tech methods (i.e. questionnaires), findings across disparate locales were impressively uniform. For over 500 Danish physicians who responded to a questionnaire, placebo use was as high as 86% amongst general practitioners, 54% amongst hospital-based physicians, and 41% of private specialists (2). In Chicago, 45% of 231 internists affiliated with three local medical schools admitted to using the placebo (3). In our own study in Israel, we questioned 90 physicians and nurses in primary and tertiary care and found that 60% used the placebo (4). In all locales, the placebo was administered in a variety of forms and for a variety of purposes, and was believed by most of its purveyors to be ethical and effective.
The Role of the Placebo in Clinical Practice

It seems the combination of an irrational patient and irrational treatment can actually be effective and no doubt alternative medicine works in the same way — that is, on the basis of the placebo response (even homeopathy). There's no reason why the scientific method cannot be applied to studying this effect and, despite all the ethical and practical issues, of finding a proper and professional way of putting it to good use.

 

[Cabal]

I suspect homeopathy is Satan's cheap imitation of the events of John 5:1-4.

Or what we call diabolical mimicry.

Taking the passage literally for one second, I don't think the Siloam dilution was taken orally.

 

[Cabal]

I suspect homeopathy relies on the Placebo Effect for maximum efficacy.

It's not so much "relies on" - it IS the placebo effect.

 

[AV1611VET]

Taking the passage literally for one second, I don't think the Siloam dilution was taken orally.

Nor do I -- that's one of the reasons why homeopathy is a cheap imitation.

 

[AV1611VET]

It's not so much "relies on" - it IS the placebo effect.

Good point!

 

[Psudopod]

Originally Posted by Psudopod

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Except you won't be cured, not by the "remedy". You well get better after taking it, because most people get better from diarrhia anyway. But that's not a cure. If it worked, you be able to show in clinical trials that people who took the homeopathic remedy got better faster than those who simply drank water and waited for the symtoms to pass. Which no one has.

​

I suspect homeopathy relies on the Placebo Effect for maximum efficacy.

Exactly. It is the placebo effect, boosted by regression to mean - ie people go for a condition that will get better on its own, take the pills, get better and assume it was the homeopathy, rather than the disease running it's course. Regression to mean also affects cronic conditions that vary in intesity. Say you have a bad back, some days it is agony, other days you barely notice it. If you see a homeopath when it is at its worst it is going to feel better afterwards, simply because you are at one end of the cycle. Again, nothing to do with the pills.