Homeopathy

[mommas_boy]

I have to say that, as a chemist, I see no reason whatsoever why homeopathy's dilution system should work. Listen to this (from that Wikipedia page):

"In homeopathy, a solution that is more dilute is described as having a higher potency. Higher potencies (that is, more dilute substances) are considered by homeopaths to be stronger and deeper-acting remedies."



Also, let's do some math (math is posted at the bottom). If we use Hahnemann's 10[sup]60[/sup] dilution, and assume that we have 1 L of that solution, the odds that there is [b]one[/b] molecule of the actual medicine in that 1 L of "solution" is 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0
00,000. (1, followed by 34 zeroes).

You have a far better chance of winning the lottery -- repeatedly -- than finding one molecule of your "medicine" in a liter of "solution". By comparison, in 18 mL of water, there are over six billion trillion water molecules.

-----------------

Math

[code] 1000 g H2O 1 g product 6.02 x 10^23 molecules
1 L Solution x ------------ x ------------- x ----------------------
1 L Solution 10^60 g H2O 1 g product

= 10^-34 molecules per liter solution[/code]

And that's assuming that it's a single H atom that is dissolved in the water. Larger mass products will be even less likely to be found.

Edited August 27, 2008 by mommas_boy

[mommas_boy]

Note, the above analysis says nothing for the effect of the drugs used themselves. It's just a commentary on Hahnemann's preferred dilution scheme: 1:10[sup]60[/sup]. Less dilute systems could work, given that the drug itself is effective. Since I know little of biochem, I'll let Meg and the others comment on that. Still, the logic that a more dilute system is more powerful is mind-boggling.

[IcePrincessKRS]

[quote name='Sacred Music Man' post='1638289' date='Aug 26 2008, 12:03 AM']I've had some personal doubts about Homoeopathy (Read, the stuff that comes in alcohol tinctures, sugar pellets, etc, not "herbal" medicines).[/quote]
[quote name='fidei defensor' post='1638719' date='Aug 26 2008, 02:37 PM']I love alternative and natural medicine. I believe it can be very powerful, so it should only be taken as directed. However, I think in some cases, it can be as good or even better than conventional medicine.

Homeopathy, however, the jury is still out. But I guess if it's effective for someone, they should continue using it.[/quote]

I guess I tend to lump natural medicine (herbal remedies, homemade lotions and creams, etc.) in with homeopathy at times. I have used both, but I definitely prefer herbal remedies to the "sugar pellets" (and use them more often). Seems to me that they are more effective most of the time, but I know some people who swear by certain homeopathic remedies and I do use a couple myself (teething tablets for my kids, and one for stomach aches that my aunt referred me to). Alcohol tinctures or extracts, seems to me at any rate, that they would be more effective than the sugary pellets because they are infused with the properties of the herbs, much in the same way we use vanilla extract for cooking... except its medicinal.

[Innocent]

[quote name='mommas_boy' post='1639012' date='Aug 27 2008, 07:19 AM']Note, the above analysis says nothing for the effect of the drugs used themselves. It's just a commentary on Hahnemann's preferred dilution scheme: 1:10[sup]60[/sup]. Less dilute systems could work, given that the drug itself is effective. Since I know little of biochem, I'll let Meg and the others comment on that. Still, the logic that a more dilute system is more powerful is mind-boggling.[/quote]

From what I've heard, I gather that the 30C solution is the typical level of dilution.

Anyway, since you mention the effectiveness of the drug itself, it's at this part that things get further confusing for me. The drugs are based on the "Law of Similars" or the "Like Cures Like" principle, from what I understand.

I'll quote a BBC interview with two homeopaths (one of whom is the homeopath to the Queen of the UK) who mention the types of substances used as the original medicines:

[quote]NARRATOR: It's all about something you can find on every high street in Britain: homeopathy. Homeopathy isn't some wacky, fringe belief. It's over 200 years old and is used by millions of people, including Presidents and pop stars. It's even credited with helping David Beckham get over his foot injury and the Royals have been keen users since the days of Queen Victoria, but it's also a scientific puzzle. What makes it so mysterious is its two guiding principles, formulated in the 18th century. The first principle is that to find a cure you look for a substance that actually causes the symptoms you're suffering from. It's the principle that like cures like.

DR PETER FISHER (Homeopath to The Queen): For instance in colds and hay fever something we often use is allium cepa which is onion and of course we all know the effects of chopping an onion, you know the sore streaming eyes, streaming nose, sneezing and so we would use allium cepa, onion, for a cold with similar sorts of features.

NARRATOR: This theory that like cures like led to thousands of different substances being used, some of them truly bizarre.

DR LIONEL MILGROM (Homeopath): In principle you can make a homeopathic remedy out of absolutely anything that's plant.

PETER FISHER: Deadly nightshade.

LIONEL MILGROM: Animal.

PETER FISHER: Snake venom.

LIONEL MILGROM: Mineral.

PETER FISHER: Calcium carbonate, which is of course chalk.

LIONEL MILGROM: Disease product.

PETER FISHER: Tuberculous gland of a cow.

LIONEL MILGROM: Radiation.

NARRATOR: But then homeopaths found that many of these substances were poisonous, so they started to dilute them. This led to the extraordinary second principle of homeopathy: the more you dilute a remedy the more effective it becomes, provided it's done in a special way. The method homeopaths use to this day is called serial dilution. A drop of the original substance, whether it's snake venom or sulphuric acid, is added to 99 drops of waster or alcohol. Then the mixture is violently shaken. Here it's done by machine, but traditionally homeopaths would hit the tube against a hard surface. Either way, homeopaths believe this is a vital stage. It somehow transfers the healing powers from the original substance into the water itself. The result is a mixture diluted 100 times.

LIONEL MILGROM: That will give you what's called a 1C solution, that's one part in 100. You then take that 1C solution and dissolve it in another 99 parts and now you end up with a 2C solution.

NARRATOR: At 2C the medicine is one part in 10,000, but the homeopaths keep diluting and this is where the conflict with science begins. At 6C the medicine is diluted a million million times. This is equivalent to one drop in 20 swimming pools. Another six dilutions gives you 12C. This is equivalent to one drop in the Atlantic Ocean, but even this is not enough for most homeopathic medicines. The typical dilution is 30C, a truly astronomical level of dilution.[/quote]
[url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathytrans.shtml"]SOURCE[/url]

This is from a programme where a team attempted to verify the claims of homeopathy.

Given the kind of substances used as original medicine, I'm at a loss to understand how this would work at higher concentrations. It would be logical to assume that it would make the patient more ill, wouldn't it?

[jeffpugh]

That's amazing. I'm sure someone tried to explain that to me once. Now that I see it with the numbers, I am quite surprised with the output.

[Autumn Dusk]

honey made my dog's ear stop bleeding (well honey and flour)....and it didn't get infected even though she's constantly getting dirty.

[picchick]

[quote name='Autumn Dusk' post='1643531' date='Aug 31 2008, 06:10 PM']honey made my dog's ear stop bleeding (well honey and flour)....and it didn't get infected even though she's constantly getting dirty.[/quote]

I find that facinating! Just like in the National Geographic....awesomeness

[Cow of Shame]

[quote name='Innocent' post='1638928' date='Aug 26 2008, 07:48 PM']As I said before, I've heard a lot of anecdotal evidence for the effectiveness of Homeopathy,[/quote]

beware of anecdotal evidence

there's anecdotal evidence for the use of trepanning....

[Innocent]

Recently, someone I know, who's not supportive of homeopathy told me that religious people especially Catholics have a special obligation to not support a field like Homeopathy which openly contradicts the principles of Physics and Chemistry. The reason he gave for this was that any non-religious persons looking on from the outside would think, "These religious people accept that Homeopathy works without any thought about it's basic principles just because someone who studied Homeopathy and has the title of "Dr." tells them it works. So perhaps that's how religion works as well: They just accept what they are told blindly and hold on to it stubbornly, without even trying to understand what they believe or even to check if their beliefs are non-contradictory to common-sense."

Of course, we know that's not how our religion works. Our religion is faith seeking understanding. However, if the faithful don't use their reason and understanding in their ordinary lives, then it will give occasion for observers to think that reason has no place in religion. That was his point.

What do you say to this?

[Lilllabettt]

[quote name='Innocent' post='1720562' date='Dec 5 2008, 11:08 PM']However, if the faithful don't use their reason and understanding in their ordinary lives, then it will give occasion for observers to think that reason has no place in religion. That was his point.

What do you say to this?[/quote]

Chah. Well, if someone is going to use a Catholic's support of homeopathy as an excuse to dismiss the religion, then I think that person is really just looking for an excuse and would find one in the life of a Catholic he knows, whether or not that person supports homeopathy.

I personally do not believe in homeopathy, natural or alternative medicine. When I was sick I was stuffed full of "medical food." The guy who gave me this talk about this "manna tech" (weird name, no?) stuff told me how he'd never known it not to work. It was very pricey ... he said you could either pay for this medical food or for a funeral, your choice. Well, no, Mr. man, even if I take your fancy stuff, I will die eventually.

I took it for a year, needless to say, it didn't work. Then again, the "real" pscrip stuff didn't work for a long time either ...

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='Innocent' post='1635886' date='Aug 23 2008, 07:29 PM']The Debate Table needs some more esoteric topics. So, here's one:

There are many who claim that Homeopathy works based on anecdotal evidence.

So, what I'm asking is, can a person who considers himself bound by reason and logic support this field?

More importantly, does a Catholic have a moral obligation to dissuade his friends and family from using Homeopathic medicines, since a case could be made that there are connections between Homeopathic Theories and Freemasonry?[/quote]

I don't know of any connection between Homeopathic Theories and Freemasonry-I'm not aware of anything about this-could you explain? EDIT: NM, already addressed-I think there are people who correlate herbal meds w/ new age philosophy, which is objectionable to a Christian, not to mention ineffective medicinally. I haven't tried anything specifically homeopathic but I am definitely a big believer in "alternative" medicine (I find it funny that it's "alternative", since a lot of it has beginnings far older than modern Western medicine). I think much of it is safer, more effective and more in line with what God intended for us than a lot of standard medicine-I believe He put certain herbs and plants here for our medicinal use. I don't completely disbelieve in modern medicine, and I do take an antidepressant with good effect. However, I believe that a lot of drugs and their uses are questionable. In any case, I see nothing wrong with natural medicine, including homeopathy. -Katie

Edited December 6, 2008 by Tinkerlina

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='picchick' post='1638796' date='Aug 26 2008, 03:15 PM']Something to add which I think is totally awesome. This is from a June issue of National Geographic. As some of you may know, there is a rise of antibiotic resistent bacteria. MRSA, VRE, ESBL are just some of them. Doctors are starting to use a natural ingredient to help protect wounds from infection: HONEY! It is made from a special tree and is pretty potent. But what they do is they put it on gauze and then the gauze on the wound. Pretty neato to me

Meg[/quote]

I've heard that! At the nursing home I worked at, MRSA was constant. As was C-Diff. A HUGE problem was that, despite knowing that MRSA, VRE and C-Diff were caused/brought on/exacerbated by use of antibiotics, they just prescribed massive, ridiculously strong, liver trashing antibiotics over and over. In one case I saw a person's C-Diff clear up insanely fasts after, at the request of the person's daughter, she was given Acidophilous. So simple is sometimes best. -Katie

[Tinkerlina]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1636049' date='Aug 23 2008, 10:36 PM']My best story about herbal remedies comes from my birthday last March. I had read about the benefits of green tea. I hate the taste of the stuff most of the time. So I decided to try the GNC supplement. I had been taking it several months not knowing that the green tea supplements on the market are the equivalent of 720 cups of tea. My liver objected, got inflamed, caused other things to get inflamed, and tanked my immune system. I felt fine at the time.

For my birthday party, we did a hot dog bar. My mother was a caterer, so I'm a demon for making sure things are the right temperature, and I know that hot dogs can carry listeria on the outside and need to be 160 at least. I washed my hands carefully before reloading the steamer, but only wiped my hands off afterwards. So what normally wouldn't have bothered me, nailed me. I ended up in the ER with intense abdominal pains from food poisoning myself at my own party. I am hardly svelte, and I am a middle aged woman, so stomach pain, to the ER docs meant heart attack. They called in the cath lab people at 2am, and my husband called and woke up every priest he knew but the archbishop. They got in there, and my heart was healthy as an ox's, and everyone felt silly.

They took a week to figure out exactly what was wrong with me. My priest was half scared to death to come in my room because they made him gown and mask. He's from India, and must have thought I had bubonic plague or something. I tried to tell him that it was to protect me and my compromised immune system, and not him, but he didn't buy it.

So the moral of this story is to investigate anything you put in your mouth, and be sure to let your doctors know of anything you are taking. Had I not done so, they might not have figured out what the problem was, and no telling what kind of other test they might have run on me.[/quote]

Good story-I think a lot of the reason herbal medicine is scoffed at is because, like any drug, herbal medicines have interactions and can be misused. However, because they aren't as regulated, they are more likely to be misused than pharmaceutical drugs. -Katie

[Andreas E.]

Sounds like a lot of folks here are throwing naturopathy and homeopathy into the same pot. Naturopathy is the use of herbs, etc. (natural stuff) for medicinal purposes, as it always was until the advent of modern medicine. I'm not sure what to think of homeopathy. Sounds a little like alchemy to me.

Growing up in Germany, a lot of meds were (and are) still based on various herbs. Instead of taking Unisom to fall asleep, you take baldrian. I also took some sort of thistle "juice" for my allergies. And calcium tablets. When we had diarrhea as kids, we were given coal tablets and pretzel sticks. No pink pepto-bismol.

Too bad naturopathy is not generally covered here. My wife is on so many meds for various ailments, I sometimes wonder if her body will decompose when it his her time to go, with all the chemicals in it... (And no, I doubt that would be considered a miracle.)

[Innocent]

Just for clarification:

Please understand, dear posters in this thread, that the purpose of this discussion topic was to focus on Homeopathy alone, to the exclusion of all other herbal medicines and naturopathic medications.

There don't seem to be very strong grounds to hold that Homeopathy is something that draws upon the wisdom and experiences of ages past to use certain plants or minerals as medicine. It is a system created by a single man. It is an innovation, not an ancient traditional system of herbal medicine. Granted, it was started as a reaction against the primitive practices prevalent in the mainstream medicine of those days. (Bloodletting, etc.)

However, in most naturopathic medicines, there is a reasonable quantity of the medicines to chemically react within our body. With Homeopathic medicines, it is most likely that the medicines don't contain any molecules of the medicine at all, or if any, not sufficient for a major scale chemical reaction, within our body.

I did not start this thread to bash all forms of "alternative medicine." (These are just quotes with no implied meaning; they are not scare quotes.)

[i]EDIT: From my limited knowledge, the only form of alternative medicine that can be considered alongside Homeopathy in this discussion would be Bach Flower Therapies since they are based on similar concepts of the elan vital. [/i]

I am not, through this thread, supporting an attitude that only Allopathy is valid medicine. I don't say that plants should not be used as medicine. I'm not against nature remedies involving honey, tea-dust, herbal teas, garlic, onions, honey, and any other plant products.

Most articles on the net are either from Homeopathic websites claiming that Homeopathy works, or from skeptic websites attempting to disprove Homeopathy. Therefore I suggest that reading the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy#General_philosophy"][b]"General Philosophy"[/b][/url] section of the Homeopathy article in Wikipedia would give us a chance to get a picture of Homeopathy which can be relatively free from claims of unfair bias, since Wikipedia is open to being edited by both believers and unbelievers in Homeopathy.

Thanks for the interest in this topic. I would really like to examine this topic well from a Catholic standpoint and I am not able to find many other articles on the web that address Homeopathy from a Catholic standpoint.

Edited December 6, 2008 by Innocent