Thoughts and Explanations?

[Golden Arms]

Saw this on Newscientist.com and thought it was cool. I am not really pro or against Homeopathy, just thought it was cool to show that sometimes things appear to work, regardless of if they can be explained or not. Thoughts?

Homeopathy reduces arsenic poisoning in mice
18:05 22 October 03
NewScientist.com news service

A homeopathic remedy based on arsenic oxide has shown "highly promising results" in mice poisoned with arsenic, say Indian scientists.

The homeopathic antidote reduced the liver toxicity induced by arsenic in mice, where distilled water did nothing, and alcohol actually exacerbated the poison's effects.

Anisur Khuda-Bukhsh and his colleagues at the University of Kalyani, West Bengal, believe the remedy, called Arsenicum Album, might provide a safe, cheap and easily available remedy for the hundreds of millions of people around the world who are at risk from arsenic-poisoned water. It is a particular problem in some parts of West Bengal and neighbouring Bangladesh. Even if efforts to make drinking water arsenic-free succeed, contamination could still come from other sources, the researchers say, meaning other approaches are needed.

Khuda-Bukhsh told New Scientist the homeopathic remedy "can very well ameliorate the toxicity produced by arsenic oxide in mice". If the success could be repeated in humans, it would be "a boon to society", he says. However, other scientists remain sceptical.


Serial dilution


The researchers took groups of five mice either with or without arsenic poisoning and drop fed them Arsenicum Album, distilled water, or alcohol that had been through the same preparation procedure as the homeopathic antidote.

Two different dilutions of the homeopathic remedy cut the levels of two liver enzymes - ALT and AST - which are indicators of liver toxicity and are boosted by arsenic poisoning. This positive effect occurred within 72 hours and liver lasted for up to 30 days, they report in their journal paper.

Distilled water had no effect on either enzyme. And alcohol actually enhanced the activity of AST.

Homeopathic remedies are based on the serial dilution of a medication - to the extent that extremely little, if any, of the original substance remains. Khuda-Bukhsh says the preparation used was so dilute that it should not have contained even one molecule of the active ingredient.

He says his team is striving to understand the mechanism of action of homeopathic drugs, which despite being used for over 200 years has remained elusive to science.


Water mark


A notion central to many advocates of homeopathy is that water could retain an imprint or "memory" of substances once dissolved in it.

This view cost one of France's top allergy researchers, Jacques Benveniste, his lab and funding after his results were discredited in 1988. Benveniste claimed in a Nature paper that a solution that had once contained antibodies still activated human white blood cells. But, other researchers failed to reproduce his experiments.




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Weblinks


Arsenic in drinking water, World Health Organization

Gescher's team, University of Leicester

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine




"It comes down to the same old dilemma," says Andreas Gescher, a biochemical toxicologist at Leicester University, UK. "This kind of study uses a dilution so high there is hardly anything there - philosophically it's the same as the Benveniste case. Is it really possible?"

Although Gescher told New Scientist he is "extremely sceptical", he adds that the study is interesting. Gescher is on the UK government's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency advisory board for the registration of homeopathic products, which checks the safety - but not the efficacy - of voluntarily registered products.

Khuda-Bukhsh's group aims to test the drug in human trials, subject to funding. "We think this would open up another avenue for others to either confirm or refute," he says.

Journal reference: BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine (vol 3, p 7)

[Tak]

What even makes this homeopathic? The fact that the "Arsenicum Album" is so diluted?

[Golden Arms]

What even makes this homeopathic? The fact that the "Arsenicum Album" is so diluted?

Khuda-Bukhsh says the preparation used was so dilute that it should not have contained even one molecule of the active ingredient

[Fu-Pow]

From skeptics dictionary:

One of the stranger tenets of homeopathy, proposed by Dr. Hahnemann himself, is that the potency of a remedy increases as the drug becomes more and more dilute. Some drugs are diluted so many times that they don't contain any molecules of the substance that was initially diluted, yet homeopaths claim that these are their most potent medications! It is not surprising to find that there is no explanation as to how this happens or is even possible, though some homeopaths have speculated that the water used to dilute a remedy has a "memory" of the initial substance.

Homeopathy's supporters point to clinical trials which indicate a homeopathic efficacy that cannot be explained by the placebo effect. Critics contend that such studies are poorly designed, methodologically biased, statistically flawed, etc. The known laws of physics and chemistry would have to be completely revamped if a tonic from which every molecule of the "active" ingredient were removed could be shown to nevertheless to be effective.

Homeopathic advocates give ardent testimonials to the curative powers of their remedies. How can so many case histories be dismissed? Easily: the "cures" are probably the result of (a) misdiagnosis (the patient wasn't cured since the disease it "cured" wasn't present); (b) spontaneous remission (the body healed itself) or (c) the placebo effect. The many testimonials given as proof that homeopathy "works" are of little value as empirical evidence for the effectiveness of homeopathic remedies. Even so, such "cures" are not meaningless. Left alone, the body often heals itself. And, unlike conventional medicine with its powerful drugs and antibiotics, the likelihood of an adverse reaction to a homeopathic remedy is remote. The main harm from homeopathy is not likely to come from its remedies, which are probably safe but ineffective. One potential danger is in the encouragement to self-diagnosis and treatment. Another is not getting proper treatment by a conventional medical doctor in those cases where the patient could be helped by such treatment, such as for a bladder or yeast infection, or for cancer.

In short, the main benefits of homeopathy seem to be that its remedies are not likely to cause harm in themselves, and they are generally inexpensive. The main drawbacks seem to be that its remedies are most likely inert and they require acceptance of metaphysical baggage incapable of scientific analysis. Homeopathy "works", just as astrology, biorhythms, chiropractic or conventional medicine, for that matter, "work": i.e., it has its satisfied customers. Homeopathy does not work, however, in the sense of explaining pathologies or their cures in a way which not only conforms with known facts but which promises to lead us to a greater understanding of the nature of health and disease.

[Serpent]

Just another example of how science is a young and incomplete method of explanation. There's a lot more to our world than that which science can explain.

[Merryprankster]

...Or alternately, it's yet another example of a fellow finding what he was looking for vice what was actually found.

FWIW, Science is a METHOD, a process...