Homeopathy as a Bone of Contention - Coursework Example

Homeopathy as a bone of contention Introduction Homeopathy is a bone of contention for the modern scientists. It is so because homeopathy does notfollow any of the theories on which the modern world of physics runs. First of all, homeopathy claims that the more diluted a solution is, the stronger it will be. Secondly, homeopathy made the seemingly bizarre claim of ‘similars’. Thus, though homeopathic medicines became popular because of the total absence of side effects and the general feeling of wellbeing, scientists and the advocates of conventional medicine are highly skeptical. Homeopathy and clinical trials- a story of success One allegation against homoeopathy is that homoeopathy is placebo. However, there are studies which show that the placebo effect in homeopathy is not more than the placebo effect in conventional medicine. To illustrate, Nuhn et al (2010) conducted a systematic literature review on placebo-controlled double blind RCTs on classical homeopathy. Each of those trials was then compared with three placebo-controlled double-blind RCTs from conventional medicine. The matching criteria included were the choice of outcome parameter, treatment duration, and the severity of complaints (ibid). The study took into account 35 RCTs on classical homeopathy and compared with matching conventional trials. The study made the stunning revelation that the placebo effect of homeopathic trials was larger than the average placebo effect of conventional medicine in 13 matched sets. However, in 12 of the sets, homeopathic trials had lower average placebo effect than the conventional trials. Also, a significant difference in placebo effect was not visible in any of the cases (ibid). Thus, it becomes evident that the allegation that homeopathy is based on placebo effect is baseless. At least homeopathy is no guiltier than the conventional medicine is. In another groundbreaking study, Linde et al (1997) looked into 89 homeopathic placebo-controlled medicine trials. The study found that the overall odds ration was 2.45 in favor of homeopathy. In other words, using homeopathy has 2.45 times higher chances of benefit than using placebo; and thus, the study reached the conclusion that effectiveness of homeopathy is not fully due to placebo (ibid). Thus, one gains the insight that though homeopathy might have some placebo effect, the same is not considerably higher than that of conventional medicine. In order to counter the allegation that homeopathic medicine is not as effective as conventional medicine, it becomes necessary to report the study by Riley et al (2001). It was an elaborate study which included 30 investigators, 6 clinics, 4 countries, and 456 patients who suffered from upper respiratory allergies, lower respiratory allergies, or ear disorders. The people were divided into two groups and one group was prescribed homeopathic medicines and the other group was prescribed standard medical treatment. The outcome measures included speed of recovery, rate of side effects, level of general satisfaction, and length of consultation. While 67% of those who received homeopathic treatment recovered in 3 days, only 57% in the other group recovered in the same period (ibid). In addition, it was found that while the side effect rate for those who received homeopathy medicine was just 8%, the same was 22% for those who received conventional medicine. Furthermore, it was observed in the study that as against the 79% satisfied patients who received homeopathic treatment, conventional medicine could only satisfy 65% of the patients (ibid). In order to prove that most patients who take homeopathic treatment get positive outcome, the study by Sevar (2000) seems useful. The study analyzed the patient files of nearly 829 patients at a single homeopathic clinic consecutively. It was found that out of the patients surveyed, more than 61% enjoyed considerable improvement in their condition (ibid). Another study by Sever (2005) proves that homeopathic is useful even in such cases which are not successfully treated by the orthodox medicine. The study took into account the history of nearly 455 consecutive patients who had the history of unsuccessful treatment under orthodox medicine (ibid). Out of them, 67% found positive effect from homeopathic treatment and nearly 33% could totally stop or reduce the use of pharmaceutical drug therapy (ibid). In the same line, another study appeared in the year 2004, which showed that most of the people who resort to homeopathic treatment after getting unsuccessfully treated using conventional drugs feel satisfaction in homeopathic treatment. In the study, while 89% patients who adopted homeopathy giving up conventional medicine expressed satisfaction, only 13% opined that the previous conventional medicine was more satisfactory. One can provide enough proof to show that homeopathy is better than conventional medicine in terms of factors like outcome and costs. Witt et al (2005) conducted a study among 493 patients in Germany to compare orthodox medical treatment with homeopathy. The patients selected fro the study suffered from range of diseases including headache, lower back pain, insomnia, depression, bronchial asthma, atopic dermatitis, and allergic rhinitis (ibid). Information was collected after 6 months and 12 months of the treatment. It was found that those who had homeopathic treatment received a greater level of improvement than those who adopted orthodox medicine (ibid). Homeopathy and science – an area of relentless conflict Another important allegation is that homeopathy does not follow any of the rules of physics. According to people like Ramey et al (n.d), the tradition adopted by Hahnemann was as old as the earliest speculations in medical history. It is pointed out that “The causes of our maladies cannot be material, since the least foreign material substance, however mild it may appear to us, if introduced into our blood vessels, is promptly ejected by the vital force, as though it were a poison…no disease, in a word, is caused by any material substance, but that every one is only and always a peculiar, virtual, dynamic derangement of the health” (Hahnemann, 1960, p. 10). Thus, according to homeopathy, it is more important to pay attention to the symptoms of an illness than paying attention to the external cause o the disease. According to modern science, more awkward is the ‘Principle of Similars’ which claims that if a substance produces a particular symptom in a healthy person, the same substance can be used in an ill person to treat that symptom. Also, there is the concept of ‘infinitesimal dilutions’ which claims that the more diluted a solution is, the stronger it will be. Admittedly, this claim goes in sharp contradiction with the modern physics. However, there are people like Close (2000) who point out that modern physics is not against potentiation and infinitesimal dose. When Hahnemann first introduced the concept that extremely small doses are more powerful, there was wide spread criticism, and even today, many people love believing so. However, according to people like Close (2000), this concept of infinitesimal dose has its foundations in the scientific theories of conservation of energy and indestructibility of matter. First of all, according to the concept of ‘conservation of energy’, the sum total of the energy in the university is neither reduced nor increased, though it can be converted from one form to another. Similarly, the principle of conservation of matter points out that a substance is indestructible though it can undergo innumerable transformations and permutations in its component elements. Moreover, it is possible to argue mathematically that the division of a substance will never reach such a stage where further sub-division is impossible. Thus, even though a matter is divided so finely, it will still retain some of the original substance and some of its powers and qualities. Thus, Hahnemann taught his people that the effect of homeopathic does can be increased by further increasing the quantity of liquid in which the medicine is dissolved. At this juncture, modern physics raises an alarm because according to the traditional wisdom, when more water is added to a dilution, the dissolved molecules simply spread throughout the water evenly and the solution gets further diluted. However, latest researches prove that the modern physics itself is not still certain about what it claims. To illustrate, Barrett (2001) writes about an article named ‘Homeopathy is not all hokum’ published in New Scientist Magazine website. In the said article, a study by a team of South Korean scientists is revealed. It was found in the study that as against the conventional physics that adding more water to a dilution will result in the dissolved substance molecules spreading further and further away in the solution, some molecules tend to clump together first in the form of clusters of molecules and then as bigger aggregates of those clusters (ibid). Thus, in some dilutions, adding more water results in getting closer to each other instead of drifting apart from each other (ibid). Thus, modern physics is itself in a dilemma as to what to do with its own concepts of dilution. Though the writer was intended to show that this study is against homeopathic theories, he had to acknowledge, though indirectly, that physics is still not certain about what happens when substances are diluted infinitesimally. As already discussed in the first section, there are a large number of clinical trials which prove that the effectiveness of homeopathy is much higher than that of placebo. Also, it was found that the placebo effect of homeopathy is not higher than that of conventional medicine. So, here, it is necessary to further look into the physical experiments which deal with dilutions in homeopathy which are the victims of considerable criticism. The main allegation of the conventional science is that if a substance is diluted beyond Avogadro’s number, it will lose the ability to have biological activity. However, Johnson & Boon (2007) point out that according to latest researches, the use of extremely dilute solutions is not as implausible as the critics claimed. In one study, Becker-Witt et al (2003) examined the capacity of the homeopathic preparations to change the physical properties of solvents. When the researchers looked into 44 published papers in the area, it was found that 38 of the papers claimed a positive result. Admittedly, there are various hypotheses on how the dilute homeopathic solutions might retain their original properties. Some of them are clathrates, the unique structure of water, hormesis, electromagnetic frequency, and the energy retained in the solution, which can be transmitted. The idea of clathrates, or small water clusters, was proposed by Anagnostatos et al. The medicinal properties of homeopathic dilutions are transferred to such ‘vehicle’ solvent. The clathrates are capable of self-production during the dilution process. In addition, there is hormesis which is also known as Arndt-Shulz Law. This law points out that even small amounts of potentially toxic substances have a stimulatory effect. Supporting this claim, Stebbing (1982) revealed through his study that very small amounts of highly toxic substances can stimulate the growth and recovery of taxa. In another significant study, Kurt Geckler and Shashadhar Samal proved that when particles are dissolved in a polar solvent, they tend cluster into aggregates which are 5 to 10 times bigger than the ones in the original solution (cited in Johnson and Boon 2007). Thus, it becomes clear that the conventional wisdom regarding solutions and dilutions is not a water-tight compartment. Also, one can argue that diluting homeopathic remedy may actually increase the size of the particles, making them biologically active. The next important area is the biological experiments. Admittedly, there are many studies which claimed that the highly diluted homeopathic medications have no biological effects. However, there are a large number of high-quality studies which show that the solutions are biologically active. For example, the study by Davenas et al (1988) proved that highly diluted solutions of anti-IgE could trigger basophils degranulation through the release of histamine at a rate of 40%-60%. Admittedly, this was not a single study in this connection. As lately as in 2004, Belon et al (2004) conducted the same study and came up with positive results. Lastly, there is the study by Weigant et al (1997) which proved that administering homeopathic preparation of arsenic trioxide orally could save mice from the negative impact of one injection of arsenic trioxide on proteins, enzymes, DNA and RNA. Discussion and conclusion In total, it becomes evident that conventional medicine and the science field have been prejudiced against homeopathy because of the seemingly bizarre principles it adopted. However, studies prove that clinical trials are largely in favor of homeopathy. Also, it has been proved that the placebo effect of homeopathy is not more than that of conventional medicine. Furthermore, the theories physics have not adequately understood what happens when things are divided infinitesimally. However, there are various quality studies which proved beyond doubt that the highly diluted solutions are biologically active. Now, it is for the critics to look back into their theories of physics and make necessary modifications. 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