The benefits of homeopathy questioned (again)
Back in the 1847, the American Medical Association (the AMA) was created by Dr. Nathan Smith Davis in an attempt to elevate the practice of medicine. At this time, medicine was dominated by two major schools of thought: the allopaths and the homeopaths. Dr. Davis was an allopath. It has been argued that the AMA was created to, among other things, discredit the homeopathic school of medicine. In this respect it was highly successful given that if you go to a doctor today, you aren’t given homeopathic remedies, you are given allopathic treatments.
Allopathy, in a nutshell, is the practice of combating illness with opposites. If you have an infection, you are given an antibiotic. If you have cancer, you receive radiation or chemotherapy to kill the cancerous cells. Largely, these treatments work: people have longer life spans today than they did 100 or 200 years ago. We’ve come a long way in the study of medicine, but there are some things that medicine simply has no answer for. Or if there is an answer, it is not an optimal way of dealing with a medical condition. Witness things like oral steroids like prednisone and Medrol. Long-term use of these types of medications is not healthy, and often the side effects can be worse than the condition they’re being used to treat. The same is true of the myriad irritable bowel diseases like Crohn’s disease, various forms of colitis, etc: these diseases don’t have treatments that are especially effective without doing drastic things like suppressing the immune system or removing parts of the intestines.
For a long time, there has been an “alternative” movement in medicine. It has become popular in recent years, and the fact is, this school of thought has been around for quite a long time. These natural remedies are often looked down on by those in the medical profession, especially doctors. I think this is a mistake, for a number of reasons that I will expound upon in a moment. First, I want to explain the principle behind homeopathy.
Homeopathy essentially amounts to taking a substance that would normally cause irritation in the body, and diluting it many times over. The idea is that by diluting the substance and then introducing this diluted solution into the body, the body will be able to effectively combat whatever illness or irritant is ailing you. Basically, fighting like with like. This is the exact opposite of the traditional allopathic medicine that is mainstream today.
One of the allopaths’ arguments against homeopathy is that the substance is diluted so much, all that’s left is water. Contrary to “real” science, water molecules cannot “absorb” the properties of an irritant and still be water. It would be a water + something else solution. But all that’s present is this water, there is nothing else. So what you’ve got from a chemical point of view is water being used to treat everything from poison ivy to stomach cancer.
I stated in the very first post here on polyscience.org that I was a pharmacy student. As such, most of my schooling is done on the allopathic side of things. We study the drugs that are used today. Slowly, though, the curriculum is changing; we’re learning about herbs and probiotics and even homeopathy. In general, I prefer a good allopathic remedy that I know is going to work, but I hesitate to question the efficacy of alternative therapies for many reasons. Perhaps the most blindingly obvious one is that doctors, pharmacists, and even the drug companies simply don’t know why some drugs work. This is usually due to an incomplete understanding of the specific physiology underlying the body process that we’re trying to alter. It would seem reasonable to me, then, to not dismiss alternative medicines and therapies out of hand. One of these is homeopathy, despite it not making “scientific” sense. Relegated to the ignoble position of “placebo,” subject to ridicule from layperson and medical professional alike. But something being deemed “placebo” isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Any medical professional worth his salt will tell you that getting better is often simply a state of mind. “Simply,” of course, being anything but simple. Twenty years ago, it was not uncommon for a doctor to literally write a prescription for a placebo. The patient would then take this prescription to the pharmacy where it would be filled. The capsules dispensed were usually filled with lactose — a filling agent used to fill the extra space in a capsule for a custom-compounded medication. And the patients were happy, and usually got better. Not all the time, of course, but most of the time.
This brings me to the catalyst for this post. The Lancet is probably the most prestigious medical journal in the world, and recently they’ve once again shot down the benefits of homeopathic therapy. They might be right,I don’t know; it’s impossible to know, and the researchers have even acknowledged this.
Professor Egger said: “We acknowledge to prove a negative is impossible.
“But good large studies of homeopathy do not show a difference between the placebo and the homeopathic remedy, whereas in the case of conventional medicines you still see an effect.”
What I do know, however, is that given our incomplete understanding of the human body, dismissing all alternative therapies out of hand is a mistake, and I think that over the next 100 years, we allopaths will discover this. I’m not saying that homeopathy is effective or if it’s “just” the placebo effect, but I do think that we should continue to investigate “alternative” therapies — homeopathy included, even if it’s just to disprove their efficacy. Disproving something definitively is never a waste of time or money.
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Congratulations on becoming a skeptic! I think the main problem is that there are not enough skeptics in the medical (and many other) professions. Skeptic in the true sense of the word, not the twisted and diluted common usage. A skeptic denies a position of having certain knowledge, a state of being which seems anathema to many professionals. These professionals may feel that those who come to them for their expert opinions may be put off by the statement “We don’t know for sure one way or the other.” I think we’d be much better off if professionals of a multitude of disciplines were willing to be true skeptics, especially about their own areas of expertise.
Comment by Mike — August 26, 2005 @ 6:39 pm
I would have to agree with you; I think the medical profession is especially bad in this respect. The issue being that much of the medical profession’s power comes from the way patients see them: omniscient, nearly omnipotent beings. This is where the placebo effect derives much of its power, actually.
I really should write something on the placebo effect — I did quite a bit of research on it a few years ago. There’s quite a bit of ignorance surrounding the phenomenon, and I think it’d be better if there was more education on the topic. It’s really a whole network of subtleties that adds up to a cohesive, healing whole than anything else. It’s often not like docs are trying to pull the wool over a patient’s eyes (most of the time).
Anyway, I really strayed on that one. I agree with you, and I’ve always been a skeptic about things. I think anyone who thinks their knowledge is perfect and complete (on any subject) has another thing coming to them sooner or later.
Comment by Rian — August 26, 2005 @ 6:47 pm
Allopaths treat humans like they are test tubes; passive and without life of its own.
What works in a test tube might not be the same in a human, given that the human body is dynamic and have a tendency to heal itself. Thus the job of any medication is to help the body with its effort and not interfere with the process.
Thats why you have different side effects for different people taking the same allopathic medicines.
Comment by Jem — September 20, 2005 @ 12:51 am
That’s a simplistic way of looking at things and simply isn’t true in all cases.
Comment by Rian — September 20, 2005 @ 7:59 am