To ask whether or not people here believe in homeopathy?

[DaisyLovesMetronidazole]

I don't at all.

However, I'm not out for a bunfight!

Just curious, as was surprised by the response of a certain group to this question today.

I am unsure about it. My GP, who I really respected - and is now retired - often gave me homeopathic pills for hayfever and gave my DD arnica pills for something I can't remember. So I'm a bit about it.

If it is the placebo effect, and by taking what looks like a few sweetex my brain can convince itself I'm all better, that can only be a good thing. Recovery without drugs? That's actually OK with me.

I blardy well hope water hasn't got a memory as homeopaths claim. Just think where's it's been.

OMG , we're drinking homeopathic piss!

I'm feeling quite poor. Instead of buying any more ludicrously overpriced sachets of Whiskers cat food, I am going to hold the empty packet against their water bowl and give it a few taps. I'll let you know how we get on.

xkcd.com/765/

Says it all really :)

no it is bollocks

as numerous studies have proved

but the placebo effect can be fairly strong

I don't think arnica and St johns wort etc can be classed as 'homeopathic'. they are real things with real ingrediants.

hairfull, there are two problems with your statement.

1 - You have no evidence that the homeopathy actually helped your babies. Sometimes they just get better.
2 - The placebo effect also works when the carer believes the treatment will work even if the patient is too young to make a judgement because the carer behaves differently. You will have treated your babies differently when they were ill (more cuddles, kinder words etc). This is why good medical trials are "double blind", meaning that neither the person giving the treatment nor the person receiving the treatment know if they are getting the active medicine or a placebo.

Homeopathy treatments contain no active ingredient and the mechanism by which they are claimed to work is complete and utter nonsense. It has been around since 1796 so if this mechanism was scientifically plausible then someone would have worked it out by now. Any successes claimed by homeopathic practitioners are due to the placebo effect, which demonstrates the power of the human mind and body to heal itself. Many scientific studies have looked at homeopathy and none of them have found any evidence that it works, other than by the placebo effect.

A recent report by the Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee looked at homeopathy and took evidence from both sides of the argument. They decided that homeopathy is not efficacious and not scientifically plausible. They also recommended that the NHS no longer fund homeopathic treatment - www.nhh.org.uk/download.cfm?type=document&document=1261

This is a good overview of the possible reasons that homeopathy may seem to work.

Not just placebo. Regression to the mean (for example, that you might just have started feeling better anyway) and confirmation bias (wishful thinking basically) also explain why homeopathy may seem to work.

Arnica pills are homeopathic. Arnica cream has an active ingredient.

Yourcall is absolutely right. Placebo alone makes it worthwhile.

Thanks, thats the paper i was referring to. CBA looking for it as Im sick of sifting

Spero, arnica cream (not pills) and St John's Wort are not homeopathic treatments. They are herbal treatments and do contains active ingredients. St John's Wort in particular is a strong pharmecutical and should be taken with the same care you'd take any drug.

Do you mean does it have an effect attributable to the suger and water pills or that it's an effective placebo for making people feel better?

There's a big difference between homeopathy (no active ingredients) and herbal/natural remedies in proper doses.

Yes, come on jelly, I asked you a while back to clarify exactly what it was that homeopathy 'cured' in your pets.

I mean, I don't do it. I don't see how it can work, except by placebo. But I think it's incredibly valuable because of its placebo effect. When you look at the number of people killed or made ill by conventional drugs you just think, gosh absolutely. Even if it is just sugar and water.

Yes, nocake, that is what I was pointing out to another poster who seemed to think arnica was homeopathic. Anything with an active ingrediant cannot be homepathic, as I understand homeopathy.

Homeopathic arnica and arnica are two completely different things. For a start only one of them contains any arnica.

The other has a "memory" of arnica held in water. Except of course that many homeopathic remedies are in the form of a sugar pill. Which doesn't contain any water .

The placebo effect in homeopathy is NOT "worth it" as people are being seriously ripped off. Its dishonest.

Surely there is a problem if many GPs think it is a placebo effect, so prescribe homeopathic treatments to people who they think are just using up their time. But in fact those people (or their children, as it often seems to be mothers who are viewed as the time wasters - hence the euphemism on patient's notes - 'parent reassured') have something actually wrong with them that needs treatment, but they have been brushed off with a placebo and develop further problems as they haven't been dealt with appropriately.

I would rather be prescribed nothing, and told to keep an eye out for further symptoms or symptoms not going away, rather than mask what be a serious problem by me or my child experiencing a placebo effect.

Lynette - do you mean teething powders that are very sweet/sugar? I believe sugar has been shown to relieve pain in babies - no molecule memory of chamomile necessary.

Especially people turn to it if they've exhausted other options. I should think it kills fewer people than anti-depressants alone, never mind the whole pharmaceutical rainbow of drugs.

I'm with Ben Goldacre. I don't think homeopathy is valuable, even for the much vaunted placebo affect because it seems to allow otherwise intelligent adults to talk absolute unmitigated shite and ignore the last 100 years of scientific development.