To ask whether or not people here believe in homeopathy - at the risk of floggin a dead horse...

[MistyB]

Winter: Homeopaths are not unqualified - they follow 3 or 4 year degree courses including anatomy and physiology.

Alistron1: The principle of Homeopathy has been known since the time of Hippocrates from Greece, the founder of medicine, around 450 BC.

I am tempted to answer the bottles falling on the floor question but feel that you would ridicule the answer in the way that the Spanish Inquisition determined that the theory that "the sun was imobile and at the centre of the universe" was "foolish and absurd".

There is no empirical proof that it works, ergo it is bunkum.

/thread.

No I don't believe. In my last job as an ITU nurse my consultant used to say when giving a last ditch treatment that clearly wasn't gonna work anyway "it's homeopathic really" and I must say I totally agree.

onagar - Conventional Doctors / Health professionals give actual bacteria to millions each year and in full blow epidemics - vaccinations?

Not how badly they thought - how badly the rest of the population actually fared.

You are making assumptions regarding the swarms of white coats and whether they explaines or not.

Gooseberry and others did not establish but merely proposed that Homeopathy works by the placeo effect when there are studies to show that Homeopathy out performs placebos.

My point about the NHS stats was merely to show that not all conventional medicine has swathes of evidence to support it. Some of the trials that "disprove" the effect of Homopathy, ignore some of the Homeopathic principles of case history, tailoring remedies to individuals, follow up consultations and dealing with changes in symptoms therefore invalidating the trial from a Homeopathic perspective. As someone above said, trials need to be well designed and executed and not all trial are.

I love this Mitchell and Webb sketch of a .

Why are taking case histories, tailoring remedies to individuals, follow up consultations and dealing with changes in symptoms exclusive to homeopathy? Seems like the principles of good conventional medicine to me, just let's leave out the mumbo-jumbo homeopathy.

The rules of homeopathy are that like treats like and the rule of dilution with the water having memory mumbo jumbo added in. Homeopaths had to add in all the rest because, surprise surprise, talking and listening to people does them the world of good.

My Mum does spiritual healing. She talks to people who are unwell for an hour and 'spiritually heals' them by moving her hands all over their bodies (without actually touching). Guess what - people feel better after she's treated them! Has she spiritually healed them? Or has she simply given people a chance to simply talk about their illnesses for an hour?

Of course homeopathy hasn't shown any effect beyond placebo. That would show that it works! Show me ANY meta-analysis or systematic review that finds an effect of homeopathy beyond the placebo. You won't because you can't.

Taylor MA, Reilly D, Llewellyn-Jones RH, et al. Randomised controlled trials of homoeopathy versus placebo in perennial allergic rhinitis with overview of four trial series. Br Med J 2000; 321: 471-6

Jacobs J, Jonas WB, Jimenez-Perez M, Crothers D. Homeopathy for childhood diarrhea: combined results and metaanalysis from three randomized, controlled clinical trials. Pediatr Infect Dis J 2003; 22: 229-34

Bornhoft G, Wolf U, Ammon K, et al. Effectiveness, safety and cost-effectiveness of homeopathy in general practice ? summarized health technology assessment. Forsch Komplementarmed 2006; 13 (2): 19-29

Barnes J, Resch K-L, Ernst E. Homeopathy for postoperative ileus? A meta-analysis. J Clin Gastroenterol 1997; 25: 628-33

Zell J, Connert WD, Mau J, Feuerstake G. Treatment of acute sprains of the ankle. Controlled double-blind trial to test the effectiveness of a homeopathic ointment. Fortschr Med 1988; 106: 96-100

Weatherley-Jones E, Nicholl JP, Thomas KJ, et al. A randomized, controlled, triple-blind trial of the efficacy of homeopathic treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome. J Psychosom Res 2004; 56: 189-97

Hello everyone, I am a fully qualified homeopath practitioner.

I would like to remind you not to pour your unused homeopathic medicines down the sink. They become intensively powerful and have been responsible for the deaths of local wildlife and aquatic species.

Please also be careful when drinking water from the tap. Did you know this water comes from purified and diluted sewage? You are drinking the most powerful sewage. Please buy Evian instead.

Cheers, HH

I like weak tea. Should I eat a teabag instead of pouring water on it?

If you do have any unused medicines, please return them to your nearest phamacy which sells homeopatic medicines. Please also return empty packaging and bottles. Do not rinse empty bottles, for the reasons written above.

Many thanks, HH

Panzee that sounds reasonable, but please if you do try tea with water, do not use powerful sewage from the tap.

HH

"The placebo effect only really works on non-specific symptoms. It can't cure cancer but can make people feel better."

If this is true there really must be something called homeopathic magic. Because people do more than "feel" better with homeopathic treatments: skin conditions improve visibly, tests show physiological improvement.

I think there's nothing more than placebo (sorry Misty): but that placebo is real and valuable and shouldn't be ridiculed.

You are right Gooseb, they should rename it 'placebo medicine', and cut out all the mumbo jumbo.

However this seems to be too difficult for some people to accept so they just carry on with the ridicule and simply can't move on from it.

And what would you tell the patient HH?

There is an ethical dilema, yes, in that the patient should believe they are being given treatment. However we know that the placebo effect is real and does make a difference for patients.

If we were to recognise this and provide sugar pills/water at negligible cost (not the inflated rates charged by homeopatic suppliers), I wonder if it would have a positive effect on wellbeing nationaly.

Does telling people that they are receiving a placebo still produce the effect?

Some ambiguity is tolerated apparently but I haven't seen a study of placebo use without any deception at all.

I think the homeopathic industry should be left alone.

f this is true there really must be something called homeopathic magic. Because people do more than "feel" better with homeopathic treatments: skin conditions improve visibly, tests show physiological improvement.

But a lot of skin complaints are caused by stress, so if they are pschological then, using psychology ie placebo will improve them.

it can yes. i posted a link (twice) for gooseberry on the previous thread that showed an old study where they told patients they were only getting pink sugar pills but still found a measurable improvement.

on phone so can't link again now.

Misty - have you read the comments by the editor on the Taylor article you linked to:
"Taylor et al come to the conclusion that their study of homoeopathy versus placebo in perennial allergic rhinitis ?has failed to confirm our original hypothesis that homeopathy is a placebo.?1 Unfortunately, the statistics do not prove that.
The basis for the study was a prestudy power calculation that required 120 patients to prove the hypothesis with a 5% significance and an 80% power.2 In fact, the authors only recruited 51 patients but analysed the results as if they had the required number. Their only conclusion was that they did not have enough data to make a conclusion.
If we accept the availability of only 51 patients at the outset, what are the relevant calculations? The power calculation is only 43%, and to maintain the power calculation at 80% the P value becomes 34%. The only conclusion is that the trial is not able to prove anything"

there was not much deception iirc the patients were told that some people found that the sugar pills helped.

Placebo effect is indeed real Gooseberry. It could be caused by a witchdoctor, spiritual healing, homeopathy or any plethora of mumbo jumbo. It could also be caused by a sugar pill. We know that - it's nothing new.

It doesn't prove that homeopathy works above and beyond a placebo effect.

I don't think it's limited to skin complaints. I'm sure we could find out.

Placebo is little understood but homeopathy is obviously quite a valuable delivery mechanism.

Jagyy, if this was the IBS study then it doesn't show what you think it does. Was it the IBS study?

I definitely read one study on that thread supposedly showing that placebo could work without deception. The study didn't show that at all. Maybe that was your study Jaggy. How did you get on with that thread? Good stuff isn't it. Full of gripping information.