Homeopathics

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I have on occasion used homeopathics and found a coinciding improvement in my symptoms. Now I accept the fact that around 45% of all healing can be attributed to placebo (this figure includes the placebo of a good client/practitioner relationship). However I have met people (my mother included) who swear by homeopathics and claim to have positive results when treating their pets. If true this means the only placebo effect is coming from a possible changed emotional state of the pets owner.

So IF (and I know it is a big if) homeopathics do actually have a non placebo effect HOW?

You leave out an important element.

Many "natural" or "homeopathic" remedies are criticized by doctors and corporations that make big money selling chemicals that really don't do that much better a job.

So, are you saying that anything other than formal prescription medication only works because of some placebo effect?

If so, you are proceeding on a false premise. Many natural remedies do work and are being denounced by "authorities" who really have dirty hands (either a conflict of interest in the outcome of their research or just being paid to flat out endorse one type of treatment over another).

After all, if a cure for cancer was available for about $20, who would economically benefit if the secret got out?

Grapefruit pectin is a big part of what keeps my arteries clear, but I do not know the actual "how" of that other than to say it is something that just does whatever it does. An interesting fact about prescription medications, however, is that nobody knows the actual "how" of many of them! Rather, many medications just seem to do something, then they get marketed as ways to do whatever they seem to do at least a large part of the time.

I don't know what to make of those homoeopathic remedies that are 100% pure distilled water. They can only work by placebo effect since there are no active ingredients. A major pharmacy company in England that sells them acknowledge they sell them because people want to buy them and it is "money for nothing" for the company.

Homeopathic drugs are nothing but a scam. They literally are nothing but distilled water.

Lots of people, actually. Having people sick and dying is bad for the economy. Besides that, you really overestimate the greed of the medical profession.

This is my point, for those who do not understand the theory of homoeopathic remedies, basically you take a substance that if ingested in its whole form would cause a reaction, you then mix this with water, and use a procedure that basically shakes and dilutes this mixture until there is nothing left but water. this mixture is then used as the therapeutic dose, the effect of which is purported to be antithesis of the original ingredient.

Proponents of this practice believe that there is an energy transfer going on. The scientific view is that any healing effect can only be caused by placebo, others like my mother (a retired MD) say that the ability for these treatments to work on animals proves that the effect is not purely placebo.

What i am wondering IF the likes of my dear old mum are correct what the heck is going on. Could quantum physics eventually explain this or is homoeopathy just a lingering example of quackery

@ lee I fully accept the efficacy of some herbal and plant medicine, in many cases (especially chronic disease) traditional medicine is a great alternative to the contemporary paradigm

I think you express it well as lingering quackery - certainly when it is 100% pure distilled water i.e. some active ingredient diluted to the point that there isn't even a single active molecule left in the medicine.

Also agree about the herbs, some are good some are bad. A mixture of old wives tales and anecdotal evidence, some of which is true and some wishful thinking. I think there needs to be more research into herbal medicines to sort the wheat from the chaff so to speak. However, it is unlikely the medical companies would put much money into plant research for medicines that would be effectively free.

The problem is that such people do not know, or conveniently forgot, or just ignore the water cycle.

Any water you ingest is diluted dirty poop water. And polluted with chemicals. Its been through the cow. Then the cow crapped in it. And all the seagulls.

Not good enough? well, its been through plants too. So your diluted willow tree water now contains the antithesis of the original source of aspirin.

Shouldnt you get a headache then? Its the antithesis.

and its dilute Valerian root water too. A mild sedative? So you get the opposite effect. You can blame your insomnia on that! Oh you dont have insomnia? Guess that homeopathy isnt working, is it?

What about salt water? Whats the antithesis effect of that? Well, when you leach all the salt out a persons body, it screws their body chemistry and they die. You know we need electrolytes to function, right?

But congratulations Dent. You've finally found religion. Against all common sense and scientific knowledge, you have chosen to rely on faith, belief, someones lies, and woo woo cures.

See you in church.

First, it is very simplistic to draw that conclusion for anything. It is a deduction you would expect from a medieval scientist not today.

Secondly, it isn't exactly clear what constitutes and 'opposite' reaction in many cases.

Thirdly, we are already consuming these elements in trace amounts. There is little consistency at that scale, especially not with the manufacturing method employed. It isn't viable to produce the same solution twice at that scale, as contaminants would easily dominate. So you are paying for distilled water you have little control over the makeup. Also the half life of many elements could be extremely short.

Fourthly, there isn’t evidence that these elements will go to where they are supposed to in the body and how they would interact with natural barriers, such as mucus membrane, etc.

I thank you, and please excuse the ring.

Medical doctors are often lacking in their theoretical knowledge. They're basically mechanics for the human body. You wouldn't expect your local auto mechanic to understand the physics of an internal combustion engine, would you?

Lets go at it the opposite way, shall we? And lets start small.

1 drop of h2o. No other atoms in it but hydrogen and oxygen. One drop of water as measured from a dropper is about 50 micrograms, with a mass of 50 milligrams. Pretty small. The molecule H20 masses at 18.015 grams per mole. A mole has 6.022 x 10^23 molecules according to (Avogadros number). So 50 milligrams has 1.67 x 10^21 millimoles of H2O molecules.

So lets say you have a cup(250 ml) of this pure water. How many drops? 20 drops of water make 1 millilitre, and we have 250, so 5000 drops of water. Or 8.350 * 10 ^27 molecules.

Let us say that we take out(or leave out) 1 drop of water and put 50 micrograms of sodium chloride in instead.

The molecular weight of that is 58.443 grams per mole. 6.022 X 10^23 = 339.899746 x 10^23 molecules per milligram. Or 1.76106292 x 10 ^ 27 molecules per drop. Roughly 1.761 * 10^ 27 / 8.350 * 10 ^ 27 = 0.212168675 * 10^27 molecules of salt per drop of H2O.

In fact, I just tested it and you can taste that much salt in a cup compared to an unsalted cup of water.

Let me write that out for you.

212 168 675 000 000 000 000 000 000 molecules of salt per droplet of water.

So I see that they do purifications up to the sixth degree. That is a division into 99 parts water each time. So I drop two zeros six times, or 12 zeros, right?

212 168 675 000 000. Still in the Trillions.

How many cups of water have they produced at the sixth purification? We just add the zeros back in.

1 000 000 000 000. Nice. Do they really use that much water? Do they purify it even more? Do you approve? And thats for each and every formulation(of which there are 1000s), which still isnt pure. No sympathetic water here folks.

Do they charge one dollar per cup of that stuff? More? Where's the money Lebowski?

Basically, to get one cup of water that has only one molecule of salt(let alone none) you would need to mix it with trillions(more than 212) of cups of water. Trillions. Just to get purify away one drop of sodium chloride. It would be a lottery against you(or someone) that they dont get properly purified woo. I mean water.

You could not not mix that droplet of salt into a swimming pool of H2O and expect to take a sample with no salt. Do you think they use that much water for each and every formula? Do you approve of that much waste if you do?

Are their claims starting to stink yet?

But I am just being polite, mostly because I couldnt find the molecular weight of dog CRAP. Tell Stan I said hi, and poop where ever he likes. It doesnt matter. The fact is you are drinking it. We all are, regardless of the claims of the homoeopaths.

From what I have heard, homeopathics do a better job than Big Pharma drugs.

If true, that probably says more against big pharma drugs than it says in favor of homeopathics.

I dunno about 'natural' remedies. But homeopathic remedies are utter bull. They are so dilluted that they are just WATER. No, not more than water. You'll be as fine drinking holy water if you want.

An argument like "Evil people criticize it" does not weight.

Of course, there is always a possibility all the patient needed was just more hydration. Or that the disease was causing dehydration which was weakening the immune system. There is also the placebo effect and the 'this homeopathic chick is kind instead of a robot like my MD I feel comfortable!" effect... There is also the "complete coincidence" effect. This is likely to be the explanation for the cat/dog cases.

No, homeopathy working is simply not possible, not possible at all. The mere thought that it could be true shows complete lack of scientific knowledge. There are not enough non-H2O molecules in a standard homeopathy dillution for it to be considered not water. We are talking about a low probability there would be a single molecule at all in a whole vial!



The OP never said that.



Listen dude. Most drugs are natural or had a natural origin. Of course, since traditional medicine is actually subject to standards, you need to add evil non-natural conservants to them. You have to actually test them for safety and effectiveness, plus you have to pay every body in that chain of development.

If you want big pharma to make drugs cheaper, start by not suing them whenever anything bad happens, and also demand that there was no testing at all. Also make it so it didn't matter if the stuff were rotten when delivering. That would reduce a lot of costs, since it will allow big pharma to sell basically anything at all to just take some herb and call it miraculous and sell it! - Of course, that's exactly what the natural remedies crew does!

When natural remedies work. Big pharma makes them go through all the evil testing and stuff that increases costs and SELLS IT TO YOU! Big pharma is not interested at all in stopping the development of natural drugs. They would love to sell you more things.




If I could sell it at 20$ and call it also a preventive measure I would become a trillonaire. So? I would arguably win more money than trying to sell it for billions to all 10 millionaires that could pay them.


quantum physics wouldn't explain it anymore than it explains a cat.

I was turned my lights on , then there was a car accident 2 streets ahead. This proves that turning my lights on causes car accidents.

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They are certainly more profitable than big pharma drugs. At least big pharma has to do actual work to develop the drugs. I wish I were a homeopath, just put some water in some vials and call them miraculous treatment!

Not like it was such an original idea, Catholics were doing that since the 5-th century...

Last edited by Vexcalibur on 27 Nov 2009, 1:02 am, edited 4 times in total.

What do you mean by "available for about $20"? I would expect a patent, or even the use of that knowledge as some form of means to get something(advertisement maybe?). In any case, the problem with any kind of conspiracy is the ability to defect. I mean, one has to trust everyone who knows to care so little about cancer deaths, personal prestige, and so on that they would keep the secret hidden until the day they die(not even telling people on their death bed). Someone is likely to defect, even if out of the fear that another person will defect first and make the other conspirators look bad.