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Alternative Medicine: Homeopathy

ramonmercado said:
Anti-depressants don't work for some people, sometimes you have to try different varieties. I accept they didn't work for you. They certainly work for me though and for millions of other people, helping us to function at a higher level than would otherwise be possible.
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I've been through the whole gamut on this. I entirely accept that everyone is an individual, but for me the anti-depressants actually made me more depressed, indeed deeply detached and irrational. I look back on some of the things I did and said while I was on them with shock and embarrassment. There needs to be much closer follow up on those who are prescribed these drugs which after all are mind-altering.

EnolaGaia said:
Any of these approaches (as well as "scientific" medicine) can induce a placebo effect. Whether or not a beneficial outcome counts as a placebo effect depends on whether the decisive intervention affects the real cause of the malaise.
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But presumably physical and neural effects/causes can be measured and identified? So we should know for a fact whether the alternative approaches can help or not in those cases (I think not, if that's not clear from my earlier posting).
 
Cochise said:
... But presumably physical and neural effects/causes can be measured and identified? So we should know for a fact whether the alternative approaches can help or not in those cases (I think not, if that's not clear from my earlier posting).
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Maybe so; maybe no ... Consider the example of pain management. Pain is a subjective sensation whose presence, frequency and / or intensity can be affected by the sensory, emotional and / or psychological processes by which it's manifested and engaged. The involvement of these functional (as contrasted with strictly physical / physiological) factors undermines the level of confidence one can have with the accuracy and reliability of physical measurements.
 
In Frozen 2 Olaf claims water has a memory. Doh!

On second thought, perhaps that means Olaf is not a snow golem but rather something akin to a water T-1000, with his programming in the water.
 
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We should not discount the power of belief, I mean the placebo effect has not be explained, perhaps somewhere hard wired into us we have the ability to cure ourselves, perhaps it's like one of those features that by default is turned off for whatever reason
 
A friend of mine was depressed and took an underdose of homeopathic remedy. We had to use the weakest antidote available to save him.

That said, just because the ritualistic element is clearly nonsense, and the explanation about molecule memory has no basis in our current scientific understanding of molecules, that does not mean that homeopathy itself is clearly always false.

It is at least plausible that very small doses of some poisons could have a beneficial effect. I am not saying they do, but it is plausible.

However, when the dilution is so small that the "active ingredient" is non existent, I see it as superstition rather than medicine.

By the mathematical logic of homeopathy, every drop of water in the world has the "memory" or "vibrations " of every disease and every cure!
 
Robbrent said:
We should not discount the power of belief, I mean the placebo effect has not be explained, perhaps somewhere hard wired into us we have the ability to cure ourselves, perhaps it's like one of those features that by default is turned off for whatever reason
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I was thinking about this the other day when looking at a packet of tea MrsF had bought that proclaims it helps relax you/helps you sleep etc.

She mentioned how she had watched a programme where people were given alcohol free drinks but weren't told this and yet they were all 'drunk' after a short while.

If a well renowned Dr gave you a glass of liquid that was just coloured water and said you'll be high as a kite if you drink this, I wonder how many people would indeed experience an high?
 
Yup. I've only got to read the leaflet from a box of anti-depressants to believe that I'll be the sole recipient of a Brazilian Lumbago Cardiac Arrest side-effect.
 
Floyd1 said:
I was thinking about this the other day when looking at a packet of tea MrsF had bought that proclaims it helps relax you/helps you sleep etc.

She mentioned how she had watched a programme where people were given alcohol free drinks but weren't told this and yet they were all 'drunk' after a short while.

If a well renowned Dr gave you a glass of liquid that was just coloured water and said you'll be high as a kite if you drink this, I wonder how many people would indeed experience an high?
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I know from my own experience that drinking alcohol free beer can in certain circumstances make me feel a little bit drunk
 
Mikefule said:
A friend of mine was depressed and took an underdose of homeopathic remedy. We had to use the weakest antidote available to save him.

That said, just because the ritualistic element is clearly nonsense, and the explanation about molecule memory has no basis in our current scientific understanding of molecules, that does not mean that homeopathy itself is clearly always false.

It is at least plausible that very small doses of some poisons could have a beneficial effect. I am not saying they do, but it is plausible.

However, when the dilution is so small that the "active ingredient" is non existent, I see it as superstition rather than medicine.

By the mathematical logic of homeopathy, every drop of water in the world has the "memory" or "vibrations " of every disease and every cure!
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Quite. But I think they could have avoided all of the furore of Covid vaccinations by quietly adding one drop of the vaccine to the local reservoirs and inoculating the whole population of the country with one bottle of the stuff. And they could have also added one drop of Ribena to sweeten the taste.
Probably.
 
Analogue Boy said:
Quite. But I think they could have avoided all of the furore of Covid vaccinations by quietly adding one drop of the vaccine to the local reservoirs and inoculating the whole population of the country with one bottle of the stuff. And they could have also added one drop of Ribena to sweeten the taste.
Probably.
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I understand the point you are making, and I believe you understood the point I was making.

It is not completely implausible that very small doses of some substances might increase resistance to, prevent, or even cure some medical conditions. Indeed, to a certain extent, that could be a grossly oversimplified description of how vaccines work.

However, the fact that something is not completely implausible in some specific circumstances does not mean that all of the wider claims made about it are true.

Homeopathy as originally defined involves three processes that are so extreme as to be ridiculous, and some "explanations" that are at best, wildly speculative.

The three processes that I consider to be so extreme as to be ridiculous are:

1) Beating the bottle containing the solution against a leather pad a set number of times. This is a ritual. Any other form of agitation would surely "work" to the same extent.

2) The sequence of repeated dilutions, rather than going straight to the "correct" dilution. Again, this is a ritual.

3) The dilution to the extent that mathematically, there is none of the "active" ingredient left. Some of the numbers are extraordinary: equivalent to 1 drop of "active ingredient" in "all the oceans of the world".

The explanations that I have read depend on hand waving arguments about "molecular memory" and "vibrations" and these are not based on any experimental observation.

The whole thing is fanciful in the extreme.

But that does not preclude the possibility that there may be some few substances which, when administered in very tiny doses, may help the body protect itself.
 
Not everything is watersoluble though. You could end up with the substance clinging to the wall of the container, rather than being diluted away.
 
If the NHS endorses homeopathy, I wonder if they’d consider an annual tax of 1p from me as that would surely solve their finances wouldn’t it?
 
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