The NHS should stop funding homeopathy and it
should no longer be marketed as a medicine in pharmacies, doctors say.
JANUARY
06
2006
-
FEB
07 2006
HOMOEOPATHY
(or
HOMEOPATHY
-
take
your pick)
Homeopathy operates
at least
on the same principle as the
Placebo
Effect. Whether it has an additional subliminal 'chemical trigger'
effect is difficult
to
prove or disprove.
The common Placebo effect engages the brain and brainstem of an
individual in general and specific ways to accelerate a healing
process. It should be born in mind that an
injured, poisoned or infected human being may react in a number of
different ways, with different results.
Getting specialist help may assist an individual to recover when on
their own they might have
succumbed. Allopathic medicine uses substitutes for the individual's
own defence and repair mechanisms.
In so doing they may weaken the individual's own defence and repair
mechanisms. Placebo and
Homeopathy stimulate the individual's own defence and repair mechanisms.
The above is established, uncontested scientific knowledge.
What is up for
debate is whether the mental suggestion and
encouragement given by a neutral placebo allied to the avoidance of
allopathic medicine (which will also have a
positive effect*), is enhanced
in
the case of homeopathy by a 'chemical suggestion' that can
trigger
the brain and brainstem at a level below or beyond the input of the
conventionally recognised senses of sight,
smell, touch, hearing and taste. The Homeopathic theory is that not
only does the chemical used (which may be toxic) stimulate the body's
defences, but that it can do this even when diluted beyond the level
when a single molecule of the substance can be guaranteed to be present
in any given daily dose. There are too many interpretations of the
physics to go into here.
Due to the power of effective placebo treatment and the power of
suggestion that can be attributed to highly qualified diagnosticians
who convince the patient that they have understood their symptoms, it
may be impossible to design tests that differentiate
between homeopathy and placebo treatment. This means that tests have to
be restricted to
babies and animals. Even then, it is rarely possible to find many
babies and animals with identical
problems and subject some to placebo and some to homeopathic treatment.
Ethical considerations make
this difficult in the case of babies in all but minor complaints, and
environmental controls are
extremely difficult. There are, however, a number of animal breeders
and trainers who are of the
opinion that homeopathy is very effective.
The most sensible conclusion is to accept that Homeopathy is the best
way to harness the placebo effect, particularly as Homeopaths are
medically trained, are dedicated to the highest level
of diagnostic skill and do not have fundamentalist beliefs that would
cause them to deny the use of
allopathic medicine to their patients if obviously required. Because it
enables patients to have a proper consultation and
to avoid unnecessary allopathic treatment which may easily cause
dependency, Homeopathy is to be encouraged.
It may well be that in some cases, where the diagnosis is very precise
and the homeopathic remedy appropriate and the 'chemical suggestion'
that I have mentioned as
possible turns out to be a reality, that the effect is spectacular.
Then again a 'course' of homeopathic
pills, for example, might contain a dose of (e.g.) arsenic or nux
vomica that was measurable. If it works spectacularly on an
animal, this could be the reason.
*[A classic allopathic remedy is Aspirin. Very useful in specific
instances, not a good idea if used regularly. Habitual aspirin used to
reduce the risk of arterial or
veinous problems will cause dependency, that's OK if there is no
alternative but, on principle, it is a last
resort. Allopathic medicine to lower a temperature will NOT help the
body to deal with an infection. Better
to let the temperature rise. Antibiotics should be avoided at all costs
unless the body is losing
the battle or the circumstances are such that the patient's benign
environment cannot be guaranteed. They weaken the immune system and the
digestion and encourage the development of resistent bacteria.]
The above is the situation as it has been clearly understood for many
years. The only new knowledge concerns some of the mechanisms through
which the placebo effect
operates, though none of these has come as a surprise and, since we can
use the effect without this
knowledge, it is of academic interest only. What counts is: can an
individual with a dis-ease go to
a doctor who can give them a good diagnosis and the best treatment? The
more qualified homeopathic
doctors there are the more the answer to this question will be
yes.
JB
Jan
06
2006
JANUARY
30th. An article in today's Independent
may shed light on the basic
Placebo Effect
Scientists discover chemical link that may explain the 'placebo
effect'
By Steve Connor, Science Editor, The
Independent
Published: 30 January 2006
Scientists may have discovered a possible cause of the "placebo
effect", where a sham medical treatment results in a genuine benefit to
the patient. A study has found production of a chemical "messenger" in
the brain appears to play a critical role.
Jon Stoessl, professor of neurology at the University of British
Columbia in Vancouver, believes the placebo effect could be caused by
the production of a chemical in the brain called dopamine, which is
involved in triggering the expectation of pleasure and reward.
Professor Stoessl carried out a study on patients suffering from
Parkinson's disease, which is known to result from a lowering of normal
levels of dopamine.
Normally when Parkinson's patients are given a chemical precursor to
dopamine they show an improvement in levels of dopamine produced
naturally, which makes them feel better. But when Professor Stoessl
injected six of his patients with a simple saline solution he found
that they too showed an improvement in levels of dopamine - the average
increase was more than double.
The patients given the saline solution were told they were to be
given the actual treatment and as a result they were expecting to feel
an improvement, Professor Stoessl said.
Details will be shown in Alternative Medicine: the evidence at 9pm
on BBC2 tomorrow.
Scientists may have discovered a possible cause of the "placebo
effect", where a sham medical treatment results in a genuine benefit to
the patient. A study has found production of a chemical "messenger" in
the brain appears to play a critical role.
Jon Stoessl, professor of neurology at the University of British
Columbia in Vancouver, believes the placebo effect could be caused by
the production of a chemical in the brain called dopamine, which is
involved in triggering the expectation of pleasure and reward.
Professor Stoessl carried out a study on patients suffering from
Parkinson's disease, which is known to result from a lowering of normal
levels of dopamine.
Normally when Parkinson's patients are given a chemical precursor to
dopamine they show an improvement in levels of dopamine produced
naturally, which makes them feel better. But when Professor Stoessl
injected six of his patients with a simple saline solution he found
that they too showed an improvement in levels of dopamine - the average
increase was more than double.
The patients given the saline solution were told they were to be
given the actual treatment and as a result they were expecting to feel
an improvement, Professor Stoessl said.
Details will be shown in Alternative Medicine: the evidence at 9pm
on BBC2 tomorrow.
FEBRUARY 7th
2006
FAITH
HEALING
Faith healing is, as has been concluded
by Kathy Sykes in her Alternative Medicine series, not unconnected with
the 'placebo effect'. It can certainy involve more than dopamine (see
Jan 30th entry above) but it is the healed person, not the healer, who
does the chemical work. The healer is the source of inspiration and the
trigger-motivator
HERBAL
MEDICINE
The problem of modern manufactured imitation drugs can be laid at the
door of Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche who thought that the pure chemical
extracts, rather than the natural cocktail, was the future of medicine.
Benedictines from Salerno in X-XI century contributed enormously to
herbalism. Their work was Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum,
which contained not only valuable information about medicinal herbs,
but dietary recipes as well.
This master-work was borrowed and mysteriously returned without
permission by (according to my information) the founder of Roche, Fritz
Hoffmann-La Roche, who was
convinced that the future belonged to branded pharmaceutical products.
He was among the
first to maintain that the industrial manufacture of standardised
medicines would be a
major advance in the fight against disease.
This led him to found F. Hoffmann-La Roche & Co. on October 1st
1896. From the very
beginning, Fritz Hoffmann attached great importance to product
information as the link
between the pharmaceutical manufacturer and doctors, pharmacists and
patients. Shortly
after the foundation of the company, affiliates were opened in Germany,
Italy, France, the
US, Great Britain and Russia.
Since then, Roche has grown into one of the world's leading healthcare
companies and one
of the most important in Europe
That Nature is a better manufacturer than Roche or Bayer or Glaxo,
and the 'natural cocktail' in the whole herbs themselves, which we
cannot replicate, has a more synergistic effect has been known for
years. If you understood the meaning of the
parable of the tree of knowledge, you will have understood all this
without having to have me explain it. Once again Kathy Sykes of the
Open University has been telling us that this has just been discovered.
To her satisfaction, maybe, but many never doubted it in the first
place.
ACUPUNCTURE
On BBC2 on Tues 24 Jan we
had Kathy Sykes
'discovering' the completely obvious, and claiming it was
extraordinary. Three quarters of the way though the programme she came
to what was for her an amazing conclusion: that pain might have
something to do with the brain, not the body which she thought, it
seems, feels it. The limbic system is known as the
pain-experience mechanism.Without it, we cannot feel pain. If pain is
going to be relieved, deactivation rather than enhanced activation is
the surely by definition the only possibility. Acupuncture is not the
only way the
limbic system can be deactivated, though it is a relatively direct one.
If
one is aware how many Chinese people there are, and how long (compared
with Europe) they have
had an advanced civilisation with a medical practice, it is clearly
perverse, to put it mildly, to believe they
would have settled on a completely useless practice. If it works at
all, western
science and
logic suggests that that is how it works unless a placebo effect on the
level of deep self-hypnosis is responsible
which would also have to
affect the limbic system..
It does not really matter if the charts showing lines of sensitivity
for acupuncture have any accurate meaning or not. The fact remains that
it they seem to enable practitioners to use acupuncture safely and
effectively. Now that magnetic resonance scans have shown it affects te
limbic system in the brain, a further insight into the mechanism is
evident; but in the final analysis, if it works for the patient, it
works.
SEPTEMBER 18th 2011
Another reminder that unless we find an alternative approach and
prepare it soon, our antibiotic defence is approaching its 'Waterloo'.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/antibiotics-losing-the-fight-against-deadly-bacteria-2356583.html