Could I get the exact numbers of the research project? Actually pretty interested in them. I personally don't really believe in the effect of homeopathic treatments, but I must say that I don't know that much about them anyway...
Sure! I'll be glad to share! I'll get them by the end of the week, when I go home. But the biggest problem about homeopathy is exactly this, the lack of information for laypeople and even for some health workers. Maybe my next research will be about what causes people's rejection of alternative treatments.
Thanks. I think what causes people's rejection of alternative treatments is for a large part the negative image these treatments have. You hear a lot of bad things being thrown around about them like "zong homeopathy iz silyyyyy!!11!!11one!!!1". And when people hear something a lot they tend to copy it without properly thinking about it. Probably also because it has been less scientifically proven (as far as I know, that is). For a homeopathic treatment you can say "We don't know why it works, but it does. Promise. Just take our word." whereas with a lot of other medicines you can for example really point out that it activates a certain gene and thus stimulates production of a certain protein, etc.
If you have time, maybe you can explain how homeopathy works. I don't really see why it would work, since it does not contain any pharmacologically active ingredients. If homeopathic treatments worked, then pretty much everything I learned in gen chem would have to be false.
@HeyLisa Yeah, it's really difficult to trust a treatment that have so many divergent opinions, even in the scientific community. @powerof0 I'm not fully qualified yet to teach anyone about homeopathy, but I'll try to do my best, although I suggest you talk to a homeopathic doctor, who will be able to give better answers to your questions than me... So, homeopathic medicine does contain pharmacologically active ingredients, they are just much more dilluted than alopathic medicines and they are based on the law of similars (similia similibus curantur), which says that subtances that cause certain symptoms on a healthy person, will cure (in really smaller doses) someone who has those symptoms. Just like using snake venom to make the antidote. Furthermore, the main goal of homeopathy is to treat the person, not the disease. That's why the appointments last at least an hour, as the doctor must fully comprehend the patient, before he can prescribe the medicine. Also, it's important to say that homeopathy can't cure everything, just as an antibiotic can't cure HIV. Here are some abstracts from articles you should read, bearing in mind that there are many other articles based on serious scientific research both condemning and approving homeopathy. These are just the ones I was reading for my project. Spoiler http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20970092 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1831487/?report=abstract&tool=pmcentrez http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1676018/?report=abstract&tool=pmcentrez http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2630323/?report=abstract&tool=pmcentrez http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2270831/?report=abstract&tool=pmcentrez http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1298309/?report=abstract&tool=pmcentrez http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722208/?report=abstract&tool=pmcentrez It's also important to say that homeopathy is not the same thing as phytotherapy, as people tend to believe...
Thanks very much for the links! I'll take a look at them and ask about them later. I'm not sure how homeopathic treatments can contain any pharmalogically active molecules after a dilution of 100^60 or 100^100. Let's say you take 6.02x10^23 molecules (a mole) of a substance and put it in 100 mL of water. Then you take out 1 mL of solution and put it in 99 mL of water. This new 1:100 dilution would only contain 6.02x10^22 molecules. If you repeat the above steps a second time, the number of molecules would be reduced to 6.02x10^21, and so on. Clearly, after the 23rd 1:100 dilution, there cannot be any molecules left. Therefore, homeopathy is not comparable to using small amounts of snake venom to gain immunity. You actually have to put a measurable amount of snake venom into your body to gain immunity, while homeopathic treatments are pretty much just water (or whatever the substance is diluted with) and cannot scientifically contain any of the substance they claim to contain . Since I'm sure you have taken many more science classes than I have, I'm just wondering how you've managed to reconcile your belief in homeopathy with what you learned in science classes.
Everytime the season changes I get an allergy fit, the worst if the transition to spring when all the flowers/trees are spreading pollen. I usually carry around eyedrops since my eyes get really irratated and red and people ask me if I had just smoked marijuana :/
@powerof0 The first link is about exactly this dillution stuff "Extreme homeopathic dilutions retain starting materials: A nanoparticulate perspective." :yup: And as for the snake vemnom, I was just using it to explain the law of similars, not saying that it's comparable to homeopathy... sorry if I didn't make myself clear. And also sorry for taking me so long, but I was kidnapped for a mini trip and just got back today... B) So, here are the numbers, keep in mind that this research is still in course and they may vary untill the end. 163 regular patients from our hospital are taking part on the research voluntarily. All of them undergoing homeopathic treatments for respiratory diseases. For the past year, these were the numbers: 71% had a significant improvement of their conditions (this improvement was mesured based by a protocol supplied by the head of our research and approved by the ethics committee) 16% had their symptoms vanished 13% didn't register any significant improvement As for the patients opinions: 89% declared an improvement on their life quality 69% said they didn't believe in homeopathy before the treatment 95% couldn't answer the questions about basic homeopathic knoledge for laypeople before the treatment started 56% couldn't answer even after 1 year of treatment, showing that we have much improvement to be done here... I guess I didn't miss anything... but feel free to ask any questions!
Thanks for the stats! How was your trip? I have a few questions. 1. What kind of respiratory problems did the subjects have? 2. Was a control group used? 3. If a control group was used, was the study double-blind?
I hate my allergies If I don't take my nasal spray, I pretty much sneeze all day. I guess I'm just allergic to dust or something. It gets worse if I'm at someone's house for a while who has a shedding dog. My eyes start to like water then too. Luckily I'm not allergic to any foods I know of I have a friend allergic to peanuts, and every time I forget and offer him like Reeses or something he accuses me of wanting to kill him XD
@powerof0 You're welcome! My trip was pretty nice! My sparkly-vampire-look-a-like friend [...] took me to Paraty, a historical city near where I live. Google it for some images, it's an amazing place! I'll post some pictures when I get them from his camera. As to your questions; 1. They had mostly asthma and bronchitis, but we also treated other diseases like cystic fibrosis, ABPA, bronchiolitis, EAA and many others I can't remember right now. We even had one case of sarcoidosis :funky:, but the guy was really bad so we had to send him to intensive care. 2. We are not allowed to run a study with a real control group taking no medications, the ethics committee would eat our livers with carrots if we so much as asked! But we're gathering data from the patients from Pneumology, which are exclusively treated with allopathy and we shall compare them at the end of the study with our own numbers. 3. The ethics committee didn't allow us to do it double-blind, based on the free and clarified consent term of our hospital's researches, that says the patient should be fully informed of what medication he's taking.
I used to have a lot of environmental allergies. However because I have been getting allergy shots for many years, I am no longer allergic to many of the things that I once was allergic to.
Thanks for the response, Lully . Paraty looks awesome, by the way. It must have been fun! Now I'm curious about what your friend looks like. 1. Hmm, so did they get anything in addition to the homeopathic treatment? I thought some of these diseases, especially cystic fibrosis, are quite serious... 2. and 3. If a controlled and double-blind study is not possible, it will be very difficult for the mainstream scientific and medical community to accept the efficacy of homeopathic treatments unless a proper study is done. An allopathic drug in development must undergo an extensive series of trials. The drug cannot be approved until its efficacy has been proven in a randomized controlled study, or at least a cohort study or case-control study, involving at least a hundred people (though sample sizes of a few thousand are not unheard of). However, homeopathic treatments are never tested so extensively, and they are unlikely to stand up too well against such rigorous testing. But the most glaring problem involving homeopathy is its mechanism. For homeopathy to work as claimed, everything about chemistry would have to be false...
Not really allergy, but I get hayfever every year around Springtime. When I was young it was really bad, but as I got older its been getting better.
Im not allergic to anything :maha: I am very grateful. Also idk if you guys care but I have never broken a bone in my body yet either Anyways, hopefully I continue to be lucky and healthy
Luckly! i dont have no allegys.. but i think the worst allegy you can have is towards chocolate.. i would cry
I'm allergic to dust, pollen, sea food, ibuprofen, iodine, penicillin and latex, which is great, since I have to wear gloves every day... Those allergies used to be really bad, but since I've started a homeopathic treatment it's getting really better, except for the drug ones, which I'm not allowed to test yet, since they used to be pretty strong. As for the gloves, I just have to buy my own latex-free gloves, since the hospital doesn't provide them...
Someone I used to know had to get shots for allergies like 3 times a week...that would be awful but I luckily have no allergies
I'm allergic to dust and the mites that live on cockroaches. It used to be a lot worse when I was a kid, but I've largely grown out of the symptoms.