Homeopathy Finally Gets Some Respect
By Catherine Guthrie
Jesica DeHart鈥檚 introduction to homeopathy came in an unexpected place鈥攁n emergency medical training class.鈥淭he instructor told us to put homeopathic remedies in our first aid kit,鈥?she says. DeHart wanted to check it out first on herself, so she took the teacher鈥檚 advice and stocked up on arnica, a remedy for reducing bruising and swelling.
When she had cause to use it, she was pleasantly surprised at how well it soothed her bruises. Eventually she added other homeopathic remedies to her repertoire, including one for cramps and another for stomach upset. 鈥淪ometimes they were completely effective, other times not,鈥?she says. 鈥淏ut I always felt like it was worth a try.鈥?
Eight months ago, DeHart had a baby and her interest in homeopathy soared. 鈥淗aving a child makes you hyper-aware of how you treat health problems, and I want a gentle option for my son,鈥?says the 30-year-old stay-at-home mom. Since Emmit was born, she鈥檚 used homeopathic remedies to ease his colic and teething pain.
鈥淗omeopathy is noninvasive,鈥?she says. 鈥淚 like the idea that it鈥檚 getting the body to heal itself.鈥?/FONT>
Whatever homeopathy is, it鈥檚 hardly new. In fact, it鈥檚 200 years old. What is new is that people like DeHart are fed up with the side effects, expense, and sometimes poor results of conventional drug therapy and are turning to homeopathy in record numbers. According to one report, published last year in Annals of Internal Medicine, the number of Americans using homeopathy skyrocketed 500 percent in the last decade. One of the most comprehensive government surveys to date on Americans鈥?use of complementary and alternative medicine found that more than 7.3 million people have tried it.
Government stats aside, everyone knows the real truth is in retail. Last year, Americans spent an estimated $425 million on homeopathic remedies, according to J.P. Borneman, the CEO of Boiron and a spokesperson for the American Association of Homeopathic Pharmacists. As the fourth generation in the business of homeopathic pharmacy, Borneman has seen business ebb and flow with Americans鈥?love-hate relationship with Western medicine. But the real turning point for homeopathy, he says, came in the 1990s when remedies made the leap from health food stores to chain behemoths like Target, Kmart, and Walgreens.
Still, add up all the statistics, sales numbers, and anecdotal stories, and the fact remains that no one has yet proved how homeopathy works鈥攁 fact that emboldens skeptics and causes consternation among practitioners.
鈥淚 use it in my clinic, but every time I do, I roll my eyes,鈥?says David Katz, associate clinical professor of public health at the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center. 鈥淚 wish I knew if and how it works. Maybe the whole thing is a placebo effect.鈥?/FONT>
Katz鈥檚 use of the 鈥減-word鈥?touches on the biggest criticism of homeopathy鈥攖hat the practice is nothing but a placebo. In the United States, the National Council Against Health Fraud, a nonprofit watchdog agency, calls homeopathy a cult and practitioners quacks. In France last September, the Acad茅mie de Medecine, the country鈥檚 most respected medical authority, denounced homeopathy as mumbo jumbo. That blow was especially low considering the French are the world鈥檚 largest consumers; roughly 70 percent of France鈥檚 population uses homeopathy, and French physicians routinely prescribe it.
But the cries that it鈥檚 only a placebo are weakening. Perhaps the best thing ..to happen to homeopathy in recent years is the research showing it to be much more than that.
The good press started back in 1997 when the well-respected medical journal The Lancet published a meta-analysis of placebo-controlled studies on homeopathy. In 89 studies rigorously designed to evaluate its ability to treat and prevent various illnesses, the odds consistently showed homeopathy to be more effective than a placebo.
More recently, Wayne B. Jonas, a physician and director of the Samueli Institute for Information Biology, in Alexandria, Virginia, assembled an even more comprehensive overview of homeopathy studies, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The paper took into account four different meta-analyses and found homeopathy to be effective in treating allergies, childhood diarrhea, postoperative trauma, and influenza. 鈥淭he weight of the current evidence right now falls slightly in favor of homeopathy,鈥?says Jonas.
Bottom line: It works
Homeopathic physician Corey Weinstein hasn鈥檛 let the discussions about how homeopathy works get in his way. Each year, hundreds of patients flow through his office in San Francisco. Weinstein has practiced homeopathy for 30 years and prescribes homeopathic remedies for everything from colds to cancer. 鈥淚鈥檝e never seen an illness or condition that homeopathy hasn鈥檛 helped,鈥?he says.
While he doesn鈥檛 hold any romanticized notions that homeopathy is a cure-all, he does think it鈥檚 too valuable to dismiss. 鈥淭he idea that for homeopathy to be good science we have to understand how it works is absurd,鈥?he says. 鈥淚f that were the case for everything allopathic medicine offers, we never would have okayed the use of aspirin.鈥?
Like cures like
Developed in the late 18th century by the German physician Samuel Christian Hahnemann, homeopathy is based on the 鈥渓aw of similars.鈥?After noticing that a common remedy for malaria, cinchona, produced malaria-like symptoms in people, Hahnemann came up with the idea that 鈥渓ike cures like.鈥?
The premise is that illness can be treated with small doses of a substance鈥攁nimal, vegetable, and/or mineral鈥攖hat mimics the malady鈥檚 symptoms. The last thing you鈥檇 think to give a stressed-out person, for example, is caffeine, yet that鈥檚 the primary ingredient in a common homeopathic remedy for promoting relaxation. According to Hahnemann鈥檚 theory, homeopathy jump-starts the body鈥檚 own healing process by introducing tiny amounts of the right substances.
But just how tiny is tiny? That鈥檚 the question that makes most conventional practitioners shake their heads in disbelief. The end result is so tiny, they say, as to be virtually nonexistent. To reduce the toxicity of his remedies, Hahnemann diluted substances in alcohol and water several times over. In between each dilution, he shook the mixture. Later, he described the diluting and shaking process as essential to bringing forth a substance鈥檚 鈥渧ital essence.鈥?
And in fact, modern-day makers of homeopathic remedies hold the time-honored process sacred. The label on a bottle of a homeopathic remedy says how many times it has been diluted. Homeopaths acknowledge that most remedies are so diluted that laboratory tests cannot locate a single molecule of the original substance.
And that鈥檚 the stumbling block for many scientists in considering homeopathy as a medical treatment. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very hard for a Western brain to accept the fact that you are treating more and more effectively as you use less and less,鈥?says Katz. 鈥淏ut we seem to be standing on the brink of
being able to explore the mechanism behind it.鈥?/FONT>
One possible explanation is that the remedies leave an electronic fingerprint on the water in which they are diluted, which is then used in the actual remedy. Konrad Kail, a scientist at the Southwest College Research Institute in Tempe, Arizona, who鈥檚 doing research on homeopathy, says the mark may be too subtle to register on regular lab equipment but still big enough to affect the body, working on an electronic rather than a biochemical level.
鈥淣ormally, we think of biochemical reactions as a lock and key,鈥?he says. When the key fits into the lock a reaction occurs. 鈥淚 believe you can get the same effect with an electronic signal.鈥?(Think of a car鈥檚 keyless entry.)
Jonas, author of Healing with Homeopathy: The Complete Guide, is also trying to decipher the riddle of homeopathy. Scientists in his lab recently discovered that in a vial of water, there are interactions between the water and the glass; when you shake the vial, the silica comes off the glass and produces various chemical subspecies, some of which may be biologically active. 鈥淭hat kind of chemistry could be producing some of the effect we鈥檙e seeing in homeopathy,鈥?he says.
Another theory centers on the importance of the practitioner/patient relationship. Corey Weinstein鈥檚 initial appointment with a patient, for instance, can easily last an hour and a half. The goal is to ascertain what remedy, out of the thousands available, might best address the person鈥檚 complaint.
Could it be that patients simply feel better once a health care provider listens raptly to their woes? Jonas thinks it鈥檚 a real possibility, but that doesn鈥檛 detract from homeopathy鈥檚 power, he says. 鈥淚f that turns out to be a major reason for the effects of homeopathy, it鈥檚 still a huge contribution to medicine.鈥?
Needless to say, this idea is unpopular among homeopaths, who don鈥檛 appreciate being seen as glorified therapists doling out sugar pills. Still, Jonas is a homeopath and a scientist who likes to weigh all the possibilities. 鈥淥nly in the last 25 years have we begun to understand the power of expectation,鈥?he says. 鈥淚 think this is one of the theories of homeopathy that has some viability and needs to be explored.鈥?
In fact, Jonas is working on a new study that he hopes will ferret out whether it鈥檚 the remedies or the practitioner鈥檚 attentiveness that stimulate homeopathic healing. His results won鈥檛 be available until next year.
In the meantime, the caring-practitioner theory still leaves an inexplicable gap in the equation. What about people whose symptoms improve with over-the-counter homeopathic remedies? When Sheri McGregor injured her tailbone a few years ago, the pain was debilitating. The San Diego resident swallowed over-the-counter pain relievers, to no avail.
Finally, she tried hypericum, a homeopathic remedy for treating nerve injuries. Following the label鈥檚 instructions, she dissolved several tablets under her tongue every 15 minutes. Within two hours, the pain was gone. By the end of the day, she鈥檇 stopped using the remedy, and never experienced another twinge from her troublesome tailbone. 鈥淚t was spectacular,鈥?she says. 鈥淚t turned me on to homeopathy for life.鈥?
DO IT YOURSELF?
When it makes sense to treat yourself鈥攁nd when you should seek professional help
Most health food stores stock rows of homeopathic liquids, pellets, and tablets. Each is labeled to treat a very specific condition, from overwork-induced stress to a wet cough with clear nasal discharge. So is it safe to treat yourself?
Yes, says Wayne Jonas, a physician and author of Healing with Homeopathy. 鈥淗omeopathy isn鈥檛 going to be directly harmful or toxic,鈥?he says. 鈥淛ust make sure you go see someone if your symptoms don鈥檛 improve, and you鈥檙e using a good product.鈥?Unlike dietary supplements, homeopathic remedies are regulated by the FDA, which has strict guidelines for strength, quality,
purity, and labeling.
Even with these guidelines in place, though, not all companies are created equal. For a list of homeopathic manufacturers that meet the FDA鈥檚 guidelines, visit the website of The American Association of Homeopathic Pharmacists (homeopathyresource.org).
But self-care has its limits. If you try a store-bought remedy and an acute condition (like an earache) doesn鈥檛 improve within two days, or a chronic problem (like a rash) doesn鈥檛 respond within a week, make an appointment with a homeopath, practitioners advise. A good one can not only help you narrow down treatment options but also prescribe more targeted remedies than what鈥檚 available over the counter.
How to find a practitioner
Locating a good homeopath can be daunting because any health care professional鈥攃hiropractors, dentists, and acupuncturists鈥攃an complete a weekend course and hang out a shingle. Although degrees don鈥檛 always denote the most qualified practitioner, they do offer a starting point. To begin, look for a homeopath who is also a medical doctor or an osteopath, because he or she is most likely to have studied homeopathy as a postgraduate specialty. Another good bet is a naturopath, since the training includes homeopathy. For a list of local practitioners, visit either the American Institute of Homeopathy (homeopathyusa.org) or the National Center for Homeopathy (homeopathic.org).
From: [http://www.naturalsolutionsmag.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/articleSearch.article/articleID/9056]
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