pathos<\/em> which means \u201csuffering.\u201d\u00a0 Homeopathy\u2019s basic premise is called the \u201cprinciple of similars,\u201d and it refers to recurrent observation and experience that a medicinal substance will elicit a healing response for the specific syndrome of symptoms (or suffering) that it has been proven to cause when given to a healthy person in overdose.<\/p>\nThe beauty of the principle of similars is that it not only initiates a healing response, but it encourages a respect for the body’s wisdom. Because symptoms represent the best efforts of our body in its defenses against infection or stress, it makes sense to utilize a medicine that helps and mimics this defense rather than that inhibits or suppresses it.\u00a0 The principle of similars may be one of nature’s laws that, when used well, can be one of our most sophisticated healing strategies.<\/p>\n
It is important to note that immunizations and allergy treatments are two of the very few applications in modern medicine today that actually stimulate the body\u2019s own defenses in the prevention or treatment of specific diseases, and it is NOT simply a coincidence that both of these treatments are derived from the homeopathic principle of similars.<\/p>\n
Homeopathic medicine is so widely practiced by physicians in Europe that it is no longer appropriate to consider it \u201calternative medicine\u201d there.\u00a0 Approximately 30% of French doctors and 20% of German doctors use homeopathic medicines regularly, while over 40% of British physicians refer patients to homeopathic doctors, and almost half of Dutch physicians consider homeopathic medicines to be effective.\u00a0 The fact that the British Royal Family has used and supported homeopathy since the 1830s reflects its longstanding presence in Britain\u2019s national health care system.<\/p>\n
Homeopathic medicine also once had a major presence in American medical care and in American society.\u00a0 In 1900 there were 22 homeopathic medical schools in the US, including Boston University, University of Michigan, New York Medical College, Hahnemann University, University of Minnesota, and even the University of Iowa.\u00a0 Further, many of America\u2019s cultural elite were homeopathy\u2019s strongest advocates, including Mark Twain, William James, John D. Rockefeller, Susan B. Anthony, Louisa May Alcott, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry David Thoreau, and Harriett Beecher Stowe, amongst many others. (For a more extensive list of famous people past and present who are known advocates of homeopathy.<\/p>\n
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Social Transformation of American Medicine<\/em>,<\/em> Paul Starr noted, “Because homeopathy was simultaneously philosophical and experimental, it seemed to many people to be more rather than less scientific than orthodox medicine.”<\/p>\nThis article will present a strong case for homeopathy in light of the most recent developments in science and medicine.\u00a0 That said, I want to apologize to those people who have an open mind about homeopathy but who have been introduced to it by individuals who have not adequately explained this science and art in a clear and convincing fashion.\u00a0 It is hoped that both skeptics and<\/em> those open-minded but inadequately informed people will benefit from this overview of the homeopathic system.<\/p>\nThe Wisdom of Symptoms\u2014<\/strong>The Underlying Basis of Modern Physiology and Homeopathy
\nThe underlying principle of homeopathy is also at the heart of modern physiology.\u00a0 It is commonly understood in medicine today that symptoms are not just something \u201cwrong\u201d with the body, but rather, they represent the efforts of the body and mind to defend and heal itself from a variety of infective agents and\/or stresses.\u00a0 The body creates fever, inflammation, pain, discharge, or whatever is necessary in order to heal itself.\u00a0 While these symptoms represent the body\u2019s best efforts to heal, they are not always successful in doing so.\u00a0 Ultimately, homeopathic medicines are some of the most powerful natural drugs available today to help augment the body\u2019s ability to heal itself (more on this topic later).<\/p>\nMedical science today<\/strong> is increasingly recognizing symptoms as adaptive responses of the body. Standard texts of pathology define the process of inflammation as the manner in which the body seeks to wall off, heat up, and burn out infective agents or foreign matter. The cough has long been known as a protective mechanism for clearing breathing passages. Diarrhea has been shown to be a defensive effort of the body to remove pathogens or irritants more quickly from the colon. Discharges are understood as the body’s way of ridding itself of dead bacteria, viruses, and cells.\u00a0 Even high blood pressure is an important defense and adaptation to the internal and external stresses that a person experiences.<\/p>\nThe derivation of the word \u201csymptom<\/strong>\u201d is helpful to better understanding of the disease process and the healing process.\u00a0 The word “symptom<\/strong>” comes from a Greek root and refers to “something that falls together with something else.” Symptoms are a \u201csign\u201d or a \u201csignal\u201d of something else, and treating them doesn’t necessarily change that “something else.”\u00a0 Just because a drug gets rid of a symptom does not mean that the person is cured.\u00a0 In fact, drugs that suppress or inhibit a symptom tend to provide only a guise of success and usually lead to a longer and more serious illness.\u00a0 Using drugs to suppress symptoms is akin to pulling the plug on your car\u2019s oil pressure warning light.\u00a0 Just because the light is turned off doesn\u2019t mean that your car\u2019s oil pressure is \u201ccured.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, ignoring that light may lead to your car\u2019s breakdown.<\/p>\nIt should be noted that people often incorrectly assume that conventional drugs have \u201cside effects.\u201d\u00a0 Actually, in purely pharmacological terms, drugs do NOT have side effects; drugs only have \u201ceffects,\u201d and physicians arbitrarily differentiate between those effects that they like as the effects of the drug, while they call those symptoms that they don\u2019t like \u201cside effects.\u201d\u00a0 This is akin to saying that the effects of a bomb are that it destroys buildings, but its side effects are that it kills people.\u00a0 Needless to say, one cannot truly separate out one effect from the other.<\/p>\n
The reason that drugs create \u201cside effects\u201d that are often worse than the original disease is that these drugs tend to suppress the symptoms the sick person is experiencing and push them deeper into the person\u2019s body.\u00a0 This observation may explain why people today are experiencing more serious chronic illnesses at earlier and earlier ages and why there is such an epidemic of mental illness (physical disease is suppressed deeply enough that the disease is pushed into the psyche).<\/p>\n
Once one recognizes that symptoms are important and useful defenses of the body, it makes less sense to use drugs that inhibit or suppress this wisdom of the body.\u00a0 Instead of using drugs to suppress symptoms, it makes sense to use medicines to strengthen the body\u2019s own defense system so that the body can more effectively heal itself.\u00a0 Here is where it makes sense to use homeopathic medicines.<\/p>\n
Medicines That Respect the Wisdom of the Body
\n<\/em><\/strong>The use of the principle of similars in healing actually has ancient roots .\u00a0 In the 4th century B.C., Hippocrates is known to have said, “Through the like, disease is produced, and through the application of the like it is cured.” The famed Delphic Oracle in Greece proclaimed the value of the law of similars, stating, “that which makes sick shall heal.”\u00a0 Paracelsus, a well-known 16th century physician and alchemist, used the law of similars extensively in practice and referred to it in writings. His formulation of the “Doctrine of Signatures” spoke directly of the value in using similars in healing. He affirmed, “You there bring together the same anatomy of the herbs and the same anatomy of the illness into one order. This simile gives you understanding of the way in which you shall heal.”<\/p>\nThis principle of similars (using a substance to treat the similar symptoms that it causes) is also used in conventional medicine, with immunizations being the most obvious example, that is, small doses of a \u201cweakened\u201d pathogen are used to prevent what larger doses cause.\u00a0 None other than the “father of immunology,” Dr. Emil Adolph Von Behring (1906), directly pointed to the origins of immunizations when he asserted, “(B)y what technical term could we more appropriately speak of this influence than by Hahnemann’s* word \u2018homeopathy\u2019.”\u00a0 (*Samuel Hahnemann, MD, 1755-1843, was a renowned German physician and the founder of homeopathy.).\u00a0 Modern allergy treatment, likewise, utilizes the homeopathic approach by the use of small doses of allergens in order to create an antibody response.<\/p>\n
Conventional medical treatment<\/strong> also uses homeopathy\u2019s principle of similars in choosing radiation to treat people with cancer (radiation causes cancer), digitalis for heart conditions (digitalis creates heart conditions), and Ritalin for hyperactive children (Ritalin is an amphetamine-like drug which normally causes hyperactivity). Other examples are the use of nitroglycerine for heart conditions, gold salts for arthritic conditions, and colchicine for gout, all of which are known to cause the similar symptoms that they are found to treat.<\/p>\nIt should be acknowledged that although the conventional medical treatments mentioned above may be homeopathic-like, they do not follow other fundamental principles of homeopathy.\u00a0 Immunizations and allergy treatments are given to prevent or cure special ailments, while homeopathic medicines are substances individually prescribed based on the overall syndrome of body and mind symptoms the person is experiencing, and therefore a homeopathic medicine is thought to strengthen the person\u2019s overall body-mind constitution, not just to prevent or treat a specific illness.\u00a0 Also, these conventional medical treatments are not individually prescribed to the high degree of selectivity that is common in homeopathy, and they are not prescribed in as small or as safe a dose.<\/p>\n
And speaking of dose, this subject is vital, and homeopaths have uncovered an amazing and initially confusing power of the human organism.\u00a0 Homeopaths have found that sick people develop hypersensitivity to substances that cause the similar symptoms that they are experiencing.\u00a0 Further, by giving very small doses of this substance, a person can and will experience an immunological and therapeutic benefit without a toxic burden.<\/p>\n
Determining What a Medicine Can Cure
\n<\/span><\/em><\/strong>For over 200 years, hundreds of thousands of homeopaths throughout the world have carefully catalogued and now computerized the idiosyncratic physical, emotional, and mental symptoms that thousands of substances have caused in healthy people (Note:\u00a0 There are now simple computerized programs as well as sophisticated expert system software to help provide highly individualized prescriptions to people based on their specific and unique symptomatology).\u00a0 Homeopaths have thereby created the most extensive body of toxicological information available today, though this information focuses on the symptoms that these substance cause, not on the dose in which they cause them.\u00a0 Homeopaths have found and verified that whatever a substance has been found to cause, it will also cure in specially prepared homeopathic doses.<\/p>\nThousands of substances have undergone toxicological studies, which homeopaths call \u201cdrug provings.\u201d\u00a0 These experiments are conducted on human subjects, not animals, to determine what various substances from the plant, mineral, animal, or chemical kingdom cause in overdose.\u00a0 Homeopaths have found that these experiments lay the foundation for what symptoms each substance causes, and thus, what affinity each substance has to the human body.<\/p>\n
Then, when homeopaths see patients, they obtain the unique and detailed symptomatological history of each patient, and seek to find the specific substance from the plant, mineral, animal, or chemical kingdom that would cause the similar syndrome of symptoms that the patient is experiencing.\u00a0 It is not surprising that large numbers of homeopaths throughout the world today use sophisticated expert system software to help them individualize medicinal substances to their patients.<\/p>\n
After finding a match between a substance\u2019s toxicology and the patient\u2019s specific symptom pattern, the homeopath gives a specially prepared microdose of this medicinal agent.\u00a0 The details of how homeopathic medicines are made are described below.\u00a0 It is now time to direct our attention to homeopathy\u2019s most fascinating and most controversial observation\u2026the power of homeopathic \u201cnano-doses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Homeopathic Medicine:\u00a0 Nano-doses, Powerful Results
\n<\/span><\/em><\/strong>Homeopathic medicine presents a significantly different pharmacological approach to treating sick people.\u00a0 Instead of using strong and powerful doses of medicinal agents that have a broad-spectrum effect on a wide variety of people with a similar disease, homeopaths use extremely small doses of medicinal substances that are highly individualized to a person\u2019s physical and psychological syndrome of disease, not simply an assumed localized pathology.<\/p>\nHomeopathic medicines are so small in dose that it is appropriate to refer to them as a part of the newly defined field of \u201cnanopharmacology\u201d (the prefix \u201cnano\u201d derives from Latin and means dwarf; today, the prefix is used to refer to \u201cnanotechnology\u201d or the \u201cnanosciences\u201d which explore the use of extremely small technologies or processes, at least one-billionth of a unit, designated as 10-9<\/sup>).\u00a0 To understand the nature and the degree of homeopathy\u2019s nanopharmacology, it is important to know the following characteristics of how homeopathic medicines are made.<\/p>\n\u00a0Making Homeopathic Medicines
\n<\/strong>1) Most homeopathic medicines are made by diluting a medicinal substance in a double-distilled water.\u00a0 It should be noted that physicists who study the properties of water commonly acknowledge that water has many mysterious and amazing properties.\u00a0 Because homeopaths use a double-distilled water, it is highly purified, enabling the medicinal substance to solely infiltrate and imprint the water.\u00a0 People interested in the mysteries of water will be very interested the website of Dr. Martin Chaplin of London South Bank University for impressively sophisticated information and research on water.<\/p>\n2) Each substance is diluted, most commonly, 1 part of the original medicinal agent to 9 or 99 parts double-distilled water.\u00a0 The mixture is then vigorously stirred or shaken.\u00a0 The solution is then diluted again 1:9 or 1:99 and vigorously shaken.\u00a0 This process of consecutive diluting and shaking or stirring is repeated 3, 6, 12, 30, 200, 1,000, or even 1,000,000 times.\u00a0 Simply \u201cdiluting\u201d the medicines without vigorously shaking them doesn\u2019t activate the medicinal effects.<\/p>\n
3) It is inaccurate to say that homeopathic medicines are extremely diluted; they are extremely \u201cpotentized.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cPotentization\u201d refers to the specific process of sequential dilution with vigorous shaking.\u00a0 Each consecutive dilution infiltrates the new double-distilled water and imprints upon it the fractal form of the original substance used (fractal refers to the specific consecutively smaller pattern or form within a larger pattern).\u00a0 Ultimately, some type of fractal or hologram of the original substance may be imprinted in the water.\u00a0 For a more detailed and technical description of what may make a homeopathic medicine active, see writings of chemist and homeopath, Brian Connelly \u00a0(Connelly, 2002).<\/p>\n
Over 200 years of experience by homeopaths throughout the world has shown that the more that a substance undergoes potentization (the process of sequential dilution with vigorous shaking in-between each dilution), the more powerful the medicine becomes, the longer it acts, and the less doses are generally needed.\u00a0 Because of these observations and experiences, homeopaths refer to medicines that have been potentized 200 times or more as \u201chigh potencies\u201d and those that have been potentized less than 12 times as \u201clow potencies.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this light, homeopaths insist that their medicines are NOT extremely small doses.\u00a0 Instead, they assume that the double-distilled and purified water is changed and becomes imprinted and activated.<\/p>\n
Homeopaths will be the first to acknowledge that their medicine will not have any effect at all, unless the person taking them has a hypersensitivity to the medicine.\u00a0 A person will have this hypersensitivity if and when they exhibit the syndrome of symptoms that the substance has previously been found to cause.<\/p>\n
Still, it is admittedly difficult to initially accept the possibility that such nanopharmacological doses can have any effect at all.\u00a0 And yet, some highly respected basic scientific research has begun to verify the claims that homeopaths have made since its inception in the 1800s.<\/p>\n
Principle and Power of Resonance
\n<\/strong>Before discussing these scientific studies, it may be helpful to make brief reference to a subject for which there is common knowledge.\u00a0 Basic principles of physics teach us that hypersensitivity exists when there is \u201cresonance.\u201d\u00a0 An example from music is helpful here:\u00a0 Whenever a \u201cC\u201d note is played on a piano (or any instrument), other \u201cC\u201d notes reverberate, while other notes are not affected at all.\u00a0 Even when one instrument is relatively far away from another, its C strings will reverberate when a C note is played.<\/p>\nUltimately, homeopathy is a medical system based on resonance (commonly referred to as the \u201cprinciple of similars\u201d).\u00a0 Two hundred years of experience by hundreds of thousands of homeopaths have consistently discovered that specially prepared, extremely small doses of medicine can powerfully augment a person\u2019s healing response when there is a similarity between the toxicology of the medicine and the symptom complex of the sick person.\u00a0 One of the special features of homeopathy is that whenever a patient is given a homeopathic medicine that does not match his or her symptoms, nothing happens.\u00a0 But when there is a match, people experience significant improvement in their overall health.<\/p>\n
Other Evidence on the Power of Nano-Doses
\n<\/strong>There is a significant body of conventional scientific research that has verified the powerful biochemical effects of extremely low concentrations of biological agents.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Chemicals in the brain called beta-endorphins are known to modulate natural killer cell activity in dilutions of 10-18<\/sup> (this dilution means that a substance was diluted 1:10 eighteen times).\u00a0 Interleukin 1, an important part of our immune system, has been found to exhibit increased T-cell clone proliferation at 10-19<\/sup>.\u00a0 And pheromones (hormones emitted externally by various animals and insects) will result in hypersensitive reaction when as little as a single molecule is received.\u00a0 (For an excellent review of many substances that have significant biological activity in extremely small doses, see Drs. P. Bellavite and A. Signorini\u2019s Emerging Science of Homeopathy: Complexity, Biodynamics, and Nanopharmacology<\/em><\/strong>; see also Eskinazi, 1999).<\/p>\nThe doses mentioned immediately above are still in the molecular dose range, and as such, they do not in themselves create cause for a revolution in science or medicine.\u00a0 However, few scientists and physicians are knowledgeable of the power and potential of nanodoses commonly used by homeopaths all over the world.\u00a0 This is particularly disappointing because it is commonly observed that organisms experience a biphasic response to various chemicals, that is, extremely small doses of a substance exhibit different and sometimes opposite effects than what they cause in high concentrations.\u00a0 For instance, it is widely recognized that normal medical doses of atropine block the parasympathetic nerves, causing mucous membranes to dry up, while exceedingly small doses of atropine causes increased secretions to mucous membranes (Goodman and Gilman, 2001).<\/p>\n
This fact that drugs can have two phases of action, depending upon their concentration, is a little known but consistently observed phenomenon.\u00a0 In fact, many medical and scientific dictionaries refer to \u201chormesis\u201d or \u201cthe Arndt-Schulz law\u201d (listed in leading medical and scientific dictionaries under the word \u201claw\u201d) as the observations that weak concentrations of biological agents stimulate physiological activity, medium concentrations of agents depress physiological activity, and large concentrations halt physiological activity.<\/p>\n
There is a significant body of research on hormesis (hundreds of studies) conducted by conventional scientists, none of whom even mention homeopathy (Stebbins, 1982; Oberbaum and Cambar, 1994).\u00a0 Even the journal, Health Physics<\/em> devoted an entire issue to this subject (May, 1987).\u00a0 For further information on hormesis,<\/p>\nJust as humankind went west to explore new frontiers and is now exploring the frontier of space, today scientists and physicians are exploring nanotechnologies and nanopharmacologies.\u00a0 It is only a matter of time before scientists and physicians learn that homeopathic medicine presents a fertile ground for exploring and exploiting the power of these powerful nanodoses.<\/p>\n
The Clinical Evidence for Homeopathy
\n<\/span><\/em><\/strong>Before discussing the recent well-controlled and double-blind clinical trials, it is important to make reference to homeopathy\u2019s history in order to provide additional evidence for the clinical efficacy of homeopathic nanopharmacology.<\/p>\nHomeopathy first developed a significant popularity in Europe and the United States primarily because of the astounding successes it experienced in treating people suffering from the various infectious disease epidemics in the 19th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 The death rates in the homeopathic hospitals from cholera, scarlet fever, typhoid, yellow fever, pneumonia, and others was typically one-half to even one-eighth of conventional medical hospitals (Bradford, 1900;) Similar good results were also observed in mental institutions and prisons under the care of homeopathic physicians compared to those under the care of conventional doctors.\u00a0 These consistent and significant results could not be attributed to a placebo effect.\u00a0 In other words, there is clear empirical evidence that homeopathic medicines were highly effective in treating various infectious diseases and in psychiatric disorders.<\/p>\nUnfortunately, conventional physicians and scientists have continually provided misinformation about the status of scientific evidence about homeopathic medicine.\u00a0 They have frequently and incorrectly asserted that there is no research to prove that homeopathic medicines work, and they further have asserted that there is no way that the extremely small doses can have any effect whatsoever.<\/p>\n
This type of statement simply reflects ignorance of the scientific literature.\u00a0 It is remarkable to note that some of the earliest placebo-controlled and double-blinded studies ever performed were actually conducted by homeopathic physicians.\u00a0 For a detailed history of the 19th<\/sup> century and early 20th<\/sup> century studies, see The Trials of Homeopathy<\/em><\/strong> by Dr. Michael Emmans Dean.\u00a0 For those people who want an excellent summary of this history, it is a part of a special e-book, Homeopathic Family Medicine<\/em><\/strong> (anyone interested in a comprehensive, historical, and up-to-date review of clinical research testing homeopathic medicines would benefit from obtaining and subscribing to this e-book).\u00a0 Another source of modern basic science and clinical research on homeopathic medicine is the Samueli Institute<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\u00a0A short summary of some of the modern placebo-controlled and double-blind studies is reported below.
\n<\/strong>An independent group of physicians and scientists evaluated homeopathic clinical research prior to October, 1995 (Linde, 1997).\u00a0 They reviewed 186 studies, 89 of which met their pre-defined criteria for their meta-analysis.\u00a0 They found that on average patients given a homeopathic medicine were 2.45 times more likely to have experienced a clinically beneficial effect.\u00a0 When reviewing only the highest quality studies and when adjusting for publication bias, the researchers found that subjects given a homeopathic medicine were still 1.86 times more likely to experience improved health as compared with those given a placebo.\u00a0 The researchers have also noted that it is extremely common in conventional medical research for more rigorous trials to yield less positive results than less rigorous trials.<\/p>\nThe most important question that good scientists pose about any clinical research is:\u00a0 have there been replications of clinical studies by independent researchers?\u00a0 When at least three independent researchers verify the efficacy of a treatment, it is considered to be a valid and effective treatment.<\/p>\n
Four separate bodies of researchers have conducted clinical trials in the use of a homeopathic medicine (Oscillococcinum 200C) in the treatment of influenza-like syndromes (Ferley, 1989; Casanova, 1992; Papp, 1998).\u00a0 Each of these trials was relatively large in the number of subjects (487, 300, 100, and 372), and all were multi-centered placebo-controlled and double-blinded (two of the three trials were also randomized).\u00a0 Each of these trials showed statistically significant results.<\/p>\n
One other body of research in the use of Galphimia glauca in the treatment of hay fever was replicated successfully seven times, but this research was conducted by the same group of researchers (Wiesenauer, Ludtke, 1996), and thus far, this work has not been conducted by any other researchers.<\/p>\n
A body of clinical research in homeopathy that has been consistently recognized as some of the highest quality scientific research has been conducted by a group of researchers at the University of Glasgow and Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital.\u00a0 They conducted four studies on people suffering from various respiratory allergies (hay fever, asthma, and perennial allergic rhinitis) (Taylor, Reilly, Llewellyn-Jones, et al, 2000).\u00a0 In total, they treated 253 patients and found a 28% improvement in visual analogue scores in those given a homeopathic medicine, as compared with a 3% improvement in patients given a placebo (P=.0007)(The \u201cP\u201d refers to the \u201cprobability\u201d of these results occurring simply by chance, and thus, the lower the number, the greater the likelihood that the treatment used is effective.\u00a0 When \u201cP\u201d equals .05, this means that there are 5 chances out of 100 that the effective of a specific treatment happened by chance, and scientists today consider this 5% chance as adequate evidence of a treatment\u2019s effectiveness.\u00a0 In this study, however, there was an extremely high likelihood that the treatment was effective because there were only seven chances out of 10,000 (!) that this result happened by chance.)<\/p>\n
In the hay fever study, homeopathic doses of various hayfever-inducing flowers were prescribed, and in the other studies, the researchers conducted conventional allergy testing to assess to which substance each person was most allergic.\u00a0 The researchers then prescribed the 30C (100-30<\/sup>) of this allergic substance (House dust mite 30C was the most commonly prescribed homeopathic medicine).<\/p>\nThe researchers called this type of prescribing \u201chomeopathic immunotherapy,\u201d and they concluded from their research that either homeopathic medicines work or controlled clinical trials do not.<\/p>\n
Three studies of children<\/strong> with diarrhea were also conducted and published in peer-review scientific journals (Jacobs, Jonas, Jimenez-Perez, Crothers, 2003).\u00a0 A meta-analysis of the 242 children who were involved in these three studies showed that the children who were prescribed a homeopathic medicine experienced a highly significant reduction in the duration of diarrhea, as compared with the children who were given a placebo (P=0.008).\u00a0 The World Health Organization has deemed that childhood diarrhea is the most serious public health problem today because several million children die each year as a result of dehydration from diarrhea.\u00a0 The fact that homeopathy is not included in the standard of care for diarrhea in children could be considered malpractice.<\/p>\nOne other study is worth mentioning.\u00a0 This study was on 53 patients with fibromyalgia, which is a newly recognized syndrome that includes musculoskeletal symptoms, fatigue, and insomnia (Bell, Lewis, Brooks, et al, 2004).\u00a0 Participantsgiven individually chosen homeopathic treatment showed significantly greater improvementsin tender point count and tender point pain, quality of life,global health and a trend toward less depression compared withthose on placebo. \u201cHelpfulness from treatment\u201d in homeopathic patients as compared to those given a placebo was very significant (P=.004).\u00a0 What is also extremely interesting about this study was that the researchers found that people on homeopathic treatment also experienced changes in EEG readings.\u00a0 Not only did subjects who were given a homeopathic medicine experience improved health, they were shown to experience different changes in the brain wave activity.\u00a0 This evidence of clinical benefits and objective physiological action from homeopathic medicines in people with chronic symptoms constitutes very strong evidence that these nanodoses can have observable effects.<\/p>\n
\u00a0The above body of evidence should be adequate for verifying that homeopathic medicines can have therapeutic benefits, but there is even evidence that these nanodoses can have significant biological activity.\u00a0 One important study was led by a professor of chemistry who was formerly a skeptic of homeopathy (Dr. Madeleine Ennis) but who now recognizes that these medicines have significant effects (Belon, Cumps, Ennis, et al., 2004).\u00a0 Four independent laboratories, each associated with a university, conducted a series of 3,674 experiments using dilutions of histamine beyond Avogadro’s number, by which we mean the dose in which there should be in all probability no remaining molecules of the original substance remaining (the 15th through 19th centesimal dilution, that is 100 -15<\/sup> to 100 \u201319<\/sup>).\u00a0 The researchers found inhibitory effects of histamine dilutions on a type of white blood cell called basophils.\u00a0 The overall effects were substantially significant (p<0.0001).\u00a0 The test solutions were made in independent laboratories, the participants were blinded to the content of the test solutions, and the data analysis was performed by a biostatistician who was not involved in any other part of the trial.<\/p>\nAnd still further, the website of the New Scientist<\/span>, <\/strong>one of the world\u2019s most respected popular science magazines, includes articles it has published on homeopathy, with numerous positive studies and comments from world renowned physicists, chemists, physicians, biologists, and other scientists.<\/p>\nFor example, Nobel Laureate and physicist Brian D. Josephson (1997) of the University of Cambridge wrote to the New Scientist<\/em>:<\/p>\n\u201cSimple-minded analysis may suggest that water, being a fluid, cannot have a structure of the kind that such a picture would demand. But cases such as that of liquid crystals, which while flowing like an ordinary fluid can maintain an ordered structure over macroscopic distances, show the limitations of such ways of thinking. There have not, to the best of my knowledge, been any refutations of homeopathy that remain valid after this particular point is taken into account. A related topic is the phenomenon, claimed by Yolene Thomas and by others to be well established experimentally, known as the \u2018memory of water\u2019. If valid, this would be of greater significance than homeopathy itself, and it attests to the limited vision of the modern scientific community that, far from hastening to test such claims, the only response has been to dismiss them out of hand<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\nPossible Explanations for Nano-Doses
\n<\/span><\/em><\/strong>Precisely how homeopathic medicines work remains a mystery according to present scientific thinking.\u00a0 And yet, despite the paradox of homeopathic medicines, nature and new technologies are replete with striking examples of the powerful effects from extremely small doses.<\/p>\nIt is commonly known that certain species of moths can smell pheromones of its own species up to two miles in distance.\u00a0 It is no simple coincidence that species only sense pheromones from those in the same species who emit them (akin to the homeopathic principle of similars), as though they have developed exquisite and specific receptor sites for what they need to survive and to propagate their species. Likewise, sharks are known to sense blood in the water at distances, and when one considers the volume of water in the ocean, it becomes obvious that sharks, like all living creatures, develop extreme hypersensitivity for whatever will help ensure their survival.<\/p>\n
It is therefore not surprising that renowned astronomer Johann Kepler once said, \u201cNature uses as little as possible of anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
One metaphor that may help us understand how and why extremely small doses of medicinal agents may work derives from present knowledge of modern submarine radio communications.\u00a0 Normal radio waves simply do not penetrate water, so submarines must use an extremely low frequency radio wave.\u00a0 However, the terms \u201cextremely low\u201d are inadequate to describe this specific situation because radio waves used by submarines to penetrate water are so low that a single wavelength is typically several miles long!<\/p>\n
If one considers that the human body is 70-80% water, perhaps the best way to provide pharmacological information to the body and into intercellular fluids is with nanodoses.\u00a0 Like the above mentioned extremely low frequency radio waves, it may be necessary to use extremely low (and activated) doses as used in homeopathic medicines, in order for a person to receive the medicinal effect.<\/p>\n
It is important to understand that nanopharmacological doses will not have any effect unless the person is hypersensitive to the specific medicinal substance.\u00a0 Hypersensitivity is created when there is some type of resonance between the medicine and the person.\u00a0 Because the system of homeopathy bases its selection of the medicine on its ability to cause in overdose the similar symptoms that the sick person is experiencing, homeopathy\u2019s \u201cprinciple of similars\u201d is simply a practical method of finding the substance to which a person is hypersensitive.<\/p>\n
The homeopathic principle of similars makes further sense when one considers that modern physiologists and pathologists recognize that disease is not simply the result of breakdown or surrender of the body but that symptoms are instead representative of the body\u2019s efforts to fight infection or adapt to stress.<\/p>\n
Using a nanodose that is able to penetrate deeply into the body and that is specifically chosen for its ability to mimic the symptoms that the sick person is experiencing helps to initiate a profound healing process. \u00a0It is also important to highlight the fact that a homeopathic medicine is not simply chosen for its ability to cause a similar disease that a person has but for its ability to cause a similar syndrome of symptoms of disease, of which the specific localized disease is a part.\u00a0 By understanding that the human body is a complex organism that creates a wide variety of physical and psychological symptoms, homeopaths acknowledge biological complexity and have a system of treatment to deal with it.<\/p>\n
Although no one knows precisely how homeopathic medicines initiate the healing process, there is over 200 years of experience by hundreds of thousands of clinicians and tens of millions of patients that these medicines they have powerful effects.\u00a0 One cannot help but sense and anticipate the veritable treasure-trove of knowledge that further research in homeopathy and nanopharmacology will bring in this new millennium.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Quantum Medicine
\n<\/span><\/em><\/strong>Quantum physics did not disprove Newtonian physics; it simply extended our understanding of extremely small and extremely large systems.\u00a0 Likewise, homeopathy does not disprove conventional pharmacology; instead, it extends our understanding of extremely small doses of medicinal agents.<\/p>\n\u00a0The founder of homeopathic medicine, Samuel Hahnemann, MD, rewrote and updated his seminal work on the subject five times in his lifetime, each time refining his observations.\u00a0 Homeopaths continue to refine this system of nanopharmacology.\u00a0 While there is not always agreement on the best ways to select the correct remedy or the best nanopharmacological dose to use, the system of homeopathic medicine provides a solid foundation from which clinicians and researchers exploring nanopharmacologies can and should explore.<\/p>\n
Samuel Hahnemann is buried in Pere Larchese, the most famous cemetery in Paris, and his tombstone bears the Latin words, \u201cAude sapere\u201d which means:\u00a0 dare to know, to taste, and to understand.\u00a0 Such is the challenge that homeopathy and nanopharmacology present to us.<\/p>\n
Resources to Learning about Homeopathy
\n<\/span><\/em><\/strong>If homeopathy makes sense to you or if you simply want to learn more about it, you can access an excellent summary of what are the best books for learning different aspects of it by clicking anyone of the subjects below:<\/p>\n\u00a0Learning Homeopathy
\nThe 1st<\/sup> Steps\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Introductory\u00a0 (learn what homeopathy is)<\/li>\n
- Family Medicine\u00a0 (learn how to use homeopathic medicines for common acute ailments in everyone)<\/li>\n
- Specialized Self-Care\u00a0 (learn how to use homeopathic medicines in specialized situations)<\/li>\n
- Children’s Health Care (learn how to use homeopathic medicines to treat infants and children\u2014this subject is extremely important!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n