Does homeopathy really work?

Most physicians are pretty skeptical about homeopathy.  The idea of treating a disease with an infinitesimal amount of a medicine – so small that a dose may only consist of a few molecules – just doesn’t fit with their medical training in therapeutics or with their logical assessment of the so-called science behind it.  However, it’s difficult to persuade an advocate of homeopathy that such treatments are worthless.  And there are plenty of anecdotal accounts of amazing cures that can be called on to support their claims of effectiveness.

However, homeopathy has just been dealt a blow by a report in the medical journal Lancet.  Investigators in Switzerland compared the results of over 100 clinical studies of homeopathic treatment with those of ‘conventional’ medical treatment.  They found that there was only weak evidence for specific beneficial effects of homeopathic treatments, similar to those seen with placebos (dummy treatments).

It would be wrong not to give the homeopathy advocates a chance of rebuttal.  The National Center for Homeopathy has posted a vigorous response on their webpage.  For our part, we side with the widely-accepted approach – well-conducted clinical studies appear to show that homeopathic treatments are successful only in-so-far that they produce a ‘placebo-response’.

Comments

[Michael Roberts]

I have suffered all my life from asthma, and during the last few years have had to rely more on inhalers. My peak flow reading was 340-370 even with inhalers.
I took nux vomica 30c and sulpher 30c as homeopathic remedies, which gave symptoms of restlessness. I then stopped these remedies, and introduced arsen alb 30c, and within 3 days my peak flow reading was up to 450-480. It could only be the remedies that has helped, as I have not taken anything different.