14 DAY TRIAL // This March 11, specialists with Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council produced a report saying that, contrary to what some guys and gals claim, homeopathic remedies have no effect whatsoever when it comes to treating various conditions. Otherwise put, they are perfectly useless.
The researchers explain that, having reviewed several hundred studies on homeopathy carried out over the years, they found no evidence that such remedies can, in fact, treat one health trouble or another. When patients do report an improvement in their condition, it's because of the placebo effect.
What's the deal with homeopathy anyways?
This system of alternative medicine, labeled by actual medical experts as no more and no less than a clear instance of pseudoscience, was developed by a German physician by the name of Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann in the late 18th century.
Homeopathy postulates that a disease can be cured by administering those plagued by it a substance that causes symptoms similar to the ones they are displaying in healthy individuals. This theory is summed up by homeopaths as such: “like cures like.”
This alternative medicine system abides by the so-called “law of minimum dose.” What this means is that homeopathy argues that the lower the dose of a remedy administered to a patient is, the greater the effectiveness of the medication will be.
Because of this law, the majority of homeopathic remedies are terribly diluted. Specialists say that, in some cases, they are so diluted that they contain virtually no traces of the active substance supposed to cure one health condition or another when introduced in the body.
Homeopathic remedies are all made from substances derived from plants, minerals and even animals. Poison ivy and belladonna count themselves among the plants used in homeopathy. Since treatments are individualized, folks suffering from the same condition are often handed different remedies.
There is no evidence homeopathy works
In their latest report, scientists with the National Health and Medical Research Council in Australia explain how, although homeopathy has been around for quite a while now, there is no sound evidence indicating that it actually works.
Of the hundreds of studies on this system of alternative medicine that they analyzed, the very few ones that made a case in favor of homeopathic treatments as proper cures for various conditions were either too small to matter or of poor quality, sometimes both.
“There is no good quality evidence to support the claim that homeopathy works better than a placebo. From this review, the main recommendation for Australians is that they should not rely on homeopathy as a substitute for proven, effective treatments,” says researcher Warwick Anderson.
To be completely truthful, it looks like homeopathy can every once in a while influence people's health, albeit not in a good way. Thus, specialists warn that those who turn to such remedies put their lives at risk by rejecting other treatments proven to be both safe and effective.