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--- en:misc:talk-qa-schwarcz-saine [2013/02/07 11:10]
legatum [QUESTION 7]
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legatum [QUESTION 11]
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 » www.homeopathy-ecch.eu)].
+===== QUESTION 8 =====
+**The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the US has spent 1.4 billion dollars in ten years investigating all sorts of alternative treatments, including homeopathy. How is it that it has been unable to find any evidence that homeopathy provides benefits that are superior to those of a placebo?**
+This is wrong, as the following EEG and fibromyalgia studies[(Bell IR, Lewis DA, Lewis SE, Schwartz G. EEG alpha sensitization in individualized homeopathic treatment of fibromyalgia. //International Journal of Neuroscience// 2004; 114: 1195-1120. )] [(Bell IR, Lewis DA, Brooks AJ, Schwartz GE, Lewis SE, Walsh BT, Baldwin CM. Improved clinical status in fibromyalgia patients treated with individualized homeopathic remedies versus placebo //Rheumatology// 2004; 43: 577–582.)], were funded by a number of grants from the NIH/NCCAM and researchers found differences from placebo in all of these studies. The fibromyalgia study was the second study on that condition to show that homeopathy is beneficial. Fisher et al. first published their study in British Medical Journal, and Bell et al. published theirs in Rheumatology, as mentioned in the answer to question 3.
+Others studies on homeopathy funded by the NIH/NCCAM grants have been published in peer-review journals in recent years include the one in Sleep Medicine on young adults with coffee-related insomnia. Researchers found that polysomnography (PSG) offers a modern methodology for evaluating the objective effects of taking homeopathic remedies that clinicians claim exert effects on sleep quality in susceptible individuals. Animal studies have previously shown changes in non-rapid eye movement sleep with certain homeopathic remedies. Verum remedies significantly increased PSG total sleep time and non-rapid eye movement sleep, as well as awakenings and stage changes. Changes in actigraphic and self-rated scale effects were not significant[(Bell IR, Howerter A, Jackson N, Aickin M, Baldwin CM, Bootzin RR. Effects of homeopathic medicines on polysomnographic sleep of young adults with histories of coffee-related insomnia. //Sleep Medicine// 2011; 12: 505–511.)]. In another study, researchers found out that EEG alpha offers an objective biomarker of remedy effects for future studies and potential method for distinguishing time-dependent effects of specific remedies and remedy potencies from one another[(Brooks AJ, Bell IR, Howerter A, Jackson N, Aickin M. Short-term effects of repeated olfactory administration of homeopathic Sulphur or Pulsatilla on electroencephalographic alpha power in healthy young adults. //Homeopathy// 2011; 100: 203-211.)]. In a third study, it was found that EEG cordance provided a minimally invasive technique for assessing objective nonlinear physiologic effects of two different homeopathic remedies salient to the individuals who received them. These findings open the door for additional neuroimaging research on nonlinear psychophysiologic effects of specific homeopathic remedies[(Bell IR, Howerter A, Jackson N, Brooks AJ, Schwartz GE. Multiweek resting EEG cordance change patterns from repeated olfactory activation with two constitutionally salient homeopathic remedies in healthy young adults. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 2012; 18: 445-453.)].
+Research on homeopathy funded by the NCCAM in its 20 years of existence has been quite limited to most likely less than 1% of its total budget. Today, junior researchers most likely risk their career and of being kicked out of tenure track if they focus on homeopathy. Also as there are very few researchers applying for grants to research homeopathy, there is little funding. Since there is little funding and few homeopathy researchers in the US, there has not been larger scale funding to replicate findings. There are structural problems with "peer review" for larger applications to do larger clinical trials, which means no CAM researchers, let alone homeopaths, are on review committees. The bias against homeopathy creates a self-fulfilling prophecy—no academic advancement for researchers pursuing homeopathic studies and no true CAM peers on the grant reviews if someone does send in studies.
+===== QUESTION 9 =====
+**Can you make a comparison between the number of years of education a homeopath receives versus that of a medical doctor as well as the residency requirements?**
+The training requirements for becoming a homeopath vary from one country to another, as can be seen in the answer to question 7. However, the preparation I have always recommended for a person interested in pursuing a career in homeopathy has been the following: first, to obtain a wide-spread education in liberal arts and science with particular emphases on philosophy, psychology, biology, arts and science. Second, this should be followed by medical training, preferably one that offers homeopathy as parts of its curriculum, as it is given in all the accredited naturopathic medical schools in North America[(See the Association of Acredited Naturopathic Medical Colleges:
+» http://www.aanmc.org/ )].
+A specialty can be pursued, such as pediatrics, gynecology, psychiatry, cardiology, etc., but always keeping homeopathy as the main focus. Following this training, a specialty in homeopathy should be pursued in a postgraduate training, like I pursued after graduation from naturopathic medical college in order to obtain my board certification in the Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians.
+The question seems to insinuate that homeopathic training is subpar with the one received by an allopathic family medicine practitioner. It is likely to be the opposite. Once, while I was the acting secretary of the Council on Homeopathic Education, a US-based organization, we had a meeting on which I was the only non-MD on that board (as I hold a doctorate of naturopathic medicine (ND)). If my memory serves me well, there were a cardiologist, a psychiatrist, a radiologist and a few family practitioners sitting on the council at that time. They unanimously agreed that homeopathy had so far been the most difficult discipline they had had to learn in all their training, and a greater amount of work and experience was required in order to master it than any other discipline they had to learn.
+In essence, aside from therapeutics, a first class homeopathic physician must know human beings in health and disease and from genes to psyche, and understand the factors, conditions and influences needed for optimal health and be able to recognize all the possible causes of diseases. In 1862, Carroll Dunham explained in details in a long essay the requirement needed for becoming a homeopathic physician and the importance of being an excellent diagnostician. He wrote, "When first brought into the presence of a concrete case of disease, the business of the physician is to ascertain what branch of medical science he is called upon to exercise. Is the case one which requires hygienic management, or therapeutic, or both, or is the patient beyond the reach of art?
+To answer these questions a diagnosis and prognosis must be made, and to make these, a knowledge of the remote and proximate causes and of the course and determination of diseases is required. In a word, a knowledge of physiology and pathology is indispensable on the very threshold of medical practice and before any question of therapeutics has arisen[([[en:ahr:dunham-c-homoeopathy-the-science-of-therapeutics-158-10408|Dunham C. Homoeopathy, the science of therapeutics]]. American Homoeopathic Review 1862-1863; 3: 9-15, 61-71, 103-111, 156-162, 203-210, 263-273, 305-313.)]."
+===== QUESTION 10 =====
+**Given that there are substances that can increase the chance of pregnancy in women, why are there no homeopathic birth control pills?**
+Homeopathic remedies are prescribed in order to obtain a healing or remedial response in the sick or for homeoprophylaxis, and not to submit the autocratic living organism to the effects of a drug. With homeopathy, the organism is active in the healing or protective processes, as it is with immunization. However, when it is under the effect of crude drugs, especially if not prescribed homeopathically, the living organism is passive.
+//Whole system of allostatic responses of the living organism// to homeopathic remedies should never be confused with the //physiological effects// of drugs. Responses to homeopathic remedies are prolonged, durable and cumulative, and affect the whole person, and are therefore curative. While physiological effects of drugs are short in duration and partial in their effects, therefore palliative. BCP have a physiological effect on the organism, and are completely outside the domain of homeopathy.
+===== QUESTION 11 =====
+**Given that there are numerous chemicals that can cause cancer, why are there no homeopathic remedies to treat the disease?**
+Homeopaths don't treat disease but sick persons. Homeopathic physicians consider the whole person in the context of a dynamic environment in every prescription they make, //i.e.//, every chief complaint, the past medical history, the family history, the personality, the habits, the sensitivities, sleep, appetite, energy, etc., are taken into account. Experienced homeopathic physicians will obtain very favorable results in the treatment of patients with cancer. Many in vitro studies have showed that UMPs can significantly increase apoptosis in cancer cells. For instance, researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center recently found that UMPs exerted preferential cytotoxic effects against two breast cancer cell lines, causing cell cycle delay/arrest and apoptosis[(Frenkel M, Mishra BM, Sen S, Yang P, Pawlus A, Vence L, Leblanc A, Cohen L, Banerji P, Banerji P. Cytotoxic effects of ultra-diluted remedies on breast cancer cells. //International Journal of Oncology// 2012; 36: 395-403.)]. It is a shame that every cancer patient is not treated concurrently with homeopathy.
+===== QUESTION 12 =====
+**Given that homeopathic medications are claimed to have a physiological effect, why should they not be required to meet the same standard of proof of efficacy as other medications?**
+During provings, we could say that homeopathic remedies produce effects on healthy subjects. But as homeopathic remedies are mainly prescribed for therapeutic purpose, we should talk of therapeutic or physiological responses rather than effects. This being understood, I will suggest two good reasons to answer your question. First, homeopathic remedies are devoid of chemical toxicity. Second, because homeopathic remedies are prescribed with the objective of obtaining a whole system allostatic response and not to provoke particular physiological effects, any remedy can be effective in an infinite number of cases. It would then be impossible to demonstrate the efficacy of every single remedy for the infinite number of cases it could potentially be indicated. Demonstration of the efficacy of the principle of similia in the hands of well-trained physicians should be sufficient for authorities to institutionalize homeopathy as an extremely safe system of medicine, without having to focus on each individual remedy, as it is in the allopathic system that uses toxic doses of medicines.
+Allopathy's strength is its specialization of addressing symptoms and therefore to palliate. It has thus developed much success for relieving pain and for silencing symptoms. There can be great advantage in such an approach, as in the use of anesthetic during surgery. However, as a whole such an approach is reductionist, doesn't affect the fundamental causes of disease and is never without danger. On the other hand, homeopathy is a science that considers the totality of symptoms in order to deal with the whole person. It will use the signs and symptoms as a guide to curative means without obscuring them. Allopathy seeks to silence the warning signals of the organism that something is wrong, while homeopathy is able to reach the vis medicatrix naturae by mean of its distress signals and annihilate the danger at its source.
+===== QUESTION 13 =====
+**Is there any homeopathic medication that can in any way cause harm to the patient?**
+Sensitive patients can react strongly to homeopathic remedies. This is why it is preferable that homeopathy is practiced by well-trained physicians. Extremely low attenuations, which are almost never prescribed by qualified homeopaths, keep a certain level of chemical toxicity and could potentially cause harm if taken in very large quantities and for a long period of time by an uninstructed public.
+===== QUESTION 14 =====
+What would be the effect of using D<sub>2</sub>O instead of H<sub>2</sub>O in preparing a homeopathic solution?
+In his 2003 paper, Rey studied thermoluminescence of ultra-molecular D2O preparations of lithium chloride 10-30 and sodium chloride 10-30. He found that D2O samples gave a much higher signal than the H2O ones. He wrote, "Much to our surprise, the experimental results do show—without any ambiguity— that for an X-ray dose of 0:4 kGy the thermoluminescence glows of the three systems [LiCl 15 C, NaCl 15 C and D2O 15 C] were substantially different. These findings did prove to be reproducible in the course of many different identical experiments. As a working hypothesis, we believe that this phenomenon results from a marked structural change in the hydrogen bond network initiated at the onset by the presence of the dissolved ions and maintained in the course of the dilution process, probably thanks to the successive vigorous mechanical stirrings[(Rey L. Thermoluminescence of ultra-high dilutions of lithium chloride and sodium chloride. //Physica A// 2003; 323: 67-74.)]."
+===== QUESTION 15 =====
+**You mentioned that you take your own blood and interpret the results because you are a qualified "physician." But no physician I know of does this. Was William Osler wrong when he said that a physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient?**
+Perhaps, it is because you only know allopathic physicians who don't trust their own skills, judgment or recommendations. In homeopathy, we quickly learn to become objective and to understand the individuality of each person. I have known many physicians, especially homeopathic physicians, who interpreted their own lab work, treated themselves very satisfactorily, and practiced medicine successfully into their 90's. My father, for instance, practiced medicine for 61 years, was a very good role model for me, and was one of these physicians who interpreted his own lab work and treated himself with success. It can also happen that homeopathic physicians will consult more experienced colleagues, not only for their patients but also for their own case or members of their family.
+===== QUESTION 16 =====
+**You referred several times to nanoparticles and made a connection to homeopathy. But homeopathy is based on dissolving a substance and sequentially diluting it. By definition nanoparticles are insoluble, so what do they have to do with homeopathy?**
+Aside form the physico-chemical changes of the vehicles, research with refined spectroscopy has revealed that UMPs are actually composed of nanoparticles of the original medical substances in colloidal suspensions. Emil Roduner, professor of physical chemistry at the University of Stuggart and author of a textbook on size-dependent phenomena of nanoparticles, explained some of the extraordinary and unexpected changes in the physico-chemical properties of substances when they are reduced to nanoparticles. For instance, he reports that gold is known as a shiny, yellow noble metal that does not tarnish, has a face centered cubic structure, is non-magnetic and melts at 1336?K. However, a small sample of the same gold is quite different, providing it is tiny enough: 10 nm particles absorb green light and thus appear red. The melting temperature decreases dramatically as the size goes down. Moreover, gold ceases to be noble, and 2–3 nm nanoparticles are excellent catalysts, which also exhibit considerable magnetism. At this size they are still metallic, but smaller ones turn into insulators[(Roduner E. Size matters: why nanomaterials are different. //Chemical Society Reviews// 2006; 35: 583–592. )]."
+Chikramane et al. demonstrated the serial process of succussion and dilution producing numerous large air bubbles aided nanoparticle levitation to the liquid surface, forming a monolayer that was preserved in the serial dilutions. They wrote, "Our conclusions arise from our experiments indicating that in the successive dilution process of manufacturing, beyond a certain stage, the dilution is merely apparent and the concentration of the starting material in the diluted product reaches a non-zero asymptotic level no matter how much more the sample is diluted[(Chikramane PS, Kalita D, Suresh AK, Kane SG, Bellare JR. Why extreme dilutions reach non-zero asymptotes: a nanoparticulate hypothesis based on froth flotation. //Langmuir// 2012; 28: 15864-15875.)]."
 ===== References =====

Legatum Homeopathicum

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