The Happy and Prosperous Blog

Part 2 of this series, which I published yesterday, talked about homeopathic remedies. Today let’s have a look at how they work.

I’ve already said that remedies act as a stimulus or a catalyst for changes in a person’s internal health system. That’s fine as far as it goes but exactly how this happens is unknown. There are theories around concerning how homeopathy works – but that’s all they are – theories.

No Scientific Explanation ??

I’ve come across a few people who have said to me that homeopathy must be a complete load of nonsense because there’s no scientific explanation for it. This argument does not hold water to me – I cannot see how the premise leads to the conclusion. Gravity was working very happily before the apple fell on Newton’s head, the ancient Chinese were using lode-stone for navigation before there was any explanation for gravity, hearts were pumping blood before Harvey discovered this fact. Homeopathy is like gravity in the pre-Newtonian era. It’s an observable, reproducible phenomenon, we just don’t have a detailed explanation of the empirical facts as yet.

And it may be some while before we arrive at that position as there are no companies, institutes or individuals with the interest or the money to finance research programmes. But that’s OK – homoeopathy, like gravity, still works.

Placebo ?

How do I know it works ? Couldn’t it be just the placebo effect ? First question first. I know it works because I see it working in my practice. Other homeopaths report the same. Homeopathy has been going for over 200 years and there’s a large body of literature available which includes a huge array of cured cases. There have been some studies published in the recent medical literature which show that homeopathy is more effective than placebo and I’ll talk about one of those in a minute.

Trials

Designing trials for homeopathy is not easy. Since homeopathy treats individuals and not their symptoms, then, for example, 30 people with asthma might each need a different remedy to reduce or remove their respiratory symptoms. It’s not one size fits all ! So if remedy X is the right remedy for one of these people and we do a randomised, double blind, placebo-controlled trial, giving 30 people placebo and the other 30 remedy X, then only one of the 60 people in the trial is likely to show an improvement which is not terribly impressive (apart from the lucky one person !). Homeopathy is individualised so a different type of trial is needed.

On type of trial that is often used is called an outcome study in which clients are asked to rate the improvement they have had since starting homeopathic treatment. This doesn’t help us understand how homeopathy works, but it does give evidence that it does work.

One of the most comprehensive outcome surveys was done at the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital which involved over 6,500 individual patients. More than 70% of these follow-up patients reported clinical improvement following homeopathic treatment. Many of the patients in the analysis had previously received mainstream medical treatment and had either failed to respond satisfactorily or had been unable to tolerate the medication prescribed. Homeopathy showed positive clinical outcomes in a whole range of conditions (e.g. Crohn’s disease, depression, eczema, headache, menopausal syndrome). Read an abstract of the article.)

Rapport

It’s also worth noting that homeopathy is not a mechanical process with a fixed set of questions and answers which lead to a remedy. The rapport between homeopath and client is important so that the necessary information can be elicited to allow an accurate prescription to be made. A homeopath with poor interpersonal skills is likely to get consistently poor results. (I’ve not met such a homeopath as yet !) So personality plays a part but I don’t accept that it is the placebo effect. Infants and animals improve under homeopathic treatment. Surely the placebo effect is not working there. Also clients don’t just say they feel better after treatment, there can be measurable improvements in signs and symptoms which are indisputable. So, no, I don’t believe that the placebo effect is the reason remedies work.

In the next part of this series, I’m going to talk about what’s involved in a homeopathic consultation and what you should expect !

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