Homeopathy is a mystery. Scientists can’t explain it, and neither can those who use it. But for more than 150 years, people have been saying it works. Should you give it a try ?
Homeopathy is among the most popular alternative therapies in the United States, and even more popular in Europe and Canada where such "remedies" can be found side-by-side with conventional drugs in many pharmacies. It’s used worldwide not only by homeopaths, but by some medical doctors as well as naturopaths, chiropractors, herbalists, midwives and sometimes even veterinarians.
Most doctors tend to scratch their heads or shake them in disbelief whenever the subject of homeopathy comes up. It’s an alien concept that goes against almost everything understood in modern medicine.
While much of homeopathy’s appeal is based on hearsay and anecdotes, nevertheless, a number of studies have shown homeopathic remedies are effective for some conditions. Most doctors write that off to placebo effect the curious but real phenomenon in which a person’s belief that a substance will make him feel better actually does make him feel better. But there may be more to homeopathy than the placebo effect can explain : Some of the studies were performed on animals and in test tubes, yet still showed positive effects.
The basic premise isn’t so strange : Homeopathy is based on the idea that "like cures like," that diluted amounts of a poison or other disease causing substance can relieve the same symptoms that the larger dose causes. That concept resembles the desensitizing therapy used to relieve allergy symptoms, or vaccination, in which we are given a mild case of the disease to put our immune system on guard.
But the most confounding homeopathic belief of all is that the weaker the dose, the stronger the body’s response. In fact, some of the "most potent" remedies are so diluted that not a single molecule of the original material remains in the solution or tablet.
No one can explain how it works or how it could work. One homeopathic theory is that the molecules of the remedy substance leave an energy "memory" as they disappear, somewhat like a shadow, and that the body responds to it.
To most scientists, that’s nonsense. How, they ask, can a substance that diluted possibly have any effect? And skeptics and foes aren’t the only ones baffled.
"It boggles the mind," agrees Wayne Jonas, MD, a family physician at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., who uses homeopathy in his practice.
George Guess, MD, a family practitioner in Charlottesville, Va., says: "I don’t have the answer, but I know it works." Dr. Guess, who is president of the American Board of Homeotherapeutics and whose practice is "99 percent" homeopathy, was drawn to the field in part because of what he calls "the pleasant paradox : You can get an effect without a side effect," he says.
Corey Weinstein, MD, who practices homeopathy in San Francisco, says "There are a lot of things that we use every day and don’t understand. Homeopathy isn’t magic it’s just a wonderful, natural tool that helps people."
By Judith Horstman
