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Homeopathic remedies - total waste of time?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Because we can have more fun here than derailing a Health post.
I'm in two minds about them. I wouldn't go homeopathic in place of conventional medicine, but I'm willing to give it a go.
Apis mel seems to bring my allergic reactions down. Steroid cream, antihistamine cream, and antihistamine tablets do as well, but adding apis mel to the armoury seems to improve things further.
I'm in two minds about them. I wouldn't go homeopathic in place of conventional medicine, but I'm willing to give it a go.
Apis mel seems to bring my allergic reactions down. Steroid cream, antihistamine cream, and antihistamine tablets do as well, but adding apis mel to the armoury seems to improve things further.
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This topic has been done quite a lot, and people who its worked for generally get shouted down, so im not sure who benefits
Despite the lack of perceived success with the alternative medicines I've tried I would still try more. Everyone reacts differently to different things. My goal, when feeling crap, is always to feel better and I'll try anything within reason to get there.
Now it doesn't really matter massively for minor ailments: taking a sugar pill over aspirin to cure a headache isn't going to bring the world to its knees. However, parents giving their children sugar pills instead of malaria medicine is fucking criminal.
N.B.: James Randi has been taking a "fatal dose" of homoeopathic medicine on stage for years.
ETA: A little background on it: http://www.skepdic.com/homeo.html
It's not really a controversial subject in any real sense. All the decent, peer reviewed, double blind, properly conducted and reviewed tests show it's not more efficacious than placebo.
I don't have anything against homoeopathy, per se; it's just an idea that hasn't met any of the criteria that you would reasonably expect a medicine to have met. The "evidence" for it is purely anecdotal and has never been back up by reasoned science, so I hold it as a likely false.
Sam Harris has an excellent example involving the late Sathya Sai Baba. Sathya was, until a couple of weeks ago, a living breathing man who millions of people claimed they'd seen perform miracles. Yet I'm under no obligation to believe that he was pulling gold watches out of thin air. Anecdotal evidence, especially for big claims, simply isn't sufficient.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc really isn't the basis for evidencing clinical outcomes.
I don't think it does. They all have the same level of active ingredient (i.e. zero). But you're right in the sense that the placebo effect will only work on certain medical problems. It's unlikely to make your cancer disappear, but it might make that back pain go away. The placebo effect is really interesting. People often recommend you not to buy branded painkillers, for example, because the stuff in the packet is just the same as the cheap equivalent. But trials have actually shown that people feel less pain when the product comes in different coloured packaging, despite the product inside being the same. Similarly, people respond better to a placebo injection than a placebo pill, because the brain associates an injection with a far more drastic intervention, and responds accordingly.
The main issue with homeopathy, however, is that they are legally allowed to do what no other product is allowed to do, and advertise effects that they cannot prove. If I put some of the claims of homeopathy on a box of cereal, I would be forced to pull it from the shelves, but when someone puts them on a box posing as medicine and sells them alongside real medicine in a chemist, apparently that's fine.
For those interested in the power of the placebo, check out the nocebo effect, whereby the efficacy of drugs or treatments can be reduced, or even negative effects when given a placebo, by the patient's negative expectations.
I'm interested in why when it comes to alternative medicine (and perhaps conventional medicine), people are often more happy to believe anecdotal evidence than reports from scientific studies. Is it caused by distrust or misunderstanding of science? Is science communication just not effective enough? I suppose the case of homeopathy is more complicated, as the case for its effectiveness is probably inflated in people's eyes by support by the government, health practitioners and the media. This situation has to change.
Like Arctic Roll said, what about anti-depressants? Trials are inconclusive.
Exactly. I once mentioned sleeping issues and was told to try Nytol instead of sleeping tablets. It wasn't pushed - it was just "I can't give you sleeping tablets because..." and suggested I use Nytol instead.
Worth mentioning tho that the placebo is one of the most effective treatments there is - it works on everything.
What are these if they're not a claim of an effect? That's before we even consider the fact that these products are designed to mimic, right down to the language used, real drugs. The packaging looks the same, the product names are designed to imitate drug names, the language used on the box is the same (always read the label), and despite MHRA rules that products must "make no therapeutic claims," they blatantly do. I'll point out that this isn't the case for all Boots homeopathic products, many of which point out that there is no evidence for their effectiveness. But crucially, this disclaimer wasn't present on the products I mentioned.
Not quite as bad as something I found on Amazon UK though, advertising itself as a "Homeopathic Alternative to the Flu Vaccine"
Do you think that product should legally be allowed to be sold in the UK? And do you think they should legally be allowed to make such claims in their advertising?
How much is a consultation? My doctor is free. And he's qualified.
Of course. Well the actual claim is that homeopathy is no more effective than placebo.
From Wikipedia.
And here's an article by Ben Goldacre, which talks about the homeopathic research as well as the attitude of those within this dishonest con job of an industry.
I particularly like the bit about how a BBC investigation revealed that over half of homeopathic practitioners they approached recommended not having the MMR jab, all of them recommended homeopathic treatment to prevent malaria, and Prince Charles' office tried to get the lead researcher sacked.