Homeopaths regularly claim that the main reason why homeopathy is not accepted in science or responsible healthcare must be that science is not sufficiently advanced to understand how it works. According to Indian researchers, this obstacle has now been removed: they claim to have found the mechanism by which homeopathy works:
The outcome of the research done during 64 years has revealed that homeopathic potencies are specifically structured water preserved by ethanol. The primary target of homeopathic potencies is structured water in the living body. A potency is capable of converting the water structure in the living body into a different form. The converted water structure interacts with proteins suspended in water in the living body. Water structures in different organs of living organisms are different from each other. Water structures in the entire body of an organisms are interconnected by hydrogen bonded network. Any change at one location due to application of homeopathic potencies brings about rearrangement of the entire hydrogen bonded network of water in the whole body. In this way the effect of a potency spreads throughout the body including the affected organ without actual movement of the molecules of the potentized drug. A well selected homeopathic potency restores health by changing the water structures favorably in the affected organ or part of the body.
The autors concluded that “the phyco-chemical basis of homeopathic potencies are activated specifically structured water. The specificity has been conferred on the potencies by the original drugs, and mechanical agitation applied during the preparation of the potencies has provided activation. Homeopathic potencies are capable of changing the water structure in the living body. Water structures in the entire body of a living organism is not uniform. Different organs / tissues have different water structures. Water structures undergo a change in living tissues during stress / disease. A well selected remedy would change water structures of different tissues in the living body briefly, but its specific action manifests itself in the diseased tissue. The right remedy targets the diseased tissue because it is selected on the basis of the symptoms of the concerned papient. A remedy dropped on the tongue / mouth of a patient would reach the target not by itself, but by changing the hydrogen bonded network of the structured water in the living body. While the primary target of homeopathic potencies is water, the secondary target is protein suspended in the water structures. A changed water structure influences the conformation and function of the protein. Homeopathic potencies act on the binding sites of a protein. Here the potencies serve as ligands. Ordinary water also serves as a ligand in a non-specific way. Homeopathic potency is structured water which is capable of binding a protein in a specific way.”
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I am so glad that, after over 200 years of uncertainty, this is all ceared up. All that is left to do now is to
- firstly show that these concepts have any bearing on reality,
- and secondly demonstrate that homeopathic remedies cause health benefit that differ from placebo.
In other words, this [and all other similarly far-fetched] speculations about the mode of action of homeopathy leave us exactly where Hahnemann left it more than 200 years ago when he proclaimed in his ‘Organon’ that homeopathy’s “actions must be called spirit-like”.
10 Responses to The Mechanism of Action of Homeopathy! … Someone please inform the Nobel Prize Committee
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How thrilling it will be to see how a little bottle of lactose pillules that has had two drops of 30C “remedy” liquid dropped in there, can change the structure of water molecules throughout the body, when a couple of the pillules are swallowed!
I mean, they wouldn’t have asserted all that, were it not demonstrably true. Would they?
I guess they plump for “Memory of Water”, then, and dismiss Hormesis, Nanoparticles, and Spiritual Essence as mechanisms….
Yes, truly FANTASTIC!
David, They do indeed dismiss nanoparticles:
QUOTE Sukul NC, et al. 2025. [my emphasis]
Physico-chemical basis
According to some scientists there exist some original drug molecules which may produce biological effects (Chattopadhyay, 2006). A few original drug molecules may remain as guest molecules in the clathrate hydrate crystals of hydrogen bonded network of water molecules (Sukul et al., 2022; Mulli et al., 1962). But it seems impossible that remnant molecules, so few in number, could be effective on the living system. The drinking water contains many minerals in extremely small amounts which could not produce any tangible effect on patients. Another view states that homeopathic potencies contain nano particles of original drug molecules, which may produce biological effect[9]. Homeopathic potencies are produced from animal and plant products which contain many compounds. If all these compounds generate nano particles, then it would be a chaos. It is difficult to isolate the effective nano particles. It is known that nano particles are not beneficial to health, rather they are injurious. Some homeopathic potencies like x-ray and Magnetis polis ambo are produced not from any substances but from the exposure of solvent medium (aqueous ethanol) to x-ray and strong magnetic field, respectively[10]. So, the question of finding any nano particle in these potencies does not arise. There is no conclusive evidence showing that nano particles in homeopathic potencies are responsible for biological effect[11].
Ref 9:
Chikramane PS, Suresh AK, Bellare JR, Kane SG.
Extreme homeopathic dilutions retain starting materials: A nanoparticulate perspective.
Homeopathy. 2010;99(4):231–242.
PMID: 20970092.
Ref 10:
Sarkar T, Konar A, Sukul NC, Sohel AM, Sengupta A, Sukul A.
DSC reveals variation in enthalpy associated with free water molecules in water ethanol solution exposed to x-ray and magnetic field.
International Journal of High Dilution Research. 2017;4(1):50–78.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.51910/ijhdr.v17i1.906
Ref 11:
Tournier A, Wurtenberger S, Klein SD, Baumgartner S.
Physicochemical Investigations of Homeopathic Preparations: A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis—Part 3.
J Altern Complement Med. 2021;27(1):45–57.
PMID: 33121261.
Well, I’m glad that’s cleared up!
For dismissing nanoparticles why dont you nominate these researchers for the accolade of an Ockham Award.
No doubt a Nobel prize will follow in due course.
Oh dear, after all that time and effort certain other folk have put into assuring us that it is actually nano-particles which make homeopathy work…
I’m certain someone will be along to tell us that this research is nonsense and that it really and truly is nano-particles.
Won’t they?
Any time now.
John 5:4
For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
At least we have an explanation for this phenomenon now though
Just to let you know I have informed the committee and then found myself being escorted from the building by 2 very large bouncers who were laughing their socks off. Neither of whom have any formal science training but appear to have a deeper upstanding of the way the world works far more than homeopaths. Come to think of it I believe they were 2 large chimpanzees.
For some reason, these claims in particular remind me of Carlos Castaneda. He wove what he claimed to be an authentic account of shamanism across a number of books that captured the imagination of a generation. And then it turns out it was all a con.
Some years ago, I attended a lecture by a person with a legitimate medical degree who was a proponent of & practitioner of homeopathy. Her contention was that any homeopathic product of greater than ten times dilution was so powerful that it should only be prescribed by a medical doctor! (On another occasion, I heard her recommending chiropractic for disease treatment and/or prevention lending credence to my belief that quackery begets quackery).
What bothers me most about this situation is that today, somewhere there exists a person who could have been a really good doctor was unable to gain acceptance to a medical school because the homeopath got the last available spot.