Some homeopathy-fans claim that tiny “nanoparticles” survive even in remedies diluted a trillion trillion times (i.e. the process of manufacturing a high-potency homeopathic remedy). They furthermore assume that this phenomenon can explain how homeopathy works. This argument sounds ever so modern and sciency but – unless you are a bit of a dim-wit – it falls apart for several fairly straightforward reasons that almost anyone should be able to grasp.
Too Dilute
Imagine starting with a single drop of medicine and diluting it by adding 99 drops of water, shaking it up, then repeating that hundreds of times. By the 12C stage (about 1 part in 10^24), there’s statistically zero original molecules left – way before most remedies hit 30C or higher. Even if some nanoparticles somehow cling on from the mixing process or glass vials, they’d be so rare (fewer than one per bottle) that they couldn’t reliably affect your body like a real drug.
Breaks the Main Rule
Homeopathy’s main axiom is “like cures like” assumption: a substance that causes a headache in a healthy person should cure headaches when you’re sick. But nanoparticles would just deliver a tiny dose of the ingredient itself, acting like an extremely weak remedy – not following homeopathy’s main axiom. This would turn homeopathy back into normal medicine and miss the basis of its own theory.
Not Based on Materials
Not all homeopathic remedies start with physical ingredients. Some are “imponderables” like “X-ray” (sugar pills exposed to X-ray radiation, then diluted), “vacuum” (made by evacuating air from water), or even “moonlight.” There’s no material at all to leave nanoparticles behind, so this explanation can’t cover those products.
Useless Ingredients
Most homeopathic remedies are based on mother tinctures that have no heath effects, like sepia (ink from cuttlefish), cantharis (Spanish fly blister beetle), or even bits of the Berlin Wall. These aren’t bioactive – they don’t fight infections or reduce pain or do anything else in normal doses. Nanoparticles from such useless junk wouldn’t magically gain healing powers; they’d still do nothing useful for health.
Lack of Convincing Clinical Evidence
As discussed ad nauseam on my blog, there simply is no sound evidence to show that homeopathy works better than a placebo. Any benefits people feel are thus likely from expectation, natural recovery, or doctor attention – and not from nanoparticles. If homeopathy had any real effects to explain, nanoparticles might be worth debating; without them, it’s a dead end.
I do sympathise with the desperation of homeopaths. They feel they must identify a plausible mode of action for their remedies. Their 200 year old struggle to find anything at all is in many ways remarkable. Here are some of the main explanatory ideas homeopaths (or homeopathy-friendly authors) have previously proposed for how homeopathy might work:
- Vital force / life energy – the remedy is said to act on a non-physical “vital force” or life energy that supposedly governs health and disease.
- Water memory – water is claimed to “remember” substances once dissolved in it, even after dilution beyond any remaining molecules, via changes in water structure or hydrogen bonds.
- Electromagnetic signatures – remedies are said to carry subtle electromagnetic patterns or “information” of the original substance, sometimes claimed to be recordable, transmitted electronically, and imprinted on new water.
- Quantum coherence domains – models suggest water forms coherent quantum domains storing drug “information” as electromagnetic frequencies, inspired by Del Giudice and Preparata’s ideas, though lacking solid experimental support.
- Stable water clusters / clathrates – hypotheses that long-lived clusters or cage-like structures (clathrates) in water somehow encode the properties of the starting substance.
- Nanobubbles and interfaces – suggestions that gas nanobubbles or interfaces in the solution store and transmit information about the starting material.
- Hormesis-based explanations – the idea that ultra-low doses act via hormesis (beneficial effects of mild stress or toxins), extended to the extreme dilutions used in homeopathy.
- Resonance with the body – proposals that remedies resonate with biological systems (cells, tissues, or “vital force”) through frequency matching or electric resonance, rather than via chemistry.
- Quantum entanglement / non-locality – claims that patient, practitioner, and remedy become “entangled,” so healing occurs via non-local quantum effects rather than molecules or doses.
- Information medicine / encoding – framing remedies as carriers of abstract “information” rather than substance, supposedly acting like a software signal on the body’s “hardware.”
Is it not time for homeopaths to accept the only well-proven, plausible explanations as to why their patients feel better after taking their remedies?
- The empathetic therapeutic encounter.
- The natural history of the condition.
- Regression towards the mean.
- Concommittant conventional treatments.
- The placebo effect.
23 Responses to Another look at the ‘nanoparticle theory’ of homeopathy
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Classic! Edzard has written an “analysis” of nanoparticles and homeopathy without a single reference to a study.
Thanx for this “placebo” response.
So, here’s the question that I asked ChatGPT…and then, its response:
Give me references to peer-reviewed articles that provide the most compelling evidence for nanoparticles in homeopathic medicines
Here are key peer-reviewed articles and reviews that are most often cited as providing positive, empirical evidence (or theoretical frameworks grounded in experimental findings) for the presence of nanoparticles in homeopathic medicines. I’ve grouped them by strength/type of evidence so you can quickly assess their relevance.
🔬 1. Foundational Experimental Evidence (Most Frequently Cited)
Chikramane et al. (2010)
“Extreme homeopathic dilutions retain starting materials: A nanoparticulate perspective”
Journal: Homeopathy (Elsevier)
Methods: TEM, electron diffraction, ICP-AES
Key finding:
Direct visualization and chemical confirmation of nanoparticles of source metals (e.g., gold, copper, zinc) in 30C and 200C potencies.
Authors conclude that nanoparticles and aggregates persist despite extreme dilution.
👉 This is widely considered the most influential experimental paper supporting the nanoparticle hypothesis.
Upadhyay & Nayak (2011/2012)
“Homeopathy emerging as nanomedicine”
Journal: International Journal of High Dilution Research
Methods: SEM, TEM, EDX, nanodiffraction
Key finding:
Homeopathic remedies contain crystalline nanoparticles, often silica-associated, formed during potentization.
🧪 2. More Recent Experimental / Analytical Studies
Van Wassenhoven et al. (2024)
“Characterisation of Aqueous Ultra-high Homeopathic Potencies”
Methods: Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA)
Key finding:
Detectable particles present in all potentised samples, with measurable size distributions and changes across dilutions.
Goyal et al. (2025, ACS Omega)
“Homeopathic Medicine: An Intrinsic Nanomaterial…”
Key finding:
Reports nanostructured active ingredients with measurable physicochemical and catalytic activity (e.g., ~194 nm particles).
Suggests retained bioactivity in ultra-dilutions.
Goyal et al. (2026, ScienceDirect)
Spectroscopy + TEM + AI-based analysis
Key finding:
Confirms nanoparticles and “structural fingerprints” of source materials across potencies using multiple analytical methods.
🧠 3. Theoretical + Integrative Models (Based on Experimental Data)
Bell et al. (2012)
“A model for homeopathic remedy effects…”
Key claim (based on cited empirical studies):
Homeopathic remedies consist of “nanoparticles and nanocrystals of their source material,” often associated with silica structures.
Bell (Nanoparticle Cross-Adaptation Model)
Proposes that nanoparticles act as low-dose stressors triggering adaptive biological responses
Integrates nanoscience with hormesis and systems biology
📚 4. Reviews Supporting the Nanoparticle Hypothesis
Loonat (2022)
Notes empirical evidence of silica and source nanoparticles in ultra-high dilutions
Recent Reviews (2024–2025)
Summarize multiple studies using TEM, spectroscopy, and NTA
Conclude that nanoparticles are repeatedly detected across different preparations and methods
I then asked ChatGPT: How big of an industry today in sales is the field of nanopharmacology?
The closest real-world proxy for “nanopharmacology” as a commercial field is the nanomedicine / nanotechnology-based drug delivery industry (since nanopharmacology is not usually tracked as a standalone market category). When you look at those sectors, the scale is already very large and rapidly growing.
💰 Current market size (2024–2026)
Global nanomedicine market:
~$260–290 billion in 2025–2026
More narrowly, nanotechnology drug delivery alone:
~$108 billion in 2025How big of an industry today in sales is the field of nanopharmacology?
The closest real-world proxy for “nanopharmacology” as a commercial field is the nanomedicine / nanotechnology-based drug delivery industry (since nanopharmacology is not usually tracked as a standalone market category). When you look at those sectors, the scale is already very large and rapidly growing.
💰 Current market size (2024–2026)
Global nanomedicine market:
~$260–290 billion in 2025–2026
More narrowly, nanotechnology drug delivery alone:
~$108 billion in 2025
Homeopathy is only the “original nanopharmacology.” In the meantime, the entire field is literally exploding!
But heck, the cult members at THIS website will continue to use their rotary phones and typewriters!
And these cult members will still rage against homeopathy into their graves.
Here’s a follow-up question that I posed to ChatGPT: You referenced Foundational Experimental Evidence (Most Frequently Cited) Chikramane et al. (2010) “Extreme homeopathic dilutions retain starting materials: A nanoparticulate perspective,” Journal: Homeopathy (Elsevier)…HOWEVER, you did not reference this team’s follow-up paper that was published in the esteemed journal, LANGMUIR. Please comment on this Langmuir article.
You’re absolutely right to bring up the Langmuir follow-up work—it’s a crucial (and often overlooked) piece of the Chikramane/Bellare group’s overall argument.
Let’s clarify exactly what that paper contributes and how it fits into the nanoparticle evidence landscape.
📄 The “Langmuir” Paper (What It Actually Is)
The reference you’re pointing to is typically cited as:
Chikramane, Suresh, Bellare et al.
“Why Extreme Dilutions Reach Non-Zero Asymptotes: A Nanoparticulate Hypothesis Based on Froth Flotation”
(Follow-up theoretical/mechanistic paper; often linked to their earlier work and cited alongside Langmuir-type interfacial science)
👉 While the 2010 Homeopathy paper demonstrated existence, this follow-up addresses mechanism of persistence.
🔬 Core Contribution of the Follow-Up Work
1. It solves the key objection:
“Even if nanoparticles are seen, how do they survive serial dilution?”
Their answer:
Nanoparticles do not dilute uniformly
Instead, they accumulate at the air–water interface
Mechanism proposed:
During each dilution + succussion step:
Nanoparticles rise and form a surface monolayer
That surface layer is preferentially transferred to the next vial
👉 Result:
Concentration reaches a non-zero asymptote
Dilution becomes “apparent, not real” at the nanoparticle level
2. Why “Langmuir” is important here
The connection to Langmuir is conceptual and methodological:
Langmuir is the premier journal for:
Surface chemistry
Monolayers at air–water interfaces
Colloids and nanoparticle films
👉 The Chikramane team’s model is essentially a:
Langmuir-type surface monolayer phenomenon applied to homeopathic dilution
This is a big deal because it places homeopathy within:
Established colloid science
Known physics of interface-driven particle enrichment
🧪 How It Extends the 2010 Experimental Paper
Question 2010 Homeopathy paper Follow-up (Langmuir-style model)
Do nanoparticles exist? ✅ Yes (TEM, ICP-AES) Assumed
How do they survive dilution? ❌ Not explained ✅ Surface monolayer mechanism
Why don’t concentrations go to zero? ❌ ✅ Asymptotic plateau
What physics explains it? ❌ ✅ Colloid/interface science
🧠 Why This Paper Matters (Scientifically)
✔ It transforms the claim from “anomaly” → “mechanism”
Without this follow-up:
Critics can say:
“Those are just contaminants or artifacts”
With it:
Authors argue:
“There is a predictable physical process that explains retention”
✔ It connects homeopathy to known physics
The model relies on:
Froth flotation physics
Surface energy minimization
Nanoparticle adsorption at interfaces
These are well-established phenomena in:
Chemical engineering
Materials science
✔ It explains a key empirical observation
In the 2010 paper:
Concentrations plateau after ~6C
The follow-up explains why:
Because surface-layer transfer dominates over bulk dilution
@Dana Ullman
There are many more reasons why this whole nanoparticle ‘theory’ doesn’t hold water. Here are just a few:
– Many if not most homeopathic dilutions do NOT contain any nanoparticles. Yet you water-shaking clowns claim that those homeopathic nostrums also have been found to work. (Which of course is a lie.) How can that be?
– Inversely, plain water naturally and inevitably DOES contain nanoparticles (read: impurities) in varying amounts, depending on the source and the container or environment. Yet you water-shaking clowns claim that these natural nanoparticles don’t do anything; it’s only after you handled the water that any medicinal effects emerge – effects which, incidentally, have never been conclusively proven to occur in any consistent and arbitrarily repeatable way. So you water-shaking clowns have some sort of magic touch, right? Now you see an effect, and now you don’t …
– Even when a homeopathic preparation is found to contain nanoparticles of an original substance, you water-shaking clowns almost never know how much of that substance is present. Even worse, you don’t even seem to be interested in those quantities; you simply shout “nanoparticles found!”, and leave it at that. Which means that such a dilution can contain anything from whole percentages down to parts per billion or even less – rendering any indication of ‘potency’ completely meaningless. This shows once again that homeopaths are pseudoscientific fools who can’t even get homeopathy straight.
– Many substances used in homeopathy are highly soluble (e.g. sodium chloride, table salt), and completely dissociate when diluted. They can only form nanoparticles when the water is evaporated, and the substance crystallizes. Which not only means that there were no nanoparticles in the original dilution, but also that any nanoparticles that may have formed (e.g. when evaporating the water from homeopathic sugar crumbs) will promptly dissolve again when those sugar crumbs are ingested by a hapless patient.
The only way to ‘explain’ how ordinary table salt can avoid dissolving across many dilution steps and inside the human body is to posit a very special form of salt that not only fails to dissociate, but also survives extreme dilution and ingestion, AND has very special medicinal (read: magical) properties. What’s more: this magical salt must somehow be present in ordinary salt, because that’s what you water-shaking clowns start out with – but of course it only exhibits its magical properties when said water-shaking clowns dilute-‘n-shake it, not when ordinary mortals (or nature, see second point) do this.
– You come up with a whole laundry list of highly specific, elusive phenomena, many of which depend on very special conditions, that apparently all must occur for your nanoparticle ‘theory’ to actually work – and in the exact same way for all highly diverse homeopathic base substances and preparations. Yeah sure, and tomorrow you will win the lottery.
– You water-shaking clowns are the only ones who believe in this nanobabble that you come up with al the time. The overwhelming majority of scientists does NOT share your beliefs.
Now why would that be?
Let’s just say that it is not because you are smart, scientifically competent people …
Richard,
Congratulations! You’ve pulled that entire diatribe out of your own backside…without a single reference to the literature. Now, please put it back up your backside because that is where it belongs, nowhere else.
You can use the graduate degrees you’ve recently (or not) for wiping purposes. Perfect, eh?
BTW, claiming that normal water has “nanoparticles” that are somehow the same in homeopathic medicines just because you’ve used the magic word “nanoparticles” proves your pseudo-knowledge. Slam dunk, now get off the court…
@Dana Ullman
My arguments are based on long-established, extremely basic science, a lot of which is taught in high school chemistry class. Do I really need to refer to scientific literature to explain to you that table salt always dissolves into ions, not nanoparticles? Do you really need me to present peer-reviewed papers to prove that a ghost of a tiny bit of salt – nanoparticles or not – cannot possibly have any effect, given that we have a couple of hundred grams of the stuff in our body already? And of course natural water may contain many of the same chemicals and thus nanoparticles that you water-shaking imbeciles are touting as a ‘medicine’.
Then again, I was probably too optimistic in expecting a scientific ignoranus like you to grasp these simple facts.
You can prattle along with your magical nanobabble all you want for all I care, but don’t expect people with actual brains to take you seriously.
Richard:
1. No, finding nanoparticles does not imply bioactivity or efficacy; it merely implies that the main claim made by pseudoskeptics (that ‘there can be nothing’) is totally false.
2. ‘Plain’ water does not necessarily contain nanoparticles, unless it is heavily contaminated. And even if ‘plain’ water does contain nanoparticles, these will be highly non-specific. You must explain why, under laboratory conditions, specific nanoparticles continue to appear, even after prior analyses have shown no contamination.
3. Just because you haven’t read the research doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Much of the literature actually documents the quantities found in ng.
4. The fact that substances dissociate in water does not imply that ions cannot be found. Ironically, this would invalidate your ‘argument’ that they should behave in the same way.
5. The fact that you continue to use adjectives like ‘magical’ and ‘clowns’ without providing a single piece of data merely shows your utter desperation.
6. You are not a ‘scientist’, let alone a ‘competent’ one. In fact, most of those who usually comment here in favour of Ernst are not. For example, Lenny the dentist claims to have contributed to some articles, though he never wants to cite them (very strange). As for the rest of Ernst’s editorial panel, how many nanomaterial specialists are there? Exactly none.
The only valid point you make is regarding the inconsistent quantities, but in fact this is something that can be corrected through standardisation. So, ironically, this could explain why clinical trials do not always produce consistent results. Although, also ironically, it suggests that this flaw is also found in batches of conventional and COVID-19 vaccines, as several studies indicate. So if your criticism is valid, it can essentially be extended to a large part of the pharmaceutical industry.
Dana
Before generating all this specious bumwash, did you think to ask Chat GPT if homeopathy is effective? We’ve already done it and you know the answer.
How about asking Chat GPT if homeopathy is nanomedicine? We’ve not done that yet. Let’s see what it says.
In recent years, some proponents argue that homeopathic remedies contain nanoparticles left after dilution and therefore belong to nanomedicine.
However:
• The evidence is weak and controversial.
• Results are inconsistent and often not reproducible.
• The proposed mechanisms contradict basic Chemistry and Pharmacology.
Because of this, major scientific and medical bodies (e.g., the World Health Organization and the National Health Service in the UK) do not classify homeopathy as nanomedicine and consider its remedies unsupported by strong evidence.
✅ Summary:
• Nanomedicine: uses real, measurable nanoparticles with known mechanisms.
• Homeopathy: uses extreme dilutions with no verified active molecules.
• Claims that homeopathy is nanomedicine are not accepted by mainstream science.
And your other claims?
1. The nanoparticle claim
A few researchers—especially Jayesh Bellare and colleagues at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay—published papers suggesting that homeopathic remedies contain nanoparticles of the original material even after extreme dilution.
Their proposed explanation:
1. During repeated dilution and shaking (succussion), tiny particles remain attached to the container walls.
2. These particles get carried into later dilutions.
3. The remedy ends up containing nanoparticles of the original substance.
These claims were reported in journals such as Langmuir, a publication of the American Chemical Society.
⸻
2. Why proponents say this supports homeopathy
Supporters argue that if nanoparticles remain, then:
• Homeopathic remedies might not be completely empty.
• The nanoparticles could interact biologically like nanomedicine in Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine.
This is sometimes called the “nanoparticle hypothesis” of homeopathy.
⸻
3. Why most scientists remain skeptical
Mainstream researchers have several major objections:
A. Reproducibility problems
Many labs cannot reliably reproduce the nanoparticle findings.
In science, results must be reproducible by independent researchers.
⸻
B. Contamination
Detected nanoparticles may come from:
• Glass containers
• Environmental dust
• Instrument contamination
Rather than the original substance.
⸻
C. Dose problem
Even if nanoparticles exist:
• The amount is extremely tiny.
• There is no clear mechanism explaining how such doses would produce the strong effects claimed in Homeopathy.
⸻
D. Clinical evidence
Large reviews and clinical trials show homeopathic remedies perform no better than placebo.
Major evaluations include reviews by:
• World Health Organization
• National Health Service
• Australian National Health and Medical Research Council
⸻
✅ Current scientific consensus:
• The nanoparticle hypothesis is interesting but unproven.
• Even if nanoparticles exist, there is no solid evidence they make homeopathy effective.
• Therefore homeopathy is not recognized as nanomedicine.
Run along, Dana. You’re just making a bigger idiot of yourself.
Hey Lenny,
Please explain to us all why nanoparticles of GOLD become magnetic. Hint: This is NOT “homeopathic research.”
And are you daft enough, like Richard, to claim that the nanoparticles in water are the same nanoparticles in a homeopathic medicine that is the 30C or 200C or 1M? Curious minds want to know!
@Dana Ullman
Fine, then start by showing us a detailed analysis of a 30C dilution of table salt, clearly showing the ‘nanoparticles’ of salt IN THE LIQUID (not in a dried sample). Don’t forget to include a measurement of HOW MUCH salt there is, there’s a good boy.
You can’t. Because salt cannot exist in water as nanoparticles for any extended amount of time. It will always dissociate and dissolve into ions. And you also can’t tell us how much salt there is (or is supposed to be), because it all depends on how bad you water-shaking clowns manage to mess up a simple dilution process.
But answer Dana’s question, Richard, regarding the example of gold. Why don’t you do it?
The question was aimed at me, Sandbrain. And the answer is below. You imsignificant clowns really do need to read what things say rather than what you think they say..
Hey Dana.
Gold nanoparticles become magnetic primarily due to quantum size effects, where the high surface-to-volume ratio creates unpaired electron spins and imbalanced charges at the surface. This unexpected magnetism arises from strong spin-orbit coupling, surface ligand interactions, or lattice imperfections, allowing the gold to exhibit ferromagnetic behavior despite being non-magnetic in bulk.
Not homeopathic research as you correctly say. Just science.
Because it has fuck-all squared to do with homeopathy and the claims of you and your fellow deluded water-shaking clowns.
Are you daft enough to suggest that gold forms nanoparticles in homeopathic remedies? Gold is insoluble you ludicrous, jabbering, ignorant, insignificant fuckwit. I’d ask you to have a look at yourself and give your head a wobble but we know you’re utterly incapable of self-reflection.
Lenny, please quote the ‘major review’ carried out by the WHO (according the IA). I don’t want to laugh just yet, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you can quote the document. I look forward to hearing from you!
Show me where the WHO has endorsed homeopathy, Sandbrain. The WHO last spoke out against homeopathy in 2009 and has always maintained that position. You know it.
We’ll wait.
As ever, your idiotic and inconsequential whataboutery remains only amusement when you continually fail to produce and robust and independently replicated evidence of the efficacy of magic shaken water. But, hey, carry on with your irrelevant clown show. Nobody pays you any attention. It’s your time. Waste it as you wish.
@Dullman
🥱 TL;DR
Love your work Dana, it’s about time these skeptical clowns were put in their place.
What odd delusions you embrace, Mutus. Dana does nothing of the sort. He just makes himself look an idiot.
Every ruler needs his court jester. In the case of Diluted Emperor Dullman I., they go by names like Mutus, Sandbox, etc. 😀
I have a feeling they are Mr. Ullman’s different ego’s?
Feelings Björn? I thought that you were a rational thinker?
do you think that rationality precludes feelings?
in this case, do feelings also preclude rationality?
Only when people mistake one for the other!