evidence
A new paper reminds us that so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) has been increasing in the United States and around the world, particularly at medical institutions known for providing rigorous evidence-based care. The use of SCAM may cause harm to patients through interactions with prescribed medications or by patients choosing to forego evidence-based care. SCAM may also put financial strain on patients as most SCAM expenditures are paid out-of-pocket.
Despite these drawbacks, patients continue to use SCAM due to a range of reasons, e.g. media promotion of SCAM therapies, dissatisfaction with conventional healthcare, a desire for more holistic care. Given the increasing demand for SCAM, many medical institutions now offer SCAM services. Several leaders of SCAM centres based at a highly respected academic medical institution have publicly expressed anti-vaccination views, and non-evidence-based philosophies run deep within SCAM.
Although there are financial incentives for institutions to provide SCAM, it is important to recognize that this legitimizes SCAM and may cause harm to patients. The poor regulation of SCAM allows for the continued distribution of products and services that have not been rigorously tested for safety and efficacy.
As I have tried to point out many times, the potential for harm caused by the increasing integration of SCAM can thus be summarised as follows:
- direct harm due to adverse effects such as toxicity of an herbal remedy, stroke after chiropractic manipulation, pneumothorax after acupuncture;
- direct harm through the use of bogus diagnostic techniques;
- direct harm by using materials from endangered species;
- indirect harm through incompetent advice such as recommendation not to immunize or discontinue prescribed medications;
- neglect due to using SCAM instead of an effective therapy for a serious condition;
- harm due to medicalising trivial states of reduced well-being;
- financial harm due to the costs of SCAM;
- harm through making a mockery of evidence-based medicine;
- harm caused by undermining rational thinking in the society at large;
- harm caused by inhibiting medical progress and research.
In case you see other ways in which SCAM can cause harm, please let me know by posting a comment.
“Eating elderberries can help minimise influenza symptoms.” This statement comes from a press release by the University of Sydney. As it turned out, the announcement was not just erroneous but it also had concealed that the in-vitro study that formed the basis for the press-release was part-funded by the very company, Pharmacare, which sells elderberry-based flu remedies.
“This is an appalling misrepresentation of this Pharmacare-funded in-vitro study,” said associate professor Ken Harvey, president of Friends of Science in Medicine. “It was inappropriate and misleading to imply from this study that an extract was ‘proven to fight flu’.” A University of Sydney spokeswoman confirmed Pharmacare was shown a copy of the press release before it was published.
This is an embarrassing turn of events, no doubt. But what about elderberry (Sambucus nigra) and the flu? Is there any evidence?
A systematic review quantified the effects of elderberry supplementation. Supplementation with elderberry was found to substantially reduce upper respiratory symptoms. The quantitative synthesis of the effects yielded a large mean effect size. The authors concluded that these findings present an alternative to antibiotic misuse for upper respiratory symptoms due to viral infections, and a potentially safer alternative to prescription drugs for routine cases of the common cold and influenza.
WHAT?!?!
The alternative to antibiotic misuse can only be the correct use of antibiotics. And, in the case of viral infections such as the flu, this can only be the non-use of antibiotics. My trust in this review, published in a SCAM journal of dubious repute, has instantly dropped to zero.
Perhaps a recent overview recently published in THE MEDICAL LETTER provides a more trustworthy picture:
No large randomized, controlled trials evaluating the effectiveness of elderberry for prevention or treatment of influenza have been conducted to date. Elderberry appears to have some activity against influenza virus strains in vitro. In two small studies (conducted outside the US), adults with influenza A or B virus infection taking elderberry extract reported a shorter duration of symptoms compared to those taking placebo. Consuming uncooked blue or black elderberries can cause nausea and vomiting. The rest of the plant (bark, stems, leaves, and root) contains sambunigrin, which can release cyanide. No data are available on the safety of elderberry use during pregnancy or while breastfeeding. CONCLUSION — Prompt treatment with an antiviral drug such as oseltamivir (Tamiflu, and generics) has been shown to be effective in large randomized, controlled trials in reducing the duration of influenza symptoms, and it may reduce the risk of influenza-related complications. There is no acceptable evidence to date that elderberry is effective for prevention or treatment of influenza and its safety is unclear.
Any take-home messages?
Yes:
- Elderberry supplements are not of proven effectiveness against the flu.
- The press officers at universities should be more cautious when writing press-releases.
- They should involve the scientists and avoid the sponsors of the research.
- In-vitro studies can never tell us anything about clinical effectiveness.
- SCAM-journals’ articles must be taken with a pinch of salt.
- Consumers are being misled left, right and centre.
My former institution, the medical school of Vienna, had invited me to give the key-note for a conference entitled ‘Esoterik in der Medizin‘ (22/5/2019). The event was to celebrate the success of a new course for medical students which was initiated after Prof Frass’ lectures on homeopathy had been discontinued. Remarkably, this move had been prompted by complaints from students arguing that Frass was promoting non-evidence-based, bogus concepts.
Whenever I go back to Vienna, I have mixed feelings; pleasant and not so pleasant memories (see below) come to the fore. This time, however, all turned out well, and I was more than delighted.
The new course signifies the realisation that so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) must be covered in any sound medical curriculum. Once graduated, students will be asked by patients about SCAM and have an ethical duty to inform them responsibly. Thus they need to know the essential facts and not the biased perspective that Frass and other enthusiasts tend to convey.
I have always considered this to be important but, as far as I can see, very few medical school manage to deal with this issue adequately. More often than not, the task of running such courses is given to proponents of SCAM who then try to brain-wash the unsuspecting students. The result can be seriously harmful to generations of patients. I am delighted to report that my former medical school has successfully avoided this pitfall. Quackademia has come to an end in Vienna!
In my view, the highlight of the recent event was the students’ presentation of their course-work. They had been supervised in small groups to research selected topics related to SCAM and were given 5 minute slots to present their findings. I truly felt this was impressive. The dedication, the quality of the research and the clarity of the presentations were extraordinary. In my 40 odd years of teaching medical students, I have never seen anything remotely similar (here I should mention perhaps that, 25 years ago when I was teaching in Vienna, medical students seemed to be as unmotivated as they get).
The students’ presentation were followed by 90 minutes of moderated discussion of the audience (the event was open to the public) and 4 experts. Here too, I was positively surprised by the quality of the contributions and the general openness of the debate.
So, overall the both the meeting and, more importantly, the new course for students can be considered a great success, and the organisers must be congratulated on it. For me personally, the most significant aspect was a matter entirely unrelated to SCAM. It was the introductory speech of the dean of the medical school. He announced me as the key-note speaker by praising my research on the Nazi history of the faculty. It was this research that, to some considerable degree, made me leave Vienna in 1993. To see it now appreciated by my former colleagues is deeply moving.
Sophrology is big in France, but almost unknown in English-speaking countries.
What is it?
According to a recent article in ‘The Guardian‘, Sophrology is a system of mind and body, a little bit meditative, a little bit mindful, eastern principles of centredness and focus fed through a European system of rules that can feel just as exotic. It’s been around since the 50s, when a Spanish medical student, Alfonso Caycedo, had the task of administering electroshock treatment to mentally ill patients; sometimes, if that sounds barbaric, inducing insulin comas beforehand. He was an early asker of a question that medicine has confronted more widely since: why does consciousness have to be shaken so violently in order to heal? Implicitly having decided that maybe western medicine may not have all the answers, he concocted this improbable-sounding mix of Tibetan Buddhism, Japanese Zen and yoga, neurology, hypnosis, psychology, psychiatry and relaxation techniques to produce sophrology. It’s huge in Europe – especially in Spain – but it has also been prescribed by Swiss GPs and reportedly used by the French rugby team. It has never cracked the UK.
A bit vague?
Here is a different, perhaps more reliable source.
Sophrology is a non medication-based method which involves both the body and mind. It combines relaxing the muscles, increasing awareness of breathing and positive thinking, and leads to the search for improved well-being through the integration of the body percept. It generates a feeling of “letting go” and helps to relieve physical, psychological and spiritual suffering.
Is there any reliable evidence?
Very little, it seems.
This study (entitled ‘Efficiency of physiotherapy with Caycedian Sophrology on children with asthma: A randomized controlled trial’) aimed to assess whether in children with asthma, peak expiratory flow (PEF) improved more after a sophrology session alongside standard treatment than after standard treatment alone.
The researchers carried out a prospective randomized controlled clinical trial among 74 children aged 6-17 years old, hospitalized for an asthma attack. Group 1: conventional treatment (oxygen, corticosteroids, bronchodilators, physiotherapy) added to one session of sophrology. Group 2: conventional treatment alone. The primary outcome was the PEF variation between the initial and final evaluations (PEF2 -PEF1 ).
Demographic and clinical characteristics were similar in both groups at baseline. Measures before and after the sophrology session showed that the PEF increased by mean 30 L/min in the sophrology group versus 20 L/min in the control group (P = 0.02). Oxygen saturation increased by 1% versus 0% (P = 0.02) and the dyspnea score with visual analogue scale improved by two points point (P = 0.01). No differences were observed between the two groups in terms of duration of hospitalization, use and doses of conventional medical treatment (oxygen, corticosteroids, and bronchodilators), and quality of life scores.
The authors concluded that Sophrology appears as a promising adjuvant therapy to current guideline-based treatment for asthma in children.
The purpose of the only other study was to evaluate the efficiency of sophrology to improve conditions for the realization of non-invasive ventilation (NIV) in patients with acute respiratory failure (ARF). In this prospective randomized and controlled study, consecutive patients with ARF were included. From the very first NIV session, they received either sophrology during the first 30 min of NIV (S group), or standard care by the same nurse during 30 min (T group). The hemodynamic and ventilatory data were recorded continuously; pain, respiratory difficulty and discomfort were measured with a numeric scale at the end of the session.
Thirty patients were included in the study, 27 have been analysed. Each patient received an average of four sessions NIV during the protocol. There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of improvement in gas exchange. In contrast, there was a significant difference in terms of reduction of difficulty in breathing (-76%), discomfort (-60%) and decrease the pain (-40%) in the sophrology group (p<0.001). Respiratory rate, heart rate and systolic arterial blood pressure were decrease during NIV.
The authors concluded that Sophrology constitutes aid for the achievement of the meetings of NIV in patients’ IRA.
As both studies followed the infamous A+B vs B design, they tell us nothing about the effectiveness of the treatment. This means that sophrology is a therapy that is totally unproven.
Why then is it so popular in France? Search me!
Does its popularity imply that it is effective? No.
The UK Reiki Federation (UKRF) is an independent organisation of individuals who have been attuned to Reiki, with the objective of providing support and guidance to Reiki professionals and to the public, with particular reference to education and training, and the public practice of Reiki. Some of their members give of their time each week to send Reiki healing to anyone who makes a request from anywhere in the world.
Each week the volunteers receive a list of those people/animals/events that have requested healing and they all collectively send positive Reiki healing to everyone on the list.
The UKRF claim that Reiki distant healing (RDH) has now been scientifically proven by Lynne McTaggart in these articles http://www.shareguide.com/McTaggart.html and https://lynnemctaggart.com/the-intention-experiment/ that healing is magnified when many healers are involved, so we are contributing an amazing vibration of positivity into our world and doing so much good, with so little effort. Imagine how brilliant it would be if even more members decided they too wanted to support other people, with minimum effort. It’s so simple just to place your hands on the list and send Reiki to everyone on it. It can be so quick if time is an issue for you and yet so powerful.
A group of UKRF members send Reiki to each other at specific times of the week. They state that we have a list of members’ names and allocated time slots in the week when we can send and receive Reiki energy to each other. The intention is to send Reiki for all the different time slots and then sit down and receive the energy whenever it is convenient for us to do so. Those members who have given me feedback all say they can feel the energy flowing during these times.
I urge you to look up the two ‘scientific proofs’ by McTaggart – I promise, you will not regret the effort. For those who might like to see real evidence for or against RDH, I ran a quick Medline search. Somewhat to my surprise, I did find a rigorous study RDH. Here is its abstract:
In this randomised, double-blinded study, women who underwent an elective C-section were allocated to either usual care (control, n=40) or three distant reiki sessions in addition to usual care (n=40). Pain was assessed using a visual analogue scale (VAS). The primary endpoint was the Area Under the VAS-Time Curve (AUC) for days 1-3. Secondary measures included: the proportion of women who required opioid medications and dose consumed, rate of healing and vital signs.
AUC for pain was not significantly different in the distant reiki and control groups (mean ± SD; 212.1 ± 104.7 vs 223.1 ± 117.8; p=0.96). There were no significant differences in opioid consumption or rate of healing; however, the distant reiki group had a significantly lower heart rate (74.3 ± 8.1 bpm vs 79.8 ± 7.9 bpm, p=0.003) and blood pressure (106.4 ± 9.7 mmHg vs 111.9 ± 11.0 mmHg, p=0.02) post surgery.
CONCLUSION: Distant reiki had no significant effect on pain following an elective C-section.
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This begs at least three questions, in my view:
- Which evidence should I trust, that of McTaggart or that from what seems to be the only RCT on RDH?
- The UK Reiki Foundation state on their website: As the largest Reiki-only professional organisation in the UK and Europe we are setting the highest standard for Reiki. Is the promotion of the McTaggart ‘proof’ combined with the omission from the UKRF site of the only trial of RDH truly in accordance with the highest standards?
- Is a professional organisation that does such things really professional?
A pro-homeopathy site (to be taken with a pinch of salt) claims that today 300 homeopathic MDs belong to the “Unio Homoeopathica Belgica” and 4,000 MDs (about 10% of all doctors) are prescribing homeopathics at least occasionally.
One-fourth of the Belgian population uses homeopathy. As of 1998, only MDs can legally practice homeopathy. But now it seems that the free ride for Belgian homeopathy is coming to an end. Belgium has joined the long list of countries (e.g. UK, US, Spain, France, Sweden, Russia) where the usefulness of homeopathy is being questioned.
‘Test Achats’ is a Belgian not-for-profit organization which promotes consumer protection. It was founded in 1957 and publishes research in a subscription magazine. It has been reported that this organiation has issued a crushing report on homoeopathy, describing it as “unacceptable” that homeopathic remedies are allowed to be described by practitioners as medication.
Il est inacceptable que des médicaments homéopathiques et des médicaments traditionnels à base de plantes puissent être vendus en tant que “médicament” en pharmacie sans que leur efficacité n’ait été démontrée. Il en va de même pour un certain nombre de médicaments classiques et de médicaments ordinaires à base de plantes, pour lesquels nous avons également de gros doutes quant à leur efficacité et/ou leur sécurité. Le statut de “médicament” leur confère une aura de crédibilité qu’ils ne méritent absolument pas. Notre banque de données de médicaments met un terme à cette tromperie et distingue les médicaments utiles de ceux qui ne le sont pas…
Pour les 55 médicaments homéopathiques avec indication, ces pourcentages sont … 84 % à “utilité contestable” et 16 % “à déconseiller”.
‘Test-Achats’ describes homoeopathy as “quack medicine,” and states that “there are conditions where the patient really has no time to lose on products whose effectiveness has not been demonstrated. People who are suffering from very real heart and vascular conditions should immediately seek treatment by a doctor, and with truly effective medication.”
Homeopathy has had a long and profitable ride in France; nowhere else in Europe is it more popular, nowhere in Europe are the profit margins higher, and nowhere have I seen pharmacists pushing so hard to earn a few extra Euros on useless homeopathic remedies.
But, since a few months, sceptics have started to raise their voices and object to homeopathic reimbursement (currently at the rate of 30%) and to homeopathy in general.
- A group of doctors protested against homeopathy by publishing an open letter in ‘Le Figaro’.
- The French Academies of Medicine and Pharmacy published a report confirming the lack of evidence for homeopathy.
- The medical school in Lille suspended its degree in homeopathy.
The French health secretary, the oncologist Dr Agnès Buzyn, reacted wisely, in my view. She initially stated that the effect of homeopathy is ‘probably a placebo effect‘. Subsequently, she asked the regulator, La Haute Autorite de Sante (HAS), to look into the matter and prepare a full analysis of the evidence. This report has now been published.
An article in ‘FRANCE INFO’ reports that HAS found no good evidence in support of the ~ 1 200 homeopathic remedies currently on the French market. The document is currently being considered by Dr Buzyn who will announce her decision about reimbursement in June. It is considered to be highly likely that she will stop reimbursement.
If so, consumers will soon have to pay in full for homeopathic preparations out of their own pocket. In addition, they would have to pay the VAT, and it is foreseeable that this change would signal the end of the French consumers’ love affair with homeopathy. This development is bound to seriously hurt Boiron, the world’s largest producer of homeopathics. The firm has already announced that they suspended its trading on the stock market and is now arguing that the move would endanger its sizable workforce.
The question I now ask myself is whether Boiron is powerful enough to do something about all this. Personally, I have been impressed by the rational approach of Dr Buzyn. She will no doubt see through Boiron’s bogus argument of saving a form of obsolete quackery in the name of employment. Therefore, I expect that the days of homeopathy’s reimbursement in France are counted.
(For those who can read French, I add the original ‘ FRANCE INFO’ article below.)
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Les granules homéopathiques offrent “un service médical rendu insuffisant” selon la HAS.
Avis définitif en juin
Cet avis avait été réclamé par la ministre de la Santé il y a plusieurs mois face à la montée de la polémique entre médecins pro et anti-homéopathie. 124 médecins avaient relancé le débat l’an dernier en qualifiant les homéopathes de “charlatans”.
Désormais, lors d’une phase contradictoire, les laboratoires vont pouvoir répondre à la HAS, qui rendra son avis définitif en juin. La ministre de la Santé, Agnès Buzyn, avait par le passé annoncé qu’elle se rangerait à cet avis.
1 000 emplois menacés, selon Boiron
Les pro-homéopathie eux, s’insurgent. Selon eux, les granules ne coûtent que 130 millions d’euros par an à la Sécurité sociale, contre 20 milliards pour les médicaments classiques. Et il existe d’après eux, au minimum, un effet placebo. Pour les laboratoires Boiron, leader mondial du secteur, si l’homéopathie n’est plus remboursée, ce sont 1 000 emplois qui sont directement menacés.
Par ailleurs, dans un communiqué commun, trois laboratoires (Boiron, Lehning et Weleda) s’émeuvent de découvrir à travers un média la teneur d’un avis d’une agence indépendante qui devait être tenu confidentiel. Les laboratoires Boiron précisent à franceinfo qu’ils n’ont pas encore reçu le projet d’avis de la Haute autorité de santé. Boiron, entreprise française cotée, annonce “suspendre” son cours de bourse.
One of the most difficult things in so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) can be having a productive discussion with patients about the subject, particularly if they are deeply pro-SCAM. The task can get more tricky, if a patient is suffering from a serious, potentially life-threatening condition. Arguably, the discussion would become even more difficult, if the SCAM in question is relatively harmless but supported only by scarce and flimsy evidence.
An example might be the case of a cancer patient who is fond of mindfulness cognitive therapy (MBCT), a class-based program designed to prevent relapse or recurrence of major depression. To contemplate such a situation, let’s consider the following hypothetical exchange between a patient (P) and her oncologist (O).
P: I often feel quite low, do you think I need some treatment for depression?
O: That depends on whether you are truly depressed or just a bit under the weather.
P: No, I am not clinically depressed; it’s just that I am worried and sometimes see everything in black.
O: I understand, that’s not an unusual thing in your situation.
P: Someone told me about MBCT, and I wonder what you think about it.
O: Yes, I happen to know about this approach, but I’m not sure it would help you.
P: Are you sure? A few years ago, I had some MBCT; it seemed to work and, at least, it cannot do any harm.
O: Yes, that’s true; MBCT is quite safe.
P: So, why are you against it?
O: I am not against it; I just doubt that it is the best treatment for you.
P: Why?
O: Because there is little evidence for it and even less for someone like you.
P: But I have seen some studies that seem to show it works.
O: I know, there have been trials but they are not very reliable.
P: But the therapy has not been shown to be ineffective, has it?
O: No, but the treatment is not really for your condition.
P: So, you admit that there is some positive evidence but you are still against it because of some technicalities with the science?
O: No, I am telling you that this treatment is not supported by good evidence.
P: And therefore you want me to continue to suffer from low mood? I don’t call that very compassionate!
O: I fully understand your situation, but we ought to find the best treatment for you, not just one that you happen to be fond of.
P: I don’t understand why you are against giving MBCT a try; it’s safe, as you say, and there is some evidence for it. And I have already had a good experience with it. Is that not enough?
O: My role as your doctor is to provide you with advice about which treatments are best in your particular situation. There are options that are much better than MBCT.
P: But if I want to try it?
O: If you want to try MBCT, I cannot prevent you from doing so. I am only trying to tell you about the evidence.
P: Fine, in this case, I will give it a go.
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Clearly this discussion did not go all that well. It was meant to highlight the tension between the aspirations of a patient and the hope of a responsible clinician to inform his patient about the best available evidence. Often the evidence is not in favour of SCAM. Thus there is a gap that can be difficult to breach. (Instead of using MBCT, I could, of course, have used dozens of other SCAMs like homeopathy, chiropractic, Reiki, etc.)
The pro-SCAM patient thinks that, as she previously has had a good experience with SCAM, it must be fine; at the very minimum, it should be tried again, and she wants her doctor to agree. The responsible clinician thinks that he ought to recommend a therapy that is evidence-based. The patient feels that scientific evidence tells her nothing about her experience. The clinician insists that evidence matters. The patient finds the clinician lacks compassion. The clinician feels that the most compassionate and ethical strategy is to recommend the most effective therapy.
As the discussion goes on, the gap is not closing but seems to be widening.
What can be done about it?
I wish I knew the answer!
Do you?
Fibromyalgia (FM) is one of the most frequent generalized pain disorders. It accounts for a sizable proportion of healthcare costs. Despite extensive research, the etiology (the ‘root cause’) of FM remains unknown – except, of course, to SCAM practitioners!
Most types of SCAM are said to be effective for FM (while the evidence for such claims is less than solid).
And almost every one of them claims to treat the ‘root cause’ of the condition. Which must mean that they are able to tackle its etiology, usually some disturbance of the ‘vital force’ or ‘energy’ flow. To patients, this sadly sounds impressive.
But what, if the etiology of FM is something entirely different?
New research shows that most (if not all) patients with FM belong to a distinct population that can be segregated from a control group by their glycated haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels, a surrogate marker of insulin resistance (IR). This was demonstrated by analysing the data after introducing an age stratification correction into a linear regression model. This strategy showed highly significant differences between FM patients and control subjects (p < 0.0001 and p = 0.0002, for two separate control populations, respectively).
A subgroup of FM patients meeting criteria for pre-diabetes or diabetes (patients with HbA1c values of 5.7% or greater) who had undergone treatment with metformin showed dramatic improvements of their widespread myofascial pain. This was shown comparing pre and post-treatment numerical pain rating scale (NPRS). Response to metformin plus standard treatment (ST) was followed by complete resolution of the pain (report of 0 of 10 in the NPRS) in 8 of 16 patients who had been treated with metformin (50%), a degree of improvement never observed before in such a large proportion of FM patients subjected to any available treatment. In contrast, patients treated with ST alone improved, but complete resolution of pain was generally not observed. Interestingly, some patients responded only to metformin and not to ST with NSRIs or membrane stabilizing agents. Importantly, there was a long-term retention of the analgesic effect of metformin.
The authors concluded that these findings suggest a pathogenetic relationship between FM and IR, which may lead to a radical paradigm shift in the management of this disorder.
From my perspective, these findings also suggest that all the many SCAMs allegedly claiming to tackle the ‘root cause’ of FM have been barking up the wrong tree. In fact, all these claims of SCAM practitioners about treating the ‘root causes’ can easily be disclosed as a simple (and sadly effective) marketing gimmick. Six years ago, I even challenged the world of SCAM to name a single treatment that treats the ‘root cause’ of any disease. As yet, nobody has come forward with a convincing suggestion.
‘Rationable’ has recently published a remarkable article on homeopathy. Its author starts admitting that for most of my life, I have taken it for granted that homoeopathy worked. I didn’t know how or why, I just knew that my parents and most other people swore by it, so there had to be something to it. I was treated with homoeopathy several times. In one case, it actually made things worse. The homoeopathic doctor responded with, “Things sometimes have to get worse before they get better.” I have to admit, as much as I wasn’t impressed with that answer, I liked the taste of the medicines. Always sugary and sweet or even with that little bit of alcohol. What more does a kid need in his life than to eat something sugary sweet for medicine!
The article is lengthy but well worth reading. I take the liberty of merely quoting its conclusion:
Here I am, a decade later, seeing homoeopathy from a completely different perspective than what I used to. It’s probably one of the most profound discoveries in my life and has been one of the factors that have led me to question everything, including, most importantly, myself.
Now, homoeopathy has become one of the most studied fields in the world, with an impenetrable mountain of evidence that has piled up against its claims. These studies have been done by many independent teams and analysed and reviewed by some of the most reliable scientific organisations in the world. There’s just no denying it. There is no evidence for it working…ever. Why? Because it’s just water. And if it’s brought into contact with sugar, it somehow transfers its memories to it. The more I think about it, the more implausible it sounds.
And it’s not just me. Many governmental bodies like UK’s National Health Service (NHS), The American Medical Association, the FASEB and National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, have stated that there is no evidence to support the use of homoeopathic treatments. Even representatives of the WHO have said that homoeopathic remedies should not be used to treat tuberculosis or diarrhoea.
So, what do you think? Is it worth your time and money to buy water and sugar pills that have shown no evidence of working, or would you instead go to a regular doctor and get real medication that has a good chance of treating you? I, for one, will be going to the latter.
TL;DR
As promised, here’s the short version of this topic:
Homoeopathy is an ancient practice created in the 1700s as a counter treatment to bloodletting and other rather horrific medical practices
Homoeopathy is a process of diluting a small amount substance in more water than the whole earth can contain to treat your ailment
There has been no evidence to show that it works any better than a placebo, even after hundreds of clinical trials have been conducted.
Dig Deeper
https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/apr/03/homeopathy-why-i-changed-my-mind
https://skeptoid.com/blog/2011/09/18/homeopathy-a-drop-in-10-billion-oceans/
https://nccih.nih.gov/health/homeopathy
https://www.livescience.com/31977-homeopathy.html
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/homeopathy/
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I am always delighted to see how individuals who start thinking critically can change things for themselves and others. The evidence suggests that people who are strong on either intelligence or critical thinking experience fewer negative events, but critical thinkers tend to do better. I hope that, one day, all readers of this blog manage to benefit from the great potential of critical thinking.
