Homeopathy Opinions?

Off Topic
21

[quote]rsg wrote:
michael2507 wrote:
anoddparadigm wrote:
However, it is the worlds safest bullshit, it has no active ingredients!

Safe only until patients fail to receive proper treatment for diseases that could have been diagnosed or cured with conventional medicine because they lay their trust in homeopathic remedies.

Basically, no disagreement with what you’re saying, though. Drinking overpriced water is no health hazard in and of itself…

Agreed.

I had arguements with my mom and threatened her homeopath because she was selling her this crap, when my mom had high blood pressure.

I don’t think she all convinced yet, but I told my dad to not give her any money on shit and to take her to a real doctor next time.[/quote]

You should of yelled at her more to help bring her blood pressure down.

22

Witch doctors in the congo are being prosecuted, or persecuted, im not sure(I know what the words mean, just not sure which they are doing), for shrinking mens penises with their super witch powers.

If they can shrink a dick they can shrink a tumor.

23

I wouldn’t pass it off as quackery. There’s more to it than meets the eye, but its not the panacea it promises to be.

24

On homeopathy: “He died of an overdose - forgot to take his medicine.” -Amazing Randi

25

[quote]entheogens wrote:
I don’t know. How many of you have real experience with homeopathy? Obviously you can find a link to support any argument.

I mean, acupuncture does not fit into the allopathic paradigm either, but I know that at least in some cases it is useful (not in all cases, but neither is allopathy).
Curing people by sticking needles (acuppuncture) in them makes about as much sense to me as diluting a material down until it is not even traceable and having the patient take it (homeopathy). I have european acquaintances that swear by homeopathy. Maybe they are deceived. I don’t know. I prefer, as with all things, to remain sceptical, but open-minded.

[/quote]

Simple math proves homeopathy is fake. Don’t compare it to acupuncture.

26

[quote]UkpairehMombooto wrote:
I wouldn’t pass it off as quackery. There’s more to it than meets the eye, but its not the panacea it promises to be. [/quote]

There is less to it then meets the eye. There is plenty of alternative remedies that work or at least have an effect on the boy, but homeopathy is not one of them.

Homeopathy isn’t like quackery, it is the epitome of a con. No chemist in the world can tell you the difference between a homeopathic remedy and a sugar pill. It is not like a placebo, it is literally has NO active ingredients. That people make money on this and prevent people from getting medical is disgusting.

27

[quote]rsg wrote:

I’m amazed people can actually study this witchcraft.[/quote]

Billions of people believe in god too.

28

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:

Simple math proves homeopathy is fake. Don’t compare it to acupuncture.[/quote]

Zap, I don’t follow what you’re saying above. Anyway, both Acupuncture and Homeopathy claim to act on an energetic system within the human body. Since western medicine does not recognize such an “energetic” body, both systems appear to be nonesense.

Look I can’t defend homeopathy but neither can I assail it. I just don’t know.
Yes, if we look at it from the allopathic point of view it makes no sense. A drug’s impact becomes stronger as the dosage is increased. The opposite is true of homeopathy. However, it would seem that we could at least remain a bit open minded. I mean, there is a bunch of stuff that people have discovered on body-building, health websites like this one that work that fly in the face of Western medicine.

As for studies disproving homeopathy doesn’t work, I would need to look at those studies closely…see who conducted them and who interpreted them.

29

[quote]Malevolence wrote:
rsg wrote:

I’m amazed people can actually study this witchcraft.

Billions of people believe in god too.[/quote]

Touché.

30

So I take it everything has to be scientifically validated with double blind placebo studies to ensure it meets up to your standards of “proof”. You need to learn that not everything in life can be explained in terms of ways that humans will ever understand or comprehend.

Im not saying that to suggest foregoing logical rationalization, thought and analysis on the hows, whys and whats… just because science doesnt have a reasonable explanation towards something such as homeopathy doesnt outright exclude it as bullshit… God knows science is always right. I mean look at Vioxx for example. Im sure everyone who puts their faith in science liked how that one ended up.

31

[quote]entheogens wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:

Simple math proves homeopathy is fake. Don’t compare it to acupuncture.

Zap, I don’t follow what you’re saying above. Anyway, both Acupuncture and Homeopathy claim to act on an energetic system within the human body. Since western medicine does not recognize such an “energetic” body, both systems appear to be nonesense.

Look I can’t defend homeopathy but neither can I assail it. I just don’t know.
Yes, if we look at it from the allopathic point of view it makes no sense. A drug’s impact becomes stronger as the dosage is increased. The opposite is true of homeopathy. However, it would seem that we could at least remain a bit open minded. I mean, there is a bunch of stuff that people have discovered on body-building, health websites like this one that work that fly in the face of Western medicine.

As for studies disproving homeopathy doesn’t work, I would need to look at those studies closely…see who conducted them and who interpreted them.

[/quote]

Homeopathy is based on diluting some substance that allegedly will cure what ails you.

If we assume that that substance actually works (which is doubtful), it is so diluted that it is not in the pill or potion.

Accupuncture is an actual physical manipulation of the body.

Homeopathy is a sugar pill.

32

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Homeopathy is based on diluting some substance that allegedly will cure what ails you.
[/quote]

CLASSICAL homeopathy is based on diluting some substance that will PROVOKE the symptom/disease being treated and diluting it. For example, one cure suggested for some types of insomnia is to dilute caffeine. Does this sound vaguely familiar? Like vaccines? I am not sure where Hahnemann (sp?), the originator of homeopathy got his idea from though. Of course, there have been numerious offshoots from classical homeopathy that don’t follow this exact formula and there may be some homeopathic remedies that do not follow the dictum “like cures like”.

If you are thinking that homeopathy works through the same PATHWAYS as allopathy ( by binding to receptors) then you could easily dismiss homeopathy. However, homeopathy, according to the homeopaths, DOES NOT WORK THROUGH THE SAME PATHWAYS as allopathy.

See above. I think your observation is based upon a misperception apropos homeopathy.

Yes, of course, but it manipulates the body according to a map (the meridians) that is not included in the paradigm of “Western” medicine. I know a little bit more about acupuncture than I do homeopathy (which isn’t to say much). All attempts to frame acupuncture into the western conception of the body have come up short or incomplete. First, they thought it had to do with the nerves, then they thought it had to do with the release of endorphins, but in the end, neither of those completely accounted for acupunctures successes. Again, acupuncture does not claim to works through the same pathways as allopathy.

By the way, dont get me wrong, I think acupuncture does work for some things and doesn’t work for a whole lot of other things. Billing it as some kind of miracle treatment for everything is clearly bullshit (speaking of bullshit). However, I will introduce a personal anecdote about acupuncture. In the early 90s I was diagnosed (by a conventional doctor) as having Chrone’s diseas and acupuncture was the only thing that resolved it. Now whether or not, it was misdiagnosed, the truth still holds that for me acupuncture worked in that case, better than “conventional” medicine (of course, I used chinese herbs, too, which probably do work through pathways similar to western medicine). Other ailments I’ve had, it hasn’t always helped.

And any qualified homeopathist would tell you that if you tested for ingredients in a homeopathic forumla, you would pretty much find that…sugar. So, it’s not as if the practitioners claim differently. Quite the opposite, they claim the more diluted a material is, the more powerful it becomes. It has a stronger energetic imprint.

Now that sounds silly. Maybe homeopathy is bullshit, for all I know. Could it be that so many Europeans, even medical doctors who specialize in it, are duped? Maybe.
However, I cannot dismiss it out of hand (which is what I think a lot of people do) just because it doesn’t fit neatly into THE MODEL (and that’s just what it is) of the human body to which I am accustomed. On the other hand, neither should I accept it just because allopathic medicine sometimes fails. As for me, I will remain neutral on the subject, until I have the desire/time etc to investigate it in depth.

33

Why on Earth are people lumping homeopathy, acupuncture and herbal medicine together?

Homeopathy is out and out ridiculous. All you get is water or a sugar solution. If you’re very, very, very lucky, you might get a molecule of active substance. Homeopathic treatments can exert big therapeutic effects, but that doesn’t mean jack. Placebos can also exert effects that sometimes border on being unbelievably powerful, all just because the subject believes in the treatment. The truly controlled studies conducted to date generally show that homeopathic treatments do not differ from placebo. I don’t know about you, but given a choice between water and expensive water accompanied by mystical spiel, I’ll take the normal water in a heartbeat.

Think about reverse homeopathy for a second. Since we are quite happy dumping sewage and toxins into our water supply, everything you eat or drink is actually homeopathically diluted sewage and toxin. There should be plenty of people keeling over dead from that, don’t you think?

Acupuncture and herbal medicine do work, and on occassion work better than anything western medicine has. They do not deserve to be discussed together with homeopathy and are also not at all incompatible with western medicine. Have you looked at chinese explanations of how acupuncture works? The meridian system and ley lines? It has nothing at all to do with homeopathic theories or “energetic systems”. It is more or less a description of the nervous system, from the point of view of a very different medical tradition. Herbal medicines are just new drugs in waiting. Hand a promising herb over to a big pharma company - in 20 years you’ll have a new over-priced drug, and in 30 a new uniquitous generic.

If you’re willing to reject the idea that steroids inevitably turn you into murderous, infertile, amoral gorillas, I don’t see what’s so difficult about rejecting homeopathic notions.

34

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
entheogens wrote:
I don’t know. How many of you have real experience with homeopathy? Obviously you can find a link to support any argument.

I mean, acupuncture does not fit into the allopathic paradigm either, but I know that at least in some cases it is useful (not in all cases, but neither is allopathy).
Curing people by sticking needles (acuppuncture) in them makes about as much sense to me as diluting a material down until it is not even traceable and having the patient take it (homeopathy). I have european acquaintances that swear by homeopathy. Maybe they are deceived. I don’t know. I prefer, as with all things, to remain sceptical, but open-minded.

Simple math proves homeopathy is fake. Don’t compare it to acupuncture.[/quote]

Exactly. A lot of CAMP aficionados like to paint conventional medicine and science as some bunch of close minded dogmatists who simply dismiss anything that wasn’t covered in their freshman biology texts. This just isn’t true. Acupuncture has been studied, and because of it’s efficacy in certain contexts, was studied even more and a few mechanisms of action have been suggested and studied. I’m specifically thinking about the endorphins released and the studies using a naloxone block.

Homeopathy doesn’t have a plausible mechanism of action and research has shown that it doesn’t work any better than placebo or sham treatment. This is one of the problems with a lot of alternative treatments, they may have an effect, but doing anything would have a similar effect.

Further, acupuncture needles were reclassified from class III to class II medical devices in 1996, partly due to the emerging body of evidence as to their effective use, and many insurance companies pay out for acupuncture treatment.

From Futurama:

“I have a degree in homeopathic medicine!”

“You have a degree in baloney!”

PS - I am considering going to Naturopathic college after I get out of grad school, so I consider myself pretty open minded when it comes to alternative medicine, I just happen to disagree with this one particular practice.

35

[quote]conorh wrote:
Exactly. A lot of CAMP aficionados like to paint conventional medicine and science as some bunch of close minded dogmatists who simply dismiss anything that wasn’t covered in their freshman biology texts.

Homeopathy doesn’t have a plausible mechanism of action and research has shown that it doesn’t work any better than placebo or sham treatment. This is one of the problems with a lot of alternative treatments, they may have an effect, but doing anything would have a similar effect.
[/quote]

Any chemist would be THRILLED to show that homeopathy worked. He would be guaranteed a Nobel Prize and would start a revolution in his field. Scientist really aren’t that closed minded… most of us would love to become famous if we had the research to back our grand claims.