Homeopathy

Article Type: Food facts June 2008 From: Nutrition & Food Science, Volume 38, Issue 6.

Despite the findings of a recent study suggesting almost 60 per cent of patients at UK NHS homeopathic hospitals report health improvements, GPs are allegedly turning their back on homeopathy. According to figures obtained from the NHS-based Prescription Pricing Authority (www.ppa.org.uk), the number of GP prescriptions for homeopathic medicines fell to just 49,300 in 2007 a 40 per cent drop compared with the 83,000 homeopathy prescriptions written in 2005. At the same time,prescriptions overall are up from 720 million in 2005 to almost 800 million in 2007.

One of homeopathy's biggest critics, Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, has suggested the drop in homeopathy prescribing represents a shift towards evidence-based medicine. He also claims the evidence that homeopathic remedies are nothing but placebos is increasing.

Homeopathy was developed over 200 years ago by German doctor Samuel Hahnemann. While translating a book about a malaria treatment, he discovered the extract from cinchona, a Peruvian bark could cause malaria-like symptoms in people who did not have the disease. What is more, by taking cinchona extract highly diluted with water, the same symptoms cleared up.

Dr Hahnemann went on to make many other remedies all derived from natural sources and all using the same principle that a substance that causes the symptoms of an illness can also, when suitably diluted, cure those symptoms. And the higher the dilution, the stronger the remedy. But that is where homeopathy and conventional science part company. Scientists claim the dilutions homeopaths use are so weak that not even a single molecule of the original substance remains in other words, homeopathic medicine is no better than a placebo. To give you some idea, a 6C dilution is equivalent to one drop of the original substance in 20 swimming pools. Another typical dilution used today, 30C, is said to be greater than one drop in all the world's oceans.

The criticisms aimed at homeopathic medicine are not, however, relevant where herbal medicines are concerned. Indeed, many conventional drugs are derived from plants, including digitoxin, a cardiac drug derived from the foxglove (Digitalis purpurea), and morphine, a commonly-used painkiller that is made from the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). However, herbal medicines have their risks and side effects too, especially if taken with conventional medicines.