What exactly is homeopathy and does it work?

If it does work, are all homepath doctors genuine? Do they have to pass any qualification?

Homeopathy is based on two principals, both of which are equally ridiculous in the face of what we now know in science, hell, they were ridiculous 200 years ago, and you can find a massive amount of scientific literature from the time criticizing it.

The first is the Law of Similars - Basically stating that the body will 'not permit' two illnesses with the same effects to exist at once, and therefore by inducing a very low level of a second illness with similar effects you can negate the first. This is blatantly not true. You are perfectly capable of having multiple kinds of cancers, different flu and cold viruses, even different bacterial infections - all of which produce similar responses - at the same time.

The second is the law of infinitesimals - stating that the lower in concentration the active substance in a treatment is, the more effective this is. Even when diluted to the point where there is none of the active substance, the water 'remembers' the properties.

This one gets more criticism as it runs afoul of nearly every rule we know about how the physical universe works, in just about every science. The whole of biology is based on molecules interacting with one another, yet this claims that no molecules other than water are necessary - extrapolated this means that everything from hormones, to cytokines to oxygen do not have to be present to work, because the water is 'remembering' it.

The concept of water chemistry was the subject of a great deal of controversy in the late 80s when a scientist claimed to be able to produce the effect in a placebo controlled setting. Nature published his article with a massive disclaimer, and subsequently had several people investigate his claim - it turned out that it was not blinded or placebo controlled at all, and that his idea of such was to not verbally tell the person receiving the treatment that one was a placebo and the other not - despite preparing the treatment within sight of the patient, and having the containers labelled. When the trial was placebo controlled, the perceived effect vanished immediately. This has been the case with MANY other homeopathy trials - basically the people running them have an extremely poor grasp of basic science, and no grasp at all of experimental design, and spew out mountains of badly designed, uncontrolled junk that is examined and tossed out on its face in light of errors that are frequently so large that a 1st year undergraduate wouldn't make them.

From the concept of physical chemistry (basically, using the laws of thermodynamics to describe chemical action) the second 'law' amounts to creating energy to provoke a cellular response - energy that in biology comes from the binding of a ligand molecule to a receptor or other enzyme. The First Law of Thermodynamics is kind of important.

So basically it does not work. And while some may genuinely believe it to, many others continue to ignore the science and sell useless treatments. There are no qualifications of any sort, legal or otherwise. You can essentially open a lemonade stand and sell homeopathic lemonade.

It was started by someone who tried various ingredients on himself to see what the result was. He surmised that a diluted version would stimulate the body's natural healing processes to deal with whatever problem arose. e.g. if something he took gave him a fever, a diluted version of it would help the body to cope with the fever naturally, and overcome it. It is similar - although NOT the same - as vaccinations which, without actually causing a disease, stimulate the body to produce the antibodies which will be there to deal with the disease if it strikes.


Strangely, he found by experiment that the more diluted the ingredient, the better the result. This is what those who poo poo it cannot understand or explain. However, to say that it is only a placebo effect does not take account of the fact that it is used successfully on animals - and they have no idea what you are giving them or why, so when they improve or get better - how can that be a placebo effect?

The one thing is, that it is extremely unlikely that you can do yourself harm - especially if you go to a registered homoeopath (and yes they ARE trained) and many are also mainstream allopathic doctors; so if you feel you would like to try it, go ahead. If it works - then does it really matter why ?

No it does not work. There is no scientific basis or plausible rationale behind Homoeopathy at all. Water is diluted to such an extent there is not a single molecule of any active substance left (!!)

Homoeopaths believe that water has a memory, "through the process of potentisation, the water remembers the 'essence' of the mother tincture that was once dissolved in it" (!!)

Homoeopathy is basically pseudo-science and after thousands of double -blind studies has time and time again been debunked and disproved as having anything more than the Placebo effect. It is simply quackery and now the 'Homeoquacks' claim it is not subject to scientific and clinical evidence!

To conclude; Homeopathic remedies are simply water or sugar pills that have been dipped in water. Homoeopathy is a belief system rather than a system of medicine. It really is little more than sympathetic magic! The power of the mind is a wonderful thing.

Edit
Ah the Homoeopathy working in animals excuse.
There have been NO sound studies that show that homoeopathy works in animals. How do you know the animal being treated with homoeopathic remedies is actually getting better?

This is the placebo effect by proxy, where the animal鈥檚 owner may think and believe the animal is being treated and responding to the Homeopathic 'treatment' the vet is providing, when in reality the animal remains medically untreated and charlatans have of course charged money for this 'service'.

Homoeopathy is a fraud..Maths can prove and has done to dilate a substance,they way they claim you would need containers the size of england,,They believe if you dilate a substance you retain the energy's..Dispute what energy's?....At best a placebo worst a fraud..This is no ancient medicine invented by German about 250 years ago,,,Yes natural medicine,,Yes treat the person as a whole.The same result cannot be reproduced that's why nobodys investing in research..Do a search on homoeopathic fraud..

Several good answers from the skeptical crowd already so I won't rehash anything. You are free to search my past answers as I've answered this question many times before.

Bottom line, it may appear to work sometimes, but that is an illusion.
There is no scientific reason why it should work, and no scientific evidence that it does work.

No. It is a pseudo science that was debunked years ago.
Homeopathic 'medicine' is diluted beyond avagadroe's limit, there are no ingredients, just water.
Every properly conducted double-blind test has proved it to be completely ineffective, beyond a placebo effect.

yep, that's it. so happy about the skeptical tones of the altmed answers at the moment. it feels good to not feel alone like i have on YA in the past sometimes. keep it up

yes Homeopathy is defiantly works... but slowly it removes the problem form bottom....