This article is going to take about a couple of homeopathy challenges out there. This article will discuss the homeopathic challenge from James Randi awarding a prize of $1,000,000 dollars to show anything paranormal.  Homeopathy would fall under this category due to the fact that this form of alternative medicine uses dilute substances to heal.  The other challenge is from Simon Singh and Edward Ernst saying that they will award anyone $10,000 pounds that can show homeopathy will work in a placebo based trial using their research methodology.

    The first challenge is the James Randi challenge.  It awards anyone a $1000000 dollar prize to show something that is paranormal.  Some homeopaths have taken up this challenge but their application was denied.  The challenge states that people with serious medical conditions can not stop  their current medication to  participate  in the challenge. 

A homeopath was going to demonstrate  his success treating patients with chronic asthma symptoms via Homeopathy. They felt the participants would be in danger by not taking their current medications for chronic asthma so the trial was denied.

In the James Randi challenge, you would have to design the trial.  James Randi's staff would approve the design trials.  You can begin testing once you are approved.

  The second challenge is very strange.  Ernst and Singh have issued a challenge to homeopathy to demonstrate evidence that this type of alternative medicine works using cochrane research methodology.  The prize is $10,000 pounds.  

  What makes this challenge so strange, you may ask?  Ernst himself did a trial on homeopathy showing it worked for varicose veins.(1)  He tested 61 people with varicose veins and the homeopathic group show a 44% improvement.

Is he going to give himself $10,000 pounds because he proved that homeopathy worked? 

  The question becomes why are people offering these challenges? 

Is it for publicity? 

Is it to discredit Homeopathy?  

Why have some few homeopaths taken up these challenges?

Do people think that these organizations will actually pay if the experiment proves successful?

Do people feel these experiments would be fair?

References

(1) http://www.homeopathic.org/articles/view,71 

Arnica Montana is a plant that belongs to the sunflower family.  Common names for Arnica are leopard's bane, wolf's bane and mountain tabacco.  Arnica naturally grows primarily in mountainous areas in  Europe.  The plant looks very similar to a dandelion and it is a poisonous plant if eaten.

 picture above of Arnica Plant

Herbal Uses For Arnica

  Arnica is used for sprain, strains and other aches and pains in ointments.  The plant seems to create an antiflammatory effective.  Arnica is applied externally to aches and pains.  Arnica is generally not take internally because the plant is poisonous.

Homeopathic Uses For Arnica

  Homeopathic arnica is diluted.  This application is usually applied externally.  Some homeopathic arnica prepartions may be taken orally since the poison has been diluted.  

Homeopathic arnica is used primarily to treat aches, pains and bruises.  The  herbal preparation and the homeopathic preparation generally treat the same conditions.

Research on Arnica

  There have been several double blind trials with Arnica Montana in Homeopathy. 

  These 2 trials were of the highest quailty.  Other trials with Arnica exist but many of them had similar results to the trials above.  Many people say that Arnica works for them. 

Some trials showed a slightly positive result. A 2007 controlled study looked at homeopathic arnica in patients who had their tonsils removed. One group received arnica and the other placebo. Patients were surveyed afterward; 111 out of 190 patients returned their questionnaires. The arnica group reported slightly lower pain levels than the placebo group.  However, the study was far from conclusive.  The patients stayed in the hospital the same amount of time and took the same amount of pain killers.

The question remains is whether Arnica should be researched in double blind studies?  Is this the best way to measure this homeopathic remedy?  Is the homeopathic remedy effective in reducing soreness, brusing and inflammation?  Let us hear your comments.

References

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/content/ETO_5_3X_Arnica.asp 

10 Myths about Homeopathy

This article is going to dispel some myths on homeopathy. There is quite a bit of misinformation floating around. This is a start to clear that up.

1) Homeopathic medicines are nothing more than sugar pill that contain no measurable substance.

Certain homeopathic medicines have no measurable substance. However, many homeopathic remedies do have measurable substances. In medicine that is 24X or 12C has no measurable substance. However, homeopathic medicine potencies such as 6X, 6C, 12X will have a measurable substance.


2) Homeopathic has never been successful in large scale well designed trials. Homeopathic trials have only worked when homeopaths were doing the trials or poorly designed trials with quite a bit of author's bias.

Trials in Homeopathy is a very mixed bag. Sometimes people are looking at the wrong information source. Many skeptics will take successful trials and point out that when looking at larger trials in the study, homeopathy does not seem to work. Although, the author’s conclusions were that homeopathy seems to works better than a placebo.

However, some homeopathic trials that were successful were fairly large. Oscillococcinum trials were quite large and well designed but still yielded a positive result in shortening the flu duration. Similar studies with Osccillococcinum were replicated as well. (1)

The idea that homeopathic remedies have never been successful in a large scale well designed trial is not true.

3) Homeopathy should not be used to treat life threatening diseases.

Homeopathy can treat life threatening diseases with the help of a well trained homeopathic physician. Also, the general medical doctor and other specialists involved in treating the diesease should be included on the treatment plan.

Medical doctors should always be seen if you have a life threatening illness. Homeopathy can not cure all life threatening diseases
but many people with life threatening diseases have faired well with Homeopathy.

Homeopathy malaria trials show that in trials that homeopathic medicine worked as well as conventional medicine in treating people with malaria.

4) Homeopathy and modern allopathic medicine can not work together

Homeopathy can be quite complementary to allopathic medicine.
Many patients under going chemotherapy have seen their side effects reduced when taking homeopathic remedies. Homeopathic trials with reduction of cancer treatments provided encouraging results.

5) Homeopathy, Herbal, and Ayurvedic medicine are similar.

Homeopathy, Herbal and Ayurvedic are forms of alternative medicine but these forms of medicine are not similar in any other way.

Homeopathy use diluted substances to treat patients. Every homeopathic medicine has been diluted in water or alcohol.

Herbal medicine is medicine based on the use of plants.

Ayurvedic is an ancient system of medicine started in India that operates
with the theory that all materials of vegetable, animal, and mineral origin have some medicinal value. Ayurvedic use these materials to treat patients.

Ayurvedic and homeopathic medicines are used quite a bit in India so that creates some confusion in people thinking they are the same thing.

6) Homeopathy is slow to work

Acute conditions such as flu, colds, motion sickness and pain relief can be
treated quickly using homeopathic medicines. Chronic conditions are slow to work because they are complicated to treat. Chronic conditions would
be acne, eczema, irritable bowel syndrome and other conditions will take longer to treat with Homeopathy.

7) Homeopathy is only for human use.

Actually, homeopathy petmeds is one of the fastest growing use of homeopathic products. Homeopathy offers a safe and inexpensive way to treat your pet of acute conditions such as allergies, anxiety and joint stress relief.

8) You can get a book on Homeopathy and treat yourself.

This may be the case in acute conditions such as cold and flu. However, more complicated and chronic cases will require you to see a homeopathic doctor.

Chronic cases involve generally taking quite a few remedies in the course of a treatment. A book can not tell you which homeopathic remedies to take and how much to take when your condition starts to improve or worsen.

9) Homeopathic remedies are not widely available.

This may have been true a few years ago. However, homeopathic remedies can be found pretty much all over the US. Walmart, CVS Pharmacy, Target and larger retailers carry combination homeopathic remedies for acute conditions such as cold and flu and insomnia.

Single homeopathic remedies which homeopaths claim to work the best are not as readily available.

10) All homeopathic remedies work the same on all people.

Homeopathy works different on different people. Classical homeopathy treats different individuals with different remedies according to their personality type.

One person may use one remedy to treat a illness, while another person would use a different remedy to treat the same illness .
Homeopathy assumes everyone is different so using the same remedy to treat everyone will not work according to Classical Homeopathy principals.

 References

(1)  http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab001957.html

If you know of any other myths, put them in the comments section..

Here is a list of interesting Homeopathic links in this week.

Interesting link about the reduction of Homeopathy prescriptions in England.

Homeopathy Prescriptions Reduction in England: The True Story.

The article talks about homeopathy in England is not really in dire straights as the media want people to believe. Homeopathy seems to be growing but many people are getting their prescriptions from places other than pharmacies.

Homeopathic Cures Treats Symptoms As An Imbalance

The article talks about Homeopathy as a system of medicine that tries to bring the body back into balance. Homeopathy assumes that body is out of balance. The homeopathic remedies are suppose to help the body bring everything back into balance. Homeopathy treats the whole person not just the symptoms.

Top Homeopathic Blogs

A listing of the top homeopathic blogs. Our company was thrilled to be on the list. This is a great list of places to get more information on Homeopathy and alternative type medicines.

Could water have a memory

This article takes about scientific research on homeopathic medicines. There is still no proof on the scientific evidence on Homeopathy.

Liddell Laboratories sends open letter to consumer reports

This article is about consumer reports recent report on Homeopathy. Consumer reports states that the research they found shows no evidence in Homeopathy ever working for any conditions. This is a rebuttal to that consumer report.

Authors Commentary.

Interesting rebuttal article for Liddell laboratories with quite a few homeopathic trials. Misinformation on Homeopathy is being epedemic. Many homeopaths are even afraid of well conducted trials since they believe so many trials have become negative. There are plenty of negative trials on Homepathy but there are also plenty of positive trials. Homeopathy trials are a mixed bag. Larger well conducted trials are also a mixed bag. Another misconception seems that larger trials always yields negative results. This does not seem to be the case everytime either.

Send us your interesting links.

If you find some interesting links or a good place to get interesting links on Homeopathy, please put them in the comments section. We may them on your next issue of interesting homeopathic links.

You can double click the file above to start the call or you may expand the window. After expanding the window, you can download the mp3 file to your computer.

Summary of the Conference Call.

Homeopathy 101

Dr. Mike Smith, a homeopathic doctor, with Carolinas Natural Health Cente,r treats patients with homeopathy. He can be reached via email at drsmith@carolinasnaturalhealth.com.

Below are a series of questions that were asked to Dr. Mike Smith.

What is Homeopathy?

A seperate medical systems that has been in use for the last couple hundred of years. It is based on like cures like. Homeopathy is suppose to stimulate the body to correct the imbalance and heal itself.

How is Homeopathy different than conventional medicine?

Homeopathy makes an effort to treat the whole person. It helps your body stimulate its own defenses to fight off the ailment or diesease. Modern medicine or allopathic medicine tries to kill or suppress the ailment or diesease.

What conditions are appropriate to treat yourself and when do you need to see a doctor?

Acute illnesses can be self treated such as flu, toothache, and others.

Chronic illnesses needs to be seen by a doctor. Eczema, Acne, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Irritable Bowel Syndrom and Chrohns diesease would be examples of chronic illnesses.

What are some good books on Homeopathy for people finding more information?

Homeopathy beyond flat eath

Complete Homeopathy Hand Book

Homeopathy Medicine at Home

First Aid Homeopathy

Homeopathy Self Care

What should you do to find a homeopathic doctor?

There is no standard in homeopathic training. Find doctors specializing in homeopathy. Doctors with conventional medical training are highly recommended. A good resource to find practioners is homeopathic.org.

What are some homeopathic remedies to combat sweating?

Sweating due to anxiety -> arsenicum album, phosphorus, Argentum Nitricum

Inappropriate sweating-> Mercurius Solubilis, Sulphur

Where you should yo keep homeopathic medicines?

Keep them in their container and keep them out of excessive heat. Try to avoid exposure to radiation.

What potencies of homeopathic treatment should be used when doing self treatment?

Try lower potencies when doing self treatment such as 6C.