HEALTH: Bizarre chemical discovery gives homeopathic hint (REMEDIES)

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Bizarre chemical discovery gives homeopathic hint

19:00 07 November 01

 

It is a chance discovery so unexpected it defies belief and threatens to

reignite debate about whether there is a scientific basis for thinking

homeopathic medicines really work.

 

A team in South Korea has discovered a whole new dimension to just about

the simplest chemical reaction in the book - what happens when you

dissolve a substance in water and then add more water.

 

Conventional wisdom says that the dissolved molecules simply spread

further and further apart as a solution is diluted. But two chemists

have found that some do the opposite: they clump together, first as

clusters of molecules, then as bigger aggregates of those clusters. Far

from drifting apart from their neighbours, they got closer together.

 

The discovery has stunned chemists, and could provide the first

scientific insight into how some homeopathic remedies work. Homeopaths

repeatedly dilute medications, believing that the higher the dilution,

the more potent the remedy becomes.

 

Some dilute to " infinity " until no molecules of the remedy remain. They

believe that water holds a memory, or " imprint " of the active ingredient

which is more potent than the ingredient itself. But others use less

dilute solutions - often diluting a remedy six-fold. The Korean

findings might at last go some way to reconciling the potency of these

less dilute solutions with orthodox science.

 

Completely counterintuitive German chemist Kurt Geckeler and his

colleague Shashadhar Samal stumbled on the effect while investigating

fullerenes at their lab in the Kwangju Institute of Science and

Technology in South Korea. They found that the football-shaped buckyball

molecules kept forming untidy aggregates in solution, and Geckler asked

Samal to look for ways to control how these clumps formed.

 

What he discovered was a phenomenon new to chemistry. " When he diluted

the solution, the size of the fullerene particles increased, " says

Geckeler. " It was completely counterintuitive, " he says.

 

Further work showed it was no fluke. To make the otherwise insoluble

buckyball dissolve in water, the chemists had mixed it with a circular

sugar-like molecule called a cyclodextrin. When they did the same

experiments with just cyclodextrin molecules, they found they behaved

the same way. So did the organic molecule sodium guanosine

monophosphate, DNA and plain old sodium chloride.

 

Dilution typically made the molecules cluster into aggregates five to 10

times as big as those in the original solutions. The growth was not

linear, and it depended on the concentration of the original.

 

" The history of the solution is important. The more dilute it starts,

the larger the aggregates, " says Geckeler. Also, it only worked in polar

solvents like water, in which one end of the molecule has a pronounced

positive charge while the other end is negative.

 

Biologically active But the finding may provide a mechanism for how some

homeopathic medicines work - something that has defied scientific

explanation till now. Diluting a remedy may increase the size of the

particles to the point when they become biologically active.

 

It also echoes the controversial claims of French immunologist Jacques

Benveniste. In 1988, Benveniste claimed in a Nature paper that a

solution that had once contained antibodies still activated human white

blood cells. Benveniste claimed the solution still worked because it

contained ghostly " imprints " in the water structure where the antibodies

had been.

 

Other researchers failed to reproduce Benveniste's experiments, but

homeopaths still believe he may have been onto something. Benveniste

himself does not think the new findings explain his results because the

solutions were not dilute enough. " This [phenomenon] cannot apply to

high dilution, " he says.

 

Fred Pearce of University College London, who tried to repeat

Benveniste's experiments, agrees. But it could offer some clues as to

why other less dilute homeopathic remedies work, he says. Large

clusters and aggregates might interact more easily with biological tissue.

 

Double-check Chemist Jan Enberts of the University of Groningen in the

Netherlands is more cautious. " It's still a totally open question, " he

says. " To say the phenomenon has biological significance is pure

speculation. " But he has no doubt Samal and Geckeler have discovered

something new. " It's surprising and worrying, " he says.

 

The two chemists were at pains to double-check their astonishing

results. Initially they had used the scattering of a laser to reveal

the size and distribution of the dissolved particles. To check, they

used a scanning electron microscope to photograph films of the solutions

spread over slides. This, too, showed that dissolved substances cluster

together as dilution increased.

 

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therapies should be paid for by governments, says a report 28 November

2000 For more related stories search the print edition Archive Weblinks

Kwangju Institute of Science and Technology Royal London Homeopathic

Hospital Chemical Communications " It doesn't prove homeopathy, but it's

congruent with what we think and is very encouraging, " says Peter

Fisher, director of medical research at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital.

 

" The whole idea of high-dilution homeopathy hangs on the idea that water

has properties which are not understood, " he says. " The fact that the

new effect happens with a variety of substances suggests it's the

solvent that's responsible. It's in line with what many homeopaths say,

that you can only make homeopathic medicines in polar solvents. "

 

Geckeler and Samal are now anxious that other researchers follow up

their work. " We want people to repeat it, " says Geckeler. " If it's

confirmed it will be groundbreaking " .

 

Journal reference: Chemical Communications (2001, p 2224)

Andy Coghlan

 

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