Bizarre chemical discovery gives homeopathic hint

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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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

" 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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