The Strange Case of Homeopathy

[Guest guest]

Moderator's Note: Although I believe that this article certainly has some

merit, I would like to clarify up front that we do not in any way advocate using

psychiatric drugs and esp not the lithium that this article suggests.

 

JoAnn

 

Psychology Today

 

NOTHING AT ALL? PLACEBO?

OR MIRACLE CURE/ THE STRANGE CASE OF HOMEOPATHY

 

By Michael Castleman

 

http://www.mcastleman.com/magazines/mag_psy_t_homeo.html

 

In 1994, NASA computer scientist Amy Lansky, Ph.D., of Portola Valley,

California, began wondering about her two-year-old son. Max knew the alphabet,

beat adults at memory games, and was an ace at several computer games. But he

barely spoke, and despite normal hearing, didn’t seem to understand language. At

preschool, he was a loner. As the months passed, Max became increasingly

withdrawn. His main form of communication was poking people with his finger.

Eventually, school officials urged Lansky to have him professionally evaluated.

The diagnosis: Autism, an incurable condition.

 

 

 

But Lansky refused to believe Max was incurable. She set off on a quest to do

the impossible, cure her son. Her search led her to homeopathy, an 18th century

healing art now enjoying renewed popularity because of Americans’ growing

interest alternative healing arts. Homeopathy involves treating illnesses with

such extreme dilutions of herbs animal substances, and chemical compounds that

frequently not one atom of the diluted substance is left in the solution.

 

Homeopathy defies the known laws of physics, chemistry, and pharmacology, not to

mention, common sense. No one has any idea how it works, not homeopaths who

swear by it, nor critics, who swear at it. For this reason, homeopathy is one of

the most controversial alternative approaches to healing. But many rigorous

studies show that homeopathic treatment works. Some recent examples:

 

 

 

* Vertigo. German researchers treated 105 sufferers of persistent disorienting

dizziness with either a standard drug known to treat this condition successfully

or a homeopathic medicine. The homeopathic medicine worked as well as the

pharmaceutical.

 

 

 

* Mild traumatic brain injury. Some 750,000 Americans suffer mild brain injury

annually, and about 75,000 experience persistent disability. Harvard researchers

gave 50 people with brain injury either a placebo or a homeopathic medicine.

Those taking the homeopathic medicine showed significantly greater improvement.

 

 

 

* Infectious diarrhea. This illness, often the result of impure water supplies,

is a major cause of childhood death around the world. Jennifer Jacobs, M.D.,

M.P.H.., an assistant clinical professor of epidemiology at the University of

Washington School of Public Health in Seattle, recruited 81 Nicaraguan children

under age five afflicted with infectious diarrhea. She gave half of them the

standard mainstream treatment—rehydration fluid containing water, sugar, and

salt. The other half received the rehydration fluid plus a homeopathic medicine.

Among the children in the control group, the diarrhea lasted an average of four

days. But in the homeopathy group, it lasted only 2.5 days, a significantly

faster recovery.

 

 

 

“It’s true that homeopathy defies the known laws of science,” says Ellen

Feingold, M.D.., a Wilmington, Delaware, pediatrician who left conventional

medicine eight years ago to practice homeopathy. “But who says we know all the

laws of nature? I believe there are new laws yet to be discovered, new science

that will explain how homeopathy works. But that research is not my concern. I

want to heal patients. As an M.D., most of what I did was suppress symptoms. Now

as a homeopath, I truly heal people.”

 

 

 

“Critics of homeopathy say that because its mechanism of action can’t be

explained, it can’t possibly work,” says Michael Carlston, M.D. a Santa Rosa,

California, physician who has combined mainsteam medicine and homeopathy for 30

years and has taught a course on it at the University of California, San

Francisco, medical center. “But that’s hypocritical. Aspirin was used for about

90 years before its mechanism of action—its effect on prostaglandins—was

explained, and no doctors shunned it. I can’t explain how homeopathy works. But

it does.”

 

 

 

Edward Shalts, M.D., a psychiatrist-homeopath at Beth Israel hospital in New

York, cites another example: “No one knows why lithium is effective as a

psychiatric medication. But it is, and psychiatrists don’t hesitate to prescribe

it. There’s a medical prejudice against homeopathy.”

 

 

 

Strange Medicine

 

 

 

Shortly after her son’s diagnosis, Lansky noticed a magazine article on

alternative treatments for childhood behavior problems, including homeopathy.

She’d heard of homeopathy, but knew nothing about. She was intrigued.

 

 

 

Lansky’s acupuncturist referred her to a homeopath, John Melnychuk. He did not

perform a physical exam, nor did he order any diagnostic tests. He just asked

questions, some about Max’s problems, but many about aspects of Max’s life that

M.D.s would consider irrelevant: his milk craving, his love of music and

dancing, his fitful sleep, the bluish tint in the whites of his eyes, and his

restlessness, intensity, sweetness, stubbornness, and perfectionism. Then using

reference books compiled over 200 years, he looked for the medicine that

produces the same effects--or as close as possible--in healthy people. This is

the fundamental principle of homeopathy, the Law of Similars, the idea that

illness can be cured by substances--plant or animal material or minerals--that

evoke the same symptoms in those who are well. The term “homeopathy,” reflects

the Law of Similars—“homeo” means “treatment by similars.” Melnychuk decided to

give Max Carsinosin, a medicine made from--of all things--an

infinitessimal amount of human cancer tissue.

 

 

 

“There are two types of homeopathic remedies,” Melnychuk explains. “Some treat

symptoms, for example, arnica works well for sports injuries--sprains and muscle

strains. Then there are the ‘constitutional’ remedies, the ones that have to be

matched to the patient’s personality. Max seemed to fit best into the carsinosin

profile, which includes: perfectionistic, restless, withdrawn, loves music and

dancing, has trouble sleeping, whites of the eyes look blue, and craves milk,

but milk aggravates symptoms. Max seemed like a ‘carsinosin person.’”

 

 

 

However, Melnychuck cautions, not every autistic child should receive

Carsinosin. “I’ve treated other autistic kids with different constitiutional

remedies. You have to tailor the remedy to the patient’s unique traits.”

 

 

 

Lansky mixed a little Carsinosin in water and gave Max a teaspoon each morning.

Within two days, she noticed changes. “Max’s speech improved. He used phrases

he’d never used before. And he seemed more socially aware. It was subtle, but

something shifted.”

 

 

 

Over two months, the trend toward improvement continued. Max’s pediatrician was

amazed.

 

 

 

Maybe It’s Doing Nothing

 

 

 

Homeopathy developed during the late 18th century, a time when physicians knew

little about disease. They treated most illnesses with bleeding, powerful

laxatives (cathartics), drugs that caused vomiting (emetics), and mercury, which

had been shown effective against syphilis and had evolved into a treatment for

just about everything. These medications were called “heroic measures,” but the

heroism was entirely on the part of patients, many of whom suffered more from

these now-thoroughly discredited treatments than from their illnesses.

 

 

 

One victim of heroic medicine was George Washington. In 1799, the 67-year-old

ex-President developed a sore throat. He probably had a cold or possibly strep

throat, nothing serious. Washington’s physicians bled him of two quarts of

blood, leaving him anemic, weak, and dehydrated, then gave him cathartics and

mercury. He was dead within 12 hours. Not treating him at all would have been

better.

 

 

 

One 18th century German doctor, Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), became so

disgusted with heroic medicine that he closed his practice. Hahnemann did not

reject every conventional medicine. He was impressed with cinchona, the South

American tree bark that was the first effective treatment for malaria. (Cinchona

was the original source of the antimalarial drug, quinine.) In 1790, Hahnemann

ingested some, and became cold, achy, anxious, thirsty, and ill, all symptoms of

malaria. That experience led him to postulate his Law of Similars.

 

 

 

For the rest of his life, Hahnemann tested hundreds of substances on

himself--plants, animal parts, and chemical compounds, for example: salt, zinc,

onion, oats, coffee, gold, and marigold flowers, and catalogued their effects.

Eventually, he reopened his practice, but prescribed only his homeopathic

medicines. Hahnemann’s approach was much less drastic than heroic medicine’s. He

attracted a large following among both patients and physicians fed up with

heroic measures.

 

 

 

But homeopathy was controversial from the outset because of Hahnemann’s other

postulate, the Law of Potentization, the idea that homeopathic medicines grow

stronger as they became more dilute. This flew in the face of a fundamental

principle of pharmacology, the “dose-response relationship,” which says that the

larger the dose, the greater the effect. Many medicines homeopaths consider

“extremely powerful” are so dilute, they contain none of the active ingredient.

Homeopaths cannot explain why a medicine diluted to the point where it’s nothing

but water should treat anything, except to say that the water somehow

“remembers” the medicine and retains its action.

 

 

 

Critics howl at the Law of Potentization. Homeopathy is “absurd,” notes William

Sampson, M.D., a clinical professor of medicine at Stanford. “It conflicts with

the entire body of knowledge of pharmacology, chemistry, physics, and every

other field of science. It is bankrupt in theory and practice.”

 

 

 

“There is simply no basis for believing that homeopathy has any effect,” says

Robert Baratz, M.D., Ph.D., president of the The National Council Against Health

Fraud, in Peabody, Massachusetts. “It’s contradicted by common sense. Homeopathy

is a magnet for untrustworthy practitioners who pose a threat to public safety.

It’s quackery.”

 

 

 

Maybe homeopathy involves treatment with nothing. If true, it would have been an

improvement over 18th century heroic medicine--even if all patients get is

water. But that doesn’t explain the salutary effects on a 21st century child

with autism.

 

 

 

Nor does it explain Dr. Carlston’s experience. In college, he suffered the

persistent, itchy skin rashes of eczema and treated it with standard medication,

steroid cream. “It helped,” he recalls, “but when I stopped it, the rashes came

back, and when I used the cream, I developed swollen glands, a sign of

infection.” By chance, Dr. Carlston attended a lecture on homeopathy. The

speaker said that conventional medicine simply suppresses symptoms, and in the

process, often creates other problems. “That seemed like what was happening to

me,” Carlston explains. “The steroid suppressed the rash, but caused the swollen

glands. Carlston consulted a homeopath, got treated with a microdose medicine,

and soon afterward, his eczema cleared up. It hasn’t recurred since. “Homeopathy

is much more than treatment with nothing,” he says. “It’s treatment that heals.”

 

 

 

Maybe Itís a Placebo

 

 

 

By the late 19th century, conventional medicine had abandoned heroic measures.

As they disappeared, the medical opposition, led by homeopaths, lost steam. The

discovery of antibiotics and other modern drugs strengthened conventional

(allopathic) medicine at homeopathy’s expense. Conventional physicians were also

more politically astute. They successfully lobbied state legislatures to pour

money into allopathic medical schools, leaving homeopathic programs underfunded

and less attractive to aspiring physicians. To gain funding, many homeopathic

programs converted to conventional medicine, including the medical schools at

Boston University, the University of Michigan, and Drexel in Philadelphia, which

is still called Hahnemann Medical College. Homeopathy remained popular in

Europe, But by the early 1970s, there were fewer than 100 homeopaths left in the

U.S. Critics dismissed homeopathy as simply a placebo.

 

 

 

Placebos have no medical value. But when given to treat almost any illness--from

colds to serious conditions--about one-third of recipients report benefit. Why?

Because of the mind’s ability to affect the body, says Brown University

psychiatrist Walter Brown, M.D. Many studies have shown that when a doctor

offers any treatment, people expect it will help, and that expectation often

does the trick. That’s why some people with headaches begin to feel better at

the mere sight of Tylenol. Placebos also reduce recipients’ distress about their

illnesses, and relaxation is therapeutic, especially for pain. Finally, through

a mind-body mechanism not entirely understood, placebos trigger the release of

endorphins, the body’s own feel-good, mood-elevating, pain-relieving compounds.

“Improvement in patients receiving homeopathic remedies is simply a placebo

effect,” Sampson argues. Or maybe not. Here are three recent examples of studies

showing that homeopathy is effective beyond a placebo

effect:

 

 

 

* Pain Relief. British researchers gave 37 people either a placebo or a

homeopathic pain medicine (Arnica) after wrist surgery for carpal tunnel

syndrome. The homeopathy group reported significantly less pain.

 

 

 

* Colds, Flu, Hayfever. Thirty M.D.s at six clinics in four countries (including

the U.S.) treated 456 consecutive patients with upper respiratory complaints

using either homeopathy (281 patients) or conventional medicine (175). After

three days, 57 percent of those treated conventionally were improved. In the

homeopathy group, the figure was 67 percent. Conventional treatment caused more

side effects. Sixty-five percent of the conventional group were “very satisfied”

with their treatment. In the homeopathy group, the figure was 79 percent.

 

 

 

* Childhood Ear Infections. To treat this common affliction, University of

Washington researchers gave 75 children (18 months to 6 years) a placebo or

homeopathic medicine. After 24 hours, parents’ symptom diaries showed

significantly faster recovery in those treated homeopathically.

 

 

 

However, some studies show that homeopathy is ineffective:

 

 

 

* Asthma. British researchers gave either a homeopathic medicine or a placebo to

242 asthma sufferers. After 16 weeks, there was no difference in how the two

groups fared.

 

 

 

* Rheumatoid Arthritis. British researchers treated 58 people with either

homeopathically or with a placebo. The placebo group reported significantly

greater pain relief.

 

 

 

* Pain. Arnica is the homeopathic medicine often prescribed for musculoskeletal

pain, for example, sprains. British researchers analyzed the results of eight

studies of arnica vs. placebos for pain. Arnica showed no benefit over placebo

treatment.

 

 

 

How can we make sense of these conflicting reports? In 1991, Dutch

epidemiologists analyzed 105 studies of homeopathic treatment from 1966 to 1990,

most from French and German medical journals unavailable in English. Eighty-one

studies revealed benefits. Twenty-four showed no benefit--but 81 did. Many were

not well designed, prompting the researchers to state: “The evidence is probably

not sufficient for most people to decide definitively one way or the other

[about the efficacy of homeopathy].” However, they concluded: “The evidence is

to a large extent positive. [it] would probably be sufficient for establishing

homeopathy as treatment for certain conditions.” A 1997 German analysis of 89

studies agreed. While finding “insufficient evidence” that homeopathy is

definitely effective, the researchers concluded that it is often significantly

more beneficial than placebo treatment.

 

 

 

Maybe People Just Prefer Alternative Therapies

 

 

 

Ambiguous as the evidence may be, in recent years homeopathy has enjoyed renewed

popularity in the U.S., coinciding with many Americans’ ambivalence about

mainstream medicine. Millions take the latest drugs for depression, high

cholesterol, and other conditions. But according to a recent report, many say

they dislike drugs and prefer other treatments. Depending on the survey, half to

two-thirds of Americans have used alternative therapies. They visit alternative

practitioners more often than they visit conventional M.D.s--some 600 million

consultations a year. They now spend $30 billion a year on alternative

therapies, according to a recent report in Newsweek, and have as much confidence

in alternative practitioners as they do in M.D,s, according to a study in the

AMA-published journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

 

 

 

Are Americans losing confidence in M.D.s? No, according to the report in Annals

of Internal Medicine, which shows that Americans continue to have faith in their

M.D.s, but have expanded their view of what’s medically helpful to include

alternative therapies. In the Annals study, about three-quarters of the 831

respondents consulted an M.D. first, but also consulted an alternative

practitioner, believing that the combination of mainstream and alternative

medicine provides better results than either one by itself. “The renewed in

interest in homeopathy,” explains Dana Ullman, M.P.H., author of eight books on

it, “is part of the groundswell of interest Americans have shown for all the

alternative therapies. People are just not satisfied with just conventional

medicine.”

 

 

 

Homeopathy is not the only alternative therapy that conventional medicine

considers impossible. The energy pathways (meridians) fundamental to acupuncture

don’t correspond to any known structures in the body, so no one knows exactly

how it works. But a 1998 National Institutes of Health report concluded, “the

data in support of acupuncture are as strong as those for many accepted Western

medical therapies.”

 

 

 

Nonetheless, homeopathy is nowhere near as accepted as acupuncture. The latest

Harvard report on Americans’ use of alternative therapies shows that homeopathy

accounts for less and one-half of 1 percent of alternative practitioner visits.

Recently, University of Maryland researchers surveyed coverage for alternative

therapies by six major managed care plans. Five covered chiropractic. Four

covered acupuncture. None covered homeopathy. “Homeopathy,” Ullman says, “gets

no respect.”

 

 

 

Dr. Carlston believes fervently that homeopathy deserves more respect. Recently,

he treated a 28-year-old woman with a long history of anxiety attacks. She’d

taken standard medication, but it didn’t help much. She also had physical

symptoms--chronic indigestion and no menstrual periods for several years. Dr.

Carlston prescribed a homeopathic medicine. “Over several months, her anxiety

attacks subsided. After a year her periods returned. “I’m still sometimes amazed

at how well homeopathy works,” Carlston says.

 

 

 

About a year after September 11, a middle-aged computer programmer consulted Dr.

Shalts for anxiety, insomnia, and when he did sleep, nightmares. He’d been in

the World Trade Center in 1993, when it was bombed, and he was standing on the

subway platform beneath it when the planes hit. Other psychiatrists had

prescribed antidepressants and psychotherapy. They didn’t work. A friend

referred the man to Dr. Shalts, who prescribed a microdose of Stramonium

(thornapple). “After just one pill, he slept better, and after two weeks, he was

sleeping through the night without nightmares.” But the man was still anxious.

Shalts prescribed a microdose of Aresenicum album (arsenic). “Now he’s fine.”

 

 

 

As a pediatrician, Ellen Feingold treated many kids with asthma and chronic ear

infections. “But I never cured them. They just kept coming back with more asthma

attacks, more ear infections. I became so disillusioned with medicine that I

considered quitting.” Then she heard about homeopathy, became intrigued, and

eventually trained as a homeopath in Israel. Back in Delaware, she tried to

introduce homeopathy into her practice at Dupont Hospital for Children in

Wilmington. “No one there was receptive.” Two years ago, she left and began

practicing homeopathy on her own. One of Dr. Feingold’s patients was a

five-year-old boy who had allergies and asthma. “He’d taken multiple courses of

inhaler medication, but it didn’t help, and his mother became concerned about

the long-term effects of all the cortisone her son was getting.” Feingold

treated him homeopathically, with a microdose of arsenic. “He hasn’t had an

asthma attack in more than a year.” Feingold has only one regret about

homeopathy—that she didn’t switch to it sooner.

 

 

 

Impossible Cure

 

 

 

Amy Lansky didn’t care that homeopathy is one of America’s least accepted

alternative therapies. After nine months of homeopathic treatment, Max was a

different child: talkative, active, sociable, and popular. Under Melnychuk’s

guidance, Lansky decreased his dose of Carsinosin, and eventually discontinued

it. Max continued to improve. By age five, he was virtually indistinguishable

from any healthy, happy kid.

 

 

 

In fall 1997, Max entered first grade at a new school. Lansky did not tell the

teachers of his autism history, and none of them suspected it. They only knew

Max for the boy he’d become: happy, friendly, funny, charming, and working at

grade level. “Of course,” Lansky explains, “like any child, Max still has his

issues. He now sees Dr. Melnychuk maybe twice a year. But as far as I’m

concerned, he’s cured.”

 

 

 

Max’s cure led Lansky to quit her job and study homeopathy full-time. This was

not easy. The nation’s few naturopathic medical schools—the National College of

Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, and Bastyr University near Seattle—offer

training in homeopathy, but neither were near her and she didn’t want to uproot

her family. .So Lansky cobbled together a program combining a correspondence

course from a school in England with attendance at weekend seminars around the

U.S. Last fall (2003, she hung out a shingle.

 

 

 

Seeing is believing. Or is it? As a Ph.D. scientist herself, she knows that

homeopathy defies the known laws of science, that it’s impossible, and shouldn’t

work. But she is also convinced it did the impossible—cured her son of a

supposedly incurable condition. Last year, she published a book, whose title

reflects her son’s experience and her feelings about her new career: Impossible

Cure.

 

 

 

San Francisco-based health writer Michael Castleman is the author of 12 consumer

health books, including Natureís Cures: A Scientific Investigation of 33

Alternative Therapies (Rodale), including homeopathy.

 

 

 

Resources:

 

Impossible Cure: The Promise of Homeopathy. By Amy Lansky, Ph.D. (R.L.Ranch

Press, Portola Valley, California, 2003). www.impossiblecure.com

 

 

 

Homeopathic Educational Services. Homeopathic books, medicines, and other

resources. 2124 Kittredge St., Berkeley CA 94704; (510) 649-0294;

www.homeopathic.com.

 

 

 

National Council Against Health Fraud. 119 Foster St., Peabody, MA 01960; (978)

532-9383; www.ncahf.org.

_________________

JoAnn Guest

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