h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is there owt in it?

No.
Except for the placebo effect. If you think something's making you better, it can.

Can't beat the power of thought, or prayer.
Praying is just thinking anyway.

Then again, having a good footrub makes me feel a heck of a lot better!

Yeah, seems to be no-one else but good old placebo. Which would of course have been shown a long time ago, if anybody had done some scientific testing on it before trying to sell it off as a wonder cure.

theres a fair bit more to homeopathy than the placebo effect. its a holistic discipline which means it aims to treat the whole person not just mental or physical.is is now available on the nhs,though not yet widely.the principle behind homeopathic treatments is the law of similars, that symptoms can be cured by small doses of a substance that in larger doses would cause the same symptoms.the aim being to exagerrate the symptoms temporarily so as to encourage the body to recognise and then correct the disturbance. hope that helps.

But those things are usually so watered down, you are lucky to just find one molecule of it in the solution.

Hmm. I've always been extremely sceptical about all of this, but in desperation I was forced to try it for rhinitis when I was pregnant, as my usual medication wasn't allowed when pregnant. After a strange consultation (my nose was running, so she asked me about my periods!) I was given a bottle of medecine that looked and smelt like the liquid that leaks out the bottom of my compost heap. Definitely not impressed.

But boy o boy did it work!

Can't put it doawn to placebo....

youre right about the molecules.its still being researched as to how the remedies actually work because of this.the theory is that throughout the successions the liquid retains a memory of the original .

Erm... she asked you about your periods when you were pregnant?



Forgive the ignorance, just a bloke after all

Some of the remedies worked wonders on me, some didn't

they also work on animals, they are used lots in the organic farming industry, where thet are added to food - can't the placebo effect explaining that one.

Recent articles in New Scientist, explain how and why water has this memory ability, so even scientists are starting to believe it!

Could you reference the articles? And it's not the clumping one you mean is it?

I think it is, I have thrown away the magazine now, might be able to find something on their web-site.

Aye... sceptical of it 'just being placebo' since reading similar article in the Fortean Times. Even if it is 'just placebo?', is that a problem s'long as there's a beneficial effect?

No problem at all - if you think it's doing you good, it probably is. Some people (like the Queen) obviously thrive to old age on it, but I suspect that she owes quite a lot of her good health to unpolluted environments and good food.

If these remedies work better and better after more and more dilutions and the water still retains a memeory of the original molecules, how can they ever wash the bottles out when they are finished without making an even more potent medicine?

Also, how do you 'reset' the water you use to prepare the solutions, (distillation?) and what is supposed to happen when highly diluted liquids mix with far more concentrated body fluids?

youd have to ask a practioner abou that.

Bit biased on this one, homeopathy is placebo, this rubbish about water remembering the shape of a molecule is just that - rubbish it appeared in new scientist butthat is not a peer reveiwed journal so lots of wacky ideas appear in mew scientist as it encourages debate.

Still nothing wrong with the placebo effect, it works, indeed traditional african medicine is based around trating the placebo effect and in many cases work. Homeopathy may have the "super placebo effect" where not only the placebo pill is given but the practitioner spends time with the patient and reassures them. This time spent by doctors/health profesionals is shown to increase the benifits of treatment to patients, unfortunatly most NHS doctors dont have the time.

The other advantage of the placebo effect of homeopathy is that basically you just take water and no potentially dangerous untested chemicals found in some herbal remidies.

I haven't read the article myself, but I don't think it was about homoepathy per se. It was about that when you put a chemical in water, it clumps a bit instead of being homogenous in the water. So there is a better chance that in a homoepathic drug there might be a few molecules in the drug. Though very few things have any effect with only a few molecules.

It's starting to look less and less like a simple placebo effect...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4152521,00.html
(Copy and paste the above line into your browser till Jim gets around to doing the "comma fix")

There are several relevant articles in the Lancet, but there's no point in providing links as you need to register to read them... Just go to http://www.thelancet.com and sign up, then search for "Homeopathy".