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

DoctorMo thinks that "a lot of it is just mind over what's the matter." Perhaps so (and perhaps not ). And if so, the problem with that is...?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Zarquon, you say when you went to hhe homeopath he spent an hour for a consultation, how many NHS doctors would have given so much time? I think this may be the key to the effective treatment by homeopaths not the treatment they give you, I believe that they help you treat yourself (and as many people have said if that works fine, i'm all for it).

My main concern is that although homeopathy does work in some cases (I'll leave weather this was placebo or not argument for now) what worries me is what illnesses does it work for? For example (and i'm sure most homepaths would agree) I doubt it could treat cancer.

The worrying thing is that although alternative remidies often do work, they are poorly regulated and untested in some conditions more harm than good could be done. Whereas although maybe not perfect current medical interventions have at least been tested. Also proponents of such therapies such as homeopathy often see them as magic panaceas, no such thing exsists.

Perhaps with research more "alternative" remidies will become part of the western medicine arsenal for specific conditions, untill then they should be approched with caution.

As a matter of interest, has there ever been a full scale drug trial on a homeopathic treatment.

That would be interesting though I dunno who'd pay for it.

Clinical trial that is... makes it sound like some criminal court case .

http://www.trusthomeopathy.org/case/cas_cli.html

Thanks

Question 1:

Is 17% rather than 10% statistically significant when this is only one study mentioned? Certainly I think, further studies should be undertaken. It doesn't really sound devastatingly stunning, not really on par with penicillin is it?

Question 2: Is this actually on the same scale as a clinical trial on a new drug developed by a pharmaceutical company? There, the drug must be proved to be not too harmful and show significant improvemnets on other treatments etc.

I personally think that if things claim medical benfits (and this includes anti-aging creams and shampoos, yogurts with active bacteria and the like) then they should be required to prove their claims in the same way that the so-called conventional medicined do.

I didn't actually read the page; I just remembered seeing it in passing while looking for something else.

For starters, it'd be enough to prove that the treatments cause no harm... Then they could be used as an adjunct to conventional medicines - any positive effects (placebo or not) can only be a bonus.

's OK

It was a useful link and did show that such studies *have* been carried out.

Actually I'm all in favour of any remedy if it works, that is rather the point of medicine.

Unfortunately however (and homeopathy is one of the least offensive disciplines for doing this) there are many wild and wacky claims by some forms of 'alternative' medicine and how can you tell the difference between genuine and fraud unless some sort of peer reviewed trial is carried out?
Certainly not by wheeling out 'satisfied clients'. That is surely easy to fake - give them a vested interest and some people can be persuaded to say anything.

I looked at the page Pete posted and the effect of the treatment was statistically significant (P values of <0.05 were reported, a P value of 0.05 or less is usually considered statistically different in biology), so treatment appeared to work, although it was not brilliant.

I'd need to see the original article to comment further, e.g. what was the dose of the treatment,was it more than a homeopath would have given, would a higher dose of the remedy give a better result (if so this could be a normal pharmacological effect rather than a homeopathic effect).....

Still as i've said before if it works and is safe then I dont care if it is a placebo effect or not, I just doubt that most homeopathic remidies give sufficient dosage to see a "real" effect.

What is a P value - is that something to do with the Poisson distribution or something?

My job is pretty much on the developement of new drugs too (medicinal chemistry) - I agree with you.

I'd agree about te dosage, and I will check out the link in a sec.

Why do you think that I think that most cures or treatments are mind of whats the matter?

-- DoctorMO --

A P value is a statistical whatsit giving... lessee...

Probability that results as good as those seen, or better, were obtained purely by chance.

So, for example, a P value of 0.5 is extremely unimpressive - it means you had a 50/50 chance of doing that well anyway.

A P value of 0.05 means you had a one in twenty chance of doing that well just by sheer good luck... and is generally considered unlikely enough to conclude that there was some real effect there.

Note, however, that you can't just look at P values... the calculations and experiment procedures themselves are rather important... do you *believe* the P value? Statistics are legendary for being easy to get wrong without people noticing...

That's exactly what I was getting at.

A standard deviation or the like (which P appears to resemble from your post) gets more and more reliable the larger the sample (excluding systematic errors) and so from one trial I would probably *not* believe it.

If it was repeated several time however and the same or very similar was obtained then that *would* be a different matter.

Most treatments are mind over matter?

Well lets take a good example I heard in the press the other day.

If you drink a bottle of whisky you are highly likely to get drunk.

What happens if you eat a wine gum?

Is there anything in aromatherapy? In answer to your question yes, aromatherapy oils. You know they are there because they smell terrible.

My mate's girlfriend is doing a course in it at the moment.

As far as I'm aware it's just glorified massage isn't it?

Not even that really.

Thanks 26199 for explaining a P value, yeah I agree intreseting what test was used to arrive at such a value (lies, damn lies and statistics)but they are probaly OK as the article originally appeared in the british journal of clinical pharmacology which is a well respected peer reviewed journal (still no dont take it for granted!).

Aromatherapy, well similar story, I think that mast effects of aromatherapy are due to smells activating memories etc wihich could condition you to being relaxed etc. Still is *possible* that odour molecules which act on olfactory receptors could have some(indirect) pharmacological effect (drugs act on receptors in the body to exert, or block an effect).

Apologies to my mate. Of course they got married last year

hmm, I never knew aromatheropy claimed to cure desises, unless you coulnt stress, i thought the whole point was, walk into a nice room with relaxing music and get a nice masarge with some exotic oils.

btw, I hear teatree is suposed to be good against infection??

-- DoctorMO --

Hi Guys,

If you want to find out more from a homeopath, there's one over on the 360 site. A751484 or A742673. She knows her stuff - and she's answering questions.



Maggy