Summary
Homeopathy, a medical approach that uses the theory of "like cures like" to cure chronic pain, is not accepted by researchers as valid treatment because it defies the laws of physics and chemistry. For example, a Canadian homeopath treated a woman with chronic burning leg and foot pain by giving her very small doses of a remedy containing a substance she was allergic to. The woman's pain went away and her energy improved, but since researchers cannot understand how the same substance that hurts a person can help them, they generally do not accept homeopathy as a real treatment.
Original source:
http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/health/article.jsp?content=20050525_175550_5276
Details
A Canadian doctor who has been practising homeopathy for more than a decade says the controversial therapy can help people whose pain isn't adequately controlled with traditional medication.
Homeopathy takes the approach of "like cures like."
It involves giving extremely small doses of substances that produce symptoms of illness in healthy people when given in larger doses.
The treatments can be so dilute that not one molecule of the original substance is left.
Dr. Stephen Malthouse, a doctor and homeopath in Victoria, B.C., says that while homeopathy can treat pretty much any type of pain, the approach is holistic, and the pain is seen as a piece of the larger jigsaw puzzle that is the person's overall health.
He gives the example of a 50-year-old woman who experienced burning foot and leg pain, accompanied by numbness in the extremities.
When the patient came to see Malthouse, he did a complete history and was told the woman had an allergy to sulfa-based drugs.
According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a U.S. government research funding agency, homeopathy has been subject to controversy and debate because a number of its key concepts do not follow the laws of chemistry and physics.
In particular, scientists do not understand how something that causes illness might also cure it, and they question whether a remedy with a very tiny amount of active ingredient (perhaps not even one molecule) could have a biological effect, beneficial or otherwise.
Studies of
homeopathy have been contradictory in their findings, the centre states.
Some analyses have concluded there is no strong evidence supporting homeopathy as effective for any medical condition.
However, others have found positive effects from the treatment.
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Monday, June 06, 2005
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