Thursday
Jul142011
Is Science Catching Up With Homeopathy?
Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 4:04PM Is Science Catching Up with Homeopathy?
Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, formulated the law of similars which dictates that preparations which cause certain symptoms in healthy individuals if given in diluted form to patients exhibiting similar symptoms will cure it.
Highly diluted natural complexes prepared according to Hahnemann’s ancient techniques may represent a new form of immunomodulatory therapy, which is a complicated way of saying that homeopathic remedies might be scientifically proven to have the ability to alter or regulate one or more immune functions.
The lack of scientific research with highly diluted products led a team of scientists from South America and Europe to investigate the in vivo (“within the living,” or within the whole, living organism) and in vitro (“within the glass,” or within a controlled environment) actions of commonly used homeopathic remedies, 200c preparations of Mercurius solubilis, Atropa Belladonna, Lachesis muta and Bryonia alba.
The research, published in the International Journal of High Dilution Research, demonstrated that highly diluted medications act on immune cells activating macrophages and change the expression profile of hematopoietic lineage markers. They conclude by suggesting that highly diluted medications may have a potential therapeutic use in clinical applications in diseases were the immune system is affected and also as regenerative medicine by allowing the proliferation and differentiation of progenitor cells.
The language is difficult for most lay readers but the results suggest that, with the help of tools like scanning electron microscopy, science might be ready to concede that homeopathy offers a powerful alternative that is much less expensive and much less toxic than traditional pharmacology.
For the abstract:
PDF of results: