I wanted to write a long entry about homeopathy because it is a subject that I eigenlich dear to the heart. Perhaps there is some point to even a video.
Each of us knows homeopathic remedies, many of us have already been used and a few even with conventional medicine, they put on a par. What I find is worried, is that it is often based on false assumptions and on a completely wrong understanding of homeopathy. Just ask around once in your environment, what homeopathic remedies are. You will answers such as "natural remedy" or "alternative medicine" to hear. Sooner or later you will be guaranteed one of the Run away and say that homeopathic remedies "not the chemical warfare" and thus would imply that conventional medicine pumped so much chemistry in the patients that they often make more ill than healthy.
Well, what's really behind homeopathy. In principle there are two large golden rules you need to know:
first "Like cures like!"
exactly what means what is produced on a "healthy" patients certain symptoms - strictly according to the dogma of the homeopath - just heal selbige symptoms. This principle, in the literature as "Similia similibus curentur beschrieben, mag auf den ersten, sehr oberflächlichen Blick noch irgendwie einleuchtend klingen. Doch was dieses Prinzip bedeutet, ist vielen überhaupt nicht klar. Stellt euch vor, ihr habt Probleme mit dem Einschlafen. Nach für Nacht wälzt ihr euch stundenlang und bekommt kein Auge zu. Nach einer Woche habt ihr endgültig die Nase voll und ruft euren Arzt an. Seid ihr jetzt bei einem konventionellen Arzt gelandet, dann bekommt ihr vielleicht ein Beruhigungs- oder Schlafmittel verschrieben. Bei einem Homöopathen aber bekommt ihr Koffein! Nächstes Mal, wenn ihr wieder nicht einschlafen könnt hilft vielleicht ein doppelter Espresso oder ein halber Liter Club Mate, vielleicht auch 4 - 5 Dosen Red Bull, zumindest nach homöopathischer Logic. What a "healthy" patient awake makes is to make an awake patient supposedly healthy. This speaks easily, but lacks any common sense. second The greater the dilution, the more effective the remedy!
homeopaths have the practice to give their money only in very dilute solutions out. And my dear choir, have you any idea of what is discussed here for dilutions. Skilled people are talking about the "potentiation" of the funds. This then goes like this: You
take part active substance - for example, an milligram of caffeine for the sleeping pills - and dilute it in ten Parts of water. Then you shake the solution ten times back and forth ten times to the left and right and ten times up and down, which is homeopathic provision. What comes out at the end of D1 is a solution to the naming to not break. A physicist or a chemist would call this a 1:10 solution. (Do not forget to shake!) Take her now from this solution in turn part and dissolved again in 10 parts of water, you have a D2-solution, that is 1:100. There's still a different scale than the D scale. On the C scale 1:100 homeopathic dilutions are removed. Ie D12 = C6, C2 = D4, etc. But all this is not enough for the homeopath, no! The rule is the more often it passes through this process - the less active substance is so present at all - the more effective will the means.
It is important to know one more thing: you pass the "magical" barrier of a homeopathic solution D23 is one in constant conflict with the Avogardo, this is only one side of chemical molecule in the solution. This means that with a D24 solution only has a chance of 1:10 that in general is still a molecule in the solution. When D25 is the chance of a molecule already at 1:100 and 1:1000 D26 just ridiculous.
The whole thing was in the beginning mainly water and then only water, wird dadurch aber seltsamerweise wirksamer.
So lächerlich das schon für sich ist, wird es erst richtig spaßig, wenn man sich das mal grafisch vor Augen ruft. Hier eine kleine Liste von Potenzierungen und was sie bedeuten:
D 06 -- Ein Tropfen auf das Volumen einer Mülltonne
D 12 -- Ein Tropfen auf 25 olympische Schwimmbecken
D 24 -- Ein Tropfen auf dem Zehnfachen Volumen des Mittelmeeres
D 80 -- Ein Teilchen aufgelöst in allen(!) Teilchen von 100 Universen . (viel Spaß beim Schütteln!)
D 100 -- Eine Lächerlichkeit jenseits von Sinn und Verstand!!
Aber here it sounds for the money-hungry alternative medicine does not occur. Browsed a little bit on the net and you quickly find online shops that you want solutions with a potentiation of D 1500 as a turn on "very effective". I do not think I can draw an adequate comparison. It is not even necessary, so laughable is the theme.
Why homeopathy "works"? Well, homeopathy "works" at all. Everything (prohibiting the term "medicine" here) with homeopathic remedies is reached, the so-called "placebo effect". The mere fact that we take a way that we think of medicine, can trigger an improvement without the funds has contributed to it. Added to this is that homeopaths often take a lot of (well-paid) time for their patients. This extra attention sometimes subconsciously reinforced the placebo effect on patients. What is more, then most of homeopathy is used when the body one way or another with some time to heal itself, a homeopathic treatment to serious matters such as stroke, there is not. So if a patient is better by now, the only "was not any good" and has spent a lot of money for a homeopathic remedy, he will think that the remedy had cured him, even though he has taken only water and his body would have been cured without homeopathy. A large, randomized, double-blind study (the gold standard of scientific tests), homeopathy classifies significantly better than placebo, there is not, on the contrary. A large meta-study (ie, an analysis of many individual studies) found that homeopathic remedies are not significantly better than placebo and certainly can not compare with the standard treatment (E. Ernst, 2002, "A Systematic review of systematic reviews of homeaopathy" see Sources). tl, dr:
Homeopathy is basically nothing more than a little active substance is diluted so ridiculously strong that most not even a single molecule of active substance in the media is left. In addition, you get straight with homeopathy the active ingredient that causes the same symptoms, to treat you try. Significantly better than placebo, homeopathic preparations shown not to be but can still sell high.
[Update: Now with 100% more references! ]
Sources:
Homeopathy (Wikipedia) & potentiation (Wikipedia)
Two articles on the subject of GWUP: Homeopathy & FAQ homeopathy
A systematic review of systematic reviews of homeopathy (meta-analysis, E. Ernst, 2002)
Homeopathy: The effective promotion of ineffective remedies? (E. Ernst, 2006)
What's the harm? Homeopathy (YouTube user: c0nc0rdance, 2010)
James Randi on "World Homeopathy Awareness Week" (James Randi, 2010)
