Placebo effect, healthy fashion or real alternative to traditional drugs?
Homeopathy is the most widespread among unconventional medicines, so that over 10 million Italians have used homeopathic remedies at least once (the number of people following the horoscope is clearly higher, but this does not mean that astrology preaches the future).
With this short sentence we have perfectly rendered the idea of how hot the topic of homeopathy is currently. In recent years we have been witnessing a continuous succession of studies that punctually end up providing completely different data. The poor consumer, dazed by all this clamor, no longer knows what to do, on the one hand he feels attracted by homeopathy as an alternative discipline and for this fascinating, on the other he is afraid of paying the supposed uselessness of homeopathic treatment on his skin. In this article we will try to give voice to both sides helping the reader to understand something more about homeopathy.
Why should homeopathy work?
Although homeopathic remedies are constantly targeted by critics of skeptics and numerous scientists, according to the latest Doxa data, about 4 Italians out of 5 declare themselves satisfied with the results of the treatments. In fact, in our country the number of people and doctors who claim the alternative and sometimes integrative role of homeopathy in comparison with traditional medicine is constantly growing.
The action of homeopathy is more similar to the action of a vaccine than to that of an antibiotic. In fact, with homeopathic medicine substances similar to the agent that produces that type of disease are administered. In this way an adequate immune reaction is stimulated, which reinforces the body's defenses by promoting healing or preventing the disease.
Homeopathy focuses on the patient and not the disease, proposing to treat not so much the pathology itself as the "soil" on which the disease is acting.
Prevention arises above all from a rebalancing of the pathological characteristics and the vital energy of the person. When the disease is established, an imbalance in the vital energy starts from which the typical symptoms of the pathology emerge. This imbalance can be treated with an appropriate homeopathic intervention.
In most cases homeopathy is not an alternative but supportive medicine. Homeopathic medicines are in fact used by doctors in association with traditional medicines. A homeopathic intervention would therefore be able to improve the patient's general condition even in the event of chronic drug intake.
Homeopathy is therefore proposed as a complementary medicine. It is certainly no coincidence that the majority of people access homeopathic intervention only after having undergone a treatment with traditional drugs and having ascertained their ineffectiveness or intolerability. By combining and / or replacing homeopathic medicine with the classical one, it is possible to bring significant benefits to the patient. This mixture of care is absolutely not harmful, indeed very often we note a positive complementarity.
Only two to three percent of patients experience adverse reactions to homeopathic medicines. However, these are very mild symptoms, such as an accentuation of nervousness, which disappear when the drug is stopped.
Homeopaths spend a lot of time with the patient, researching the psychological and character aspects and engaging in dialogue with the patient. Referring to these subjective aspects, homeopathy improves the doctor patient relationship in a radical way, treating the human dimension of the disease.
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X Watch the video on youtubeWhy is homeopathy so severely criticized?
Homeopathy tends to successfully cure less serious diseases that tend to heal on their own or have cyclical progress (colds, fever, winter ailments, diarrhea, painkillers, haemorrhoids, allergies, psoriasis, cough, gastritis, depression) headache). If we combine the positive effects of the so-called "placebo effect" with hypothetical spontaneous healing, we immediately understand how homeopathy is, if not useless, at least questionable. Although the toxicity of homeopathic remedies is very low these drugs could instead be even dangerous if their consumption spread to the point of slowing down or replacing the use of traditional medicine.
The homeopathic market is of no interest to the multinationals of the drug and has no basis for the thesis supported by some, according to which the big pharmaceutical companies are trying to denigrate homeopathy to defend their interests.
The leading multinational companies in the sector could indeed push for the promulgation of very strict laws on the production of homeopathic remedies. Such regulations would impose enormous costs to regularize production plants by wiping out small pharmaceutical companies that have arisen in recent years. Moreover, thanks to the mass production and the prestige of the big pharmaceutical brands, homeopathic remedies at lower cost would be proposed in a short time, driven by big marketing campaigns.
If the pharmaceutical multinationals do not risk the "homeopathy" card for the time being, it is only because the effectiveness of this complementary / alternative medicine has not yet been definitively established. A similar argument can be made for some supplements, tonics, hepatoprotectors and memory drugs.
According to the skeptics in the homeopathic products the substances are so diluted as to exclude any positive effect. Indeed going to peek at the laws of mathematics, physics and chemistry we realize that the concentration of some homeopathic dilutions is equivalent to a drop in a quantity of water equal to that contained in the Indian ocean. At other times homeopathic remedies are so diluted that they contain nothing but "fresh water".
The principle of dynamination (continually shaking the solution during preparation) should have, according to homeopaths, the purpose of giving water (solvent) a part of the characteristics of the starting substance (solute). This principle has repeatedly proved to be completely unfounded from the scientific point of view.
Although homeopathy is accepted in different countries as complementary or alternative medicine, it is underlined however the lack of clear scientific evidence on the efficacy of the product. In the United States, for example, homeopathic preparations must carry the following sentence on the label: "this product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease".
Trust or not trust homeopathy?
The efficacy experienced by over 200 years of clinical studies and practices is not enough; even the homeopathic remedies must be applied the same rigorous criteria necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of a traditional drug. Only then can homeopathy be considered an effective medicine. Many studies can be cited in favor (especially abroad) as against; to say that homeopathic medicines work but that this is not scientifically demonstrable is a concept that is neither in heaven nor on earth.
Surely one of the most important principles that homeopathy teaches traditional medicine is the individualization of the patient. The relationship between doctor and patient should therefore be radically improved by giving greater importance to the human aspect of the disease. Sometimes a smile, a pat on the shoulder and a reassuring phrase can do much more than many real or presumed medicines.
