Poll: Homeopathy - Is it Bollocks?

[Da Orky Man]

Personally I don't believe in it but I also don't believe in most forms of medication.

Your body develops things that can fight disease and infection called anti-bodies or something (I dunno and don't care if I'm wrong...I'm not a doctor). I am rarely sick and whenever I am sick I mostly avoid medication (unless it is completely necessary, like its too painful without it).

I have friends who take medication at the slightest cough or headache and they are constantly sick. I have a friend who practices homeopathy and she is rarely sick. I don't do either and I am rarely sick. So I would rank them like this...

1. Let your body do its own thing (it'll make you better)
2. Homeopathy
3. Over-use of medication (not overdose, just like taking a Panadol cos you have a slight headache)

In theory Homeopathy makes sense...vaccines to snake/spider bites, mad cow disease etc. all contain a trace amount of the venom/virus. Your body remembers what is 'bad' (cos it knows what made you sick) and destroys all future 'bad stuff' before it makes you sick again.

People who take medication all the time get sick more often cos they aren't letting their body do its job. Thus makes them weaker and more reliant on medication.

Are you just talking about colds and such, because you do know that people take homeopathy for cancer and such, right? Septicaemia and the such that the human body would die to within a week?
You body does indeed produce antibodies. If I had the time, I could give you a quite detailed explanation on how they work. Normal medicine just helps the antibodies or encourages the production of more. but natibodies can only work against viral/bacterial infections, not physical injuries or cancer.


And, although homeopathy kinda makes sense in the way you're describing it, it doesn't if you look closer. For example, if you were suffering from arsenic poisoning, they would get a vial of water that has about 1 molecule of arensic per 10^22 molecules of water. If it worked, then i should be immune to everything on the planet.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Homeopathy is complete and utter silliness, and anyone who says otherwise is utterly wrong. This is the most clear-cut explanation for it:

And if they say it does work; evidence please.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I love this topic, it is so funny!

 

[ReservoirAngel]

It's bollocks. It's just water, you're essentially just giving yourself lots and lots of placebos.

 

[Aurgelmir]

Lets put it this way:
If diluting a medicine makes it better. As the water contains the healing properties of the medicine, shouldn't water be some sort of miracle drug strait from the tap now? I mean traces of medicine make it out into the oceans and streams of the world all the time. The other day I lost a pill in the sink for instance.

So why are people still getting sick, if water contains all the treatments we need?

Personally I don't believe in it but I also don't believe in most forms of medication.

Your body develops things that can fight disease and infection called anti-bodies or something (I dunno and don't care if I'm wrong...I'm not a doctor). I am rarely sick and whenever I am sick I mostly avoid medication (unless it is completely necessary, like its too painful without it).

I have friends who take medication at the slightest cough or headache and they are constantly sick. I have a friend who practices homeopathy and she is rarely sick. I don't do either and I am rarely sick. So I would rank them like this...

1. Let your body do its own thing (it'll make you better)
2. Homeopathy
3. Over-use of medication (not overdose, just like taking a Panadol cos you have a slight headache)

In theory Homeopathy makes sense...vaccines to snake/spider bites, mad cow disease etc. all contain a trace amount of the venom/virus. Your body remembers what is 'bad' (cos it knows what made you sick) and destroys all future 'bad stuff' before it makes you sick again.

People who take medication all the time get sick more often cos they aren't letting their body do its job. Thus makes them weaker and more reliant on medication.

Well our body "remembers" those things because you introduced a trace of the illness to your body. Homeopathy thinks the same is true for the cures, which it's not.

Also people have different immune systems, and you can't say that taking medicine makes you more ill. Because you failed to also bring up the group of people who are often sick, but rarely take medicine (which also exist).
In fact it's next to impossible to just compare "your friends" as a group, but I get the feeling that you agree with this from how you write your post.

 

[iseko]

Personally I don't believe in it but I also don't believe in most forms of medication.

Your body develops things that can fight disease and infection called anti-bodies or something (I dunno and don't care if I'm wrong...I'm not a doctor). I am rarely sick and whenever I am sick I mostly avoid medication (unless it is completely necessary, like its too painful without it).

I have friends who take medication at the slightest cough or headache and they are constantly sick. I have a friend who practices homeopathy and she is rarely sick. I don't do either and I am rarely sick. So I would rank them like this...

1. Let your body do its own thing (it'll make you better)
2. Homeopathy
3. Over-use of medication (not overdose, just like taking a Panadol cos you have a slight headache)



People who take medication all the time get sick more often cos they aren't letting their body do its job. Thus makes them weaker and more reliant on medication.

You are actually right for the most part. The only medication I take is pain medication (paracetamol and ibuprofen). Sometimes when I have a terrible cold I combine it with vasocedine(it's pseudoephedrine). But those are all druggs that fight symptoms(headache and clogged up nose) and not the disease. Let your body do the fighting in 99% precent of the cases and you'll be better for it in the end. Unless you have diseases like HEP C, cholera, cancer, etc... Then I would advise taking some medication just to be sure .

In theory Homeopathy makes sense...vaccines to snake/spider bites, mad cow disease etc. all contain a trace amount of the venom/virus. Your body remembers what is 'bad' (cos it knows what made you sick) and destroys all future 'bad stuff' before it makes you sick again.

If it were that simple we'd inject people with just a little bit of aids and the world would be cured. Homeopathy is bollocks.

Funny thing is that a lot of people mistake it for fytotherapy (is that how you write it in English?). Basically that you use plants to cure people instead of synthesized chemicals. It generally has more side effects but at least it works.

 

[Pinkamena]

Placebo, placebo, placebo. I was once at a lecture with James Randi, and he ate an entire bottle of homeopathic sleeping pills. Nothing happened.

 

[babinro]

I guess I'm one of 4 people who said No.

I say this only because of my mother's personal experience. She suffered from migraines all her life. Despite seeing several different doctors and trying various different treatments, nothing helped her out.

After about 40 years of that she finally tried homeopathic medicine and it worked for her. Her migraines were entirely gone save a few normal headaches on occasion.

I find it hard to believe this could have finally been the one placebo effect that actually worked. As such, I choose to believe that homeopathic medicine genuinely worked for my mother.

Was there any evidence to show that HP helped it? How long did she do HP?

It's just shows a lack of critical thinking to say something is a solution just because it coincided with the cure.

If someone left an episode of star trek on beside a coma patient who had been asleep for 30 years and they woke up would we conclude star trek can wake up coma patients?

No evidence at all, I don't know how I could possibly answer this.

I mean, I couldn't prove that a surgery on my broken leg helped me walk again. It could have just been coincidental timing as the break healed flawlessly on it's own.

I believe she went to the HP doctor about once a week for at least a year. I honestly don't remember much of the details. She tried similar things with traditional doctors though without any success.

 

[babinro]

I guess I'm one of 4 people who said No.

I say this only because of my mother's personal experience. She suffered from migraines all her life. Despite seeing several different doctors and trying various different treatments, nothing helped her out.

After about 40 years of that she finally tried homeopathic medicine and it worked for her. Her migraines were entirely gone save a few normal headaches on occasion.

I find it hard to believe this could have finally been the one placebo effect that actually worked. As such, I choose to believe that homeopathic medicine genuinely worked for my mother.

If your mother took a properly prepared homeopathic remedy (going by their standards) then what she took was water (or, if it was in pill form, sugar). None of the active ingredients (that is, the stuff the homeopath says will cure the ailment) should have remained after all the dilutions.

So either water really does have a memory, diluting things really does make them stronger, and all chemists are wrong about one of the most basic aspects of their field (and 'chemists' in this case includes cooks, since the concept of dilution making things stronger would seriously fuck up a lot of recipes), or homeopathy had nothing to do with your mom's recovery and was just a coincidence.

You could be %100 right. I have no way to disprove anything. It just feels wrong that she never truly wanted to get rid of weekly migraines for all her life up to that point despite having tried for decades to do so.

I will choose to believe what the HP did worked beyond mind games and coincidence. Unless I could get proof from the HP herself that she did nothing beyond a placebo remedy.

 

[Psychemaster]

The most rational explanation of homeopathy I could find

 

[TheIronRuler]

I love this topic, it is so funny!

I agree! It's very fun to see people post their favorite rants.

 

[BrassButtons]

I have no way to disprove anything

You can disprove one basic concept of homeopathy (diluting things makes them more potent) right now in your own kitchen. Take a drink of anything, properly prepared to your liking. Dilute the fuck out of it. Is the resulting drink stronger or weaker? Chemistry says it should be weaker, because the drink molecules are more spread out among the water, so every sip you take is going to contain more water than drink. And if you dilute things the homeopathic way (where you take a portion of the first solution and put it in a new container of water) then you'll have fewer drink molecules altogether. Again, chemistry says fewer molecules = weaker. Homeopathy says the opposite, claiming that water has a memory. Which seems more plausible to you?

It just feels wrong that she never truly wanted to get rid of weekly migraines for all her life up to that point despite having tried for decades to do so.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Just to be clear, I'm not claiming that she was cured by the placebo affect. I'd actually bet that something else had changed (diet, stress levels, medications for other issues, etc) and that the homeopathy simply coincided with whatever actually cured the headaches.

I will choose to believe what the HP did worked beyond mind games and coincidence. Unless I could get proof from the HP herself that she did nothing beyond a placebo remedy.

You prefer to believe that diluting things makes them stronger (something which you can disprove, right now, in your home kitchen) over believing that something else caused your mom to get better and simply happened at the same time she took this particular treatment (which isn't that big of a stretch, if she'd been trying lots of different things to get better--one of them was bound to coincide with her recovery even if none of them caused it)?

 

[J-meMalone]

It is utter bollocks.

Any claim that it works can, at best, be attributed to a placebo effect.

This, straight and true.

The concept that consuming very, very, very dilute solutions of anything could in any way help fight disease is completely preposterous.

Indeed. Homeopaths should actually object to cleaning anything, since removing most of the dirt makes things actually more dirty, according to their own reasoning.

Also, water treatment plants. If anything in low concentration is more potent than in high concentrations, I would not want to drink tap water. Any water, actually.

My god the argument falls apart the more you think about it... All drinks should essentially be water because the more we drink them, the stronger and better the taste will be!

 

[ablac]

-snip-

-snip-

I didn't even mention a cure/curing, I said if something does what you were told it was suppose to do does that mean it worked? When I typed self hypnosis/an illusion I meant I know it doesn't do shit physically, it's all in the person's head. So taking out the object does the power of suggestion work? Of course it's not going to cure cancer, but what about little headaches brune mentioned and silly things like that.

When was I talking to you? Anyway what In said was that Iwouldnt mind if people were ignorant enough to believe in this crap and took it if it didnt make the liars who peddle it a bloody fortune. It also stops people seeking proper treatment for things, anyone responsible for stopping someone recieve medical care they need can burn in hell as they are some of the worst human beings on the planet. If the selelrs believe it works then they are still lying because they are making their claims of off no scientific basis. Homeopathy doesnt work, it merely serves to act as a placebo to fix problems which either solve themselves over time fairly easily, making the placebo help people who dont understand the immune system stop panicking over a sniffle, or it cures problems which existed purely in the mind. I saw your post and I cant explain it but any placebo would have had the ssame effect and the migraines might have been caused by an underlying psychological problem. Either that or it is helping her ignore the real issue. You should not have paid for it, nobody deserves to profit from lies.

 

[TheIronRuler]

yes. the few times it worked it was because the herbs used were already known to work or they had a positive effect because of the power placebos can have.

the rest is rather silly.

.
Oh no, did you read the OP? I mirrored that exact video there.

 

[Blobpie]

What good they do is basically a placebo, so it works just about as well.

 

[George_Harvey_Bone]

It's beyond bollocks - it's dangerous, because the poor fools who've been duped by it sometimes rely on it instead of going to see an actual medical practitioner. The fact that my tax money gets spent on this shit makes me feel violently angry.

Anyone who suggests that there is ANY benefit to it beyond placebo needs arguing down, because they're putting people's lives at risk.

 

[Richardplex]

Futurama also has something to say about it.

 

[babinro]

I have no way to disprove anything

You can disprove one basic concept of homeopathy (diluting things makes them more potent) right now in your own kitchen. Take a drink of anything, properly prepared to your liking. Dilute the fuck out of it. Is the resulting drink stronger or weaker? Chemistry says it should be weaker, because the drink molecules are more spread out among the water, so every sip you take is going to contain more water than drink. And if you dilute things the homeopathic way (where you take a portion of the first solution and put it in a new container of water) then you'll have fewer drink molecules altogether. Again, chemistry says fewer molecules = weaker. Homeopathy says the opposite, claiming that water has a memory. Which seems more plausible to you?

It just feels wrong that she never truly wanted to get rid of weekly migraines for all her life up to that point despite having tried for decades to do so.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Just to be clear, I'm not claiming that she was cured by the placebo affect. I'd actually bet that something else had changed (diet, stress levels, medications for other issues, etc) and that the homeopathy simply coincided with whatever actually cured the headaches.

I will choose to believe what the HP did worked beyond mind games and coincidence. Unless I could get proof from the HP herself that she did nothing beyond a placebo remedy.

You prefer to believe that diluting things makes them stronger (something which you can disprove, right now, in your home kitchen) over believing that something else caused your mom to get better and simply happened at the same time she took this particular treatment (which isn't that big of a stretch, if she'd been trying lots of different things to get better--one of them was bound to coincide with her recovery even if none of them caused it)?

I completely agree with the idea that diluting something makes it less potent. This is common sense.

What I don't understand is what that has to do with the treatment that worked for my mother. Are you saying that 100% of homeopathy treatments involve diluted medicine?

If so, then perhaps the treatments given to my mother for her migraines were always to strong to work. As such, a diluted version of that medicine was all she needed. Either way, the end result was success.

 

[lacktheknack]

I don't understand the logic of how it came about. The medicine gets more effective the less you give to the patient? Ah... Right.