New Scientific Findings in Homeopathy

 Our April 28, 2013 Facebook post (https://www.facebook.com/WilmingtonAnimalHospital?ref=hl#_=_)  showed me in a very brief video lecturing at the Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy (AVH) Annual Conference on updates in research in veterinary homeopathy. We had over 5500 views and numerous requests to learn more. As one who spends many hours each week reading (and enjoying this reading!) about the research findings, I am thrilled that the interest is so great!

My main concern about sharing the entire 20-page paper is that it is very technical, especially the basic science part which is the bulk of it. Many of my colleagues who practice homeopathy day in and day out commented about how they are glad that someone has gone to the trouble of understanding the research and taken the time to present it in a manner that they could somewhat comprehend. This stuff turns out to be based on physics, biology, pharmacology, physiology, nanoscience, neurology, immunology…and fields that combine a lot of these words like psychoneuroimmunology, nanopharmology and nanophysics.

So…I thought it would be kindest to present this material in two parts. The first is a very brief summary that follows immediately. The second is actually a summary written by my colleague Dr. Lisa Brienan. You can skip right to it, but it starts to get a bit technical so you may want to read the brief summary first. The original 20-page manuscript is the property of the AVH and is only available to veterinarians who are AVH members.

If you are interested in reading veterinary studies, you can visit my British colleague Mark Elliot’s website:

http://homeopathicvet.org/Veterinary_Research_into_Homeopathy/Welcome.html

Here it goes:

1. Homeopathic remedies are made by a process of dilution and succussion, or rigorous pounding/shaking. Widespread belief holds that homeopathy is no more than placebo effect because many remedies that are used are too diluted to have an effect. The assumption is based on the belief that there is no physical material that could provide a medicinal effect in high homeopathic dilutions.

2. However, there are many physicochemical studies on ultra-diluted and serially succussed solutions that have shown properties different from plain water.

3. With improvements in technology, researchers can now view nanoparticles (NP) of the starting bulk substance as well as glass-derived silicates in these solutions. High-speed videography has enabled visualization of these NPs as they are transferred from one container to the next in the dilution process.

4. Nanochemistry/physics has shown different physical properties of NPs compared to those of their starting bulk substance.

5. NPs, unlike larger pharmacologically-active substances, penetrate through the body’s usual barriers, like skin, the blood-brain barrier, the lining of the gut and airways.

6. Meanwhile, hormesis is a field of toxicology in which a low dose stressor- chemical, toxin, physical exposure like heat, etc.- stimulates the organism while a higher dose is toxic to it.

7. Homeopathic remedies may act via hormesis, specifically as post-exposure stressors.  In other words, homeopathic remedies may be hormetins. In other words, only small doses are actually needed to stimulate a healing response!

That’s the very brief version! Now for slightly more details, complements of Dr. Brienan:

Dr. Shelley Epstein shared the latest, cutting edge research related to homeopathy in Updates in Research in Veterinary Homeopathy.  This lecture was presented in two parts.  Part one detailed updates in basic science and part two outlined veterinary clinical trials.

We have moved well beyond whether homeopathy can be measured into being able to measure nanoparticle quality control issues among the starting homeopathic products; measure specific frequency differences between remedies and their potencies; measure variation in particle and aggregate size and shape; and measure elemental composition of the homeopathic particles.  Studies are finding out how nanoparticles remain dispersed in solution via the hypotheses that trituration generates nanofraction formation, lactose acts as stabilizer to prevent aggregation, dilution allows larger raw particles to settle out and nano-clusters to disperse freely in the medium.  Other research involves remedies as nanomedicines and how their dissolved silicate structures carry remedy information into the body.

She moved on to a discussion of hormesis and the stress response.  In hormesis, a phenomenon in the field of toxicology, there is an initial dose dependent toxicity response followed by a compensatory rebound response.  In this context homeopathy is a low dose stress (an initial action on the life force) which enhances repair and recovery (counteraction).  When a low dose stress is administered, the resulting compensatory biologic process also confers a protective effect against exposure to a subsequent more severe stress.

Dr. Epstein detailed the multiple pathways the body uses to respond to stressors and the resulting multi-factorial repair and return to function.  A balanced stress response network keeps the body functioning normally; however when there is an overwhelming accumulation of stressors, there is dysregulation in the stress response network and the body becomes stuck in chronic disease.

Back to the concept of homeopathy as nanoparticles; because of their properties of increased bioactivity and bioavailability, only a small quantity of remedy is needed to produce an effect.  This small quantity (low dose stressor) that causes a reparative response means that homeopathic remedies are hormetins. Also recall that the resulting compensatory response to a low dose stressor confers protection to future exposure of more severe stress…and may confer future protection to an unrelated stressor (cross-adaptation).

Further research by Bell and Koithan¹ has led to the model of Time Dependent Sensitization (TDS) – exposure to a hormetic agent (homeopathic remedy) initiates compensatory changes that amplify over time, do not require the continued presence of the initiating agent and are independent of specific pharmacological action on receptors.  In observing homeopathic treatment of fibromyalgia in people, repeated intermittent doses of individualized remedies amplified electroencephalographic alpha activity, reduced local pain and improved overall health.

In the discussion of veterinary clinical trials, Dr. Epstein outlined the challenges: how to demonstrate efficacy while following the principles of classical homeopathy (individualization of remedy prescription); prescriber skill; and the difficulty of the randomized clinical trial model (RCT) of one medicine for one diagnostic condition without consideration for comorbidities.  She outlined the ideal RCT for homeopathy including: “randomization and placebo or drug controlled; adequate number of test subjects to provide statistically meaningful results; individualization of prescription and ability to select from all available homeopathic remedies; adequate screening time to determine a similimum and medicine adjustment; adequate follow up to monitor decreased symptoms, remission and collateral health benefits.”  She finished with a series of clinical trials in different animal species in which remedy effects were clearly demonstrated and quantified.

¹Bell IR, Koithan M. A model for homeopathic remedy effects: low dose nanoparticles, allostatic cross-adaptation, and time-dependent sensitization in a complex adaptive system. BMC Complement Altern Med 2012;12(1):191 (Epub ahead of print]