One Million Rupees Offer to prove "Homeopathy is Paranormal"

[Donks]

Whether human body as a whole is a system or not?

Yes, it is. It is not a "closed" system, but it is a system. The energy it gets (mostly from food and heat) equals the energy it outputs (mostly waste and heat) plus any energy changes in the body (growth, weight gain, etc).

 

[Kumar]

Yes, it is. It is not a "closed" system, but it is a system. The energy it gets (mostly from food and heat) equals the energy it outputs (mostly waste and heat) plus any energy changes in the body (growth, weight gain, etc).

Thanks, now

Whether any healing system scientific or complementary is system or not? Whether Law of conservation of energy applies to those or not?

 

[Donks]

Thanks, now

Whether any healing system scientific or complementary is system or not? Whether Law of conservation of energy applies to those or not?

Yes. For instance the potentizatio process. When doing trituration and succusion, you input some energy into the system. The temporary result is that it heats up a little bit. But then it tends to equalize its temperature with its environment, and cools down again. End result? You shook the water a little bit.

 

[EHocking]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Good Intention

How can you be so absolute that it had happened exactly as you assume? It could had happened due to remedies also.

The point is, Kumar, that other medical treatments were being used throughout the trial - NO conclusions can be made on which "remedy" was responsible for any differences between the test groups.

To claim that the results seen was purely due to homoepathetic "remedies" is at best inaccurate and at worst, dishonest.

 

[Kumar]

Yes. For instance the potentizatio process. When doing trituration and succusion, you input some energy into the system. The temporary result is that it heats up a little bit. But then it tends to equalize its temperature with its environment, and cools down again. End result? You shook the water a little bit.

Can we measure exactly & scientifically, potencial existing energy in bottle before shaking, inputs on potentisation/skaking, output as heat & nett balance? Will there be any diffeence in nett balance?

 

[Donks]

Can we measure exactly & scientifically, potencial existing energy in bottle before shaking, inputs on potentisation/skaking, output as heat & nett balance? Will there be any diffeence in nett balance?

Depends what you mean by "exactly". Any measurement will have a degree of accuracy dependant on the instrumentation you use. But in general, you should be able to measure, and calculate based on existing formulas, what happens during potentization resonably ok.

There should not be any difference in net balance. Any difference will indicate a violation of conservation of energy or mass.

 

[Kumar]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Good Intention

The point is, Kumar, that other medical treatments were being used throughout the trial - NO conclusions can be made on which "remedy" was responsible for any differences between the test groups.

To claim that the results seen was purely due to homoepathetic "remedies" is at best inaccurate and at worst, dishonest.

How results were then differenciated between control & treatment groups--if under other medical treatment? Still you can say doubtfull, not worst or dishonest? If this is your system to decide, how can you say many effects of medical substances are not by 'self immune responses' or by "self healing" unless test reports confirm 100% positive results? Visible/measurable effects can be side/adverse/toxoc effects which can only be possible in concentrated/unnatural healing substance as body is not adapted/habitual to these, wheras adapted/habitual to diluted/natural substances?

Is it not bit one-sided or pro interpretation?

Anyway, just tell me:-

1. Whether this forum & modern medical system wants with pure heart/brain, that science of homeopathy & other 'can be bneneficial to the mass humanity type of systems'(may not be to some) so should be pursued & known with their best efforts or not?

2. If science of homeopathy or any other much beneficial system could be known-- will it be in the interest & benefit of modern medical system, science, humanity AND not in the interest & benefit of few with commercial vested interests, homeopathic or other communities OR not? Pls tell with pure heart/brain.

 

[Kumar]

Depends what you mean by "exactly". Any measurement will have a degree of accuracy dependant on the instrumentation you use. But in general, you should be able to measure, and calculate based on existing formulas, what happens during potentization resonably ok.

There should not be any difference in net balance. Any difference will indicate a violation of conservation of energy or mass.

Let us consider potentisation of 1C dilution. One glass 1000 ml bottle, say 5 gm NaCl + 495 ml water is shaked/succused in it. It may change some molecular distribution/disassociation & some molecules may adhere to glass. Now pls tell will there be any addtion or change in potencial energy & molecular pattern of solution after shaking or not?

 

[Donks]

Let us consider potentisation of 1C dilution. One glass 1000 ml bottle, say 5 gm NaCl + 495 ml water is shaked/succused in it. It may change some molecular distribution/disassociation & some molecules may adhere to glass. Now pls tell will there be any addtion or change in potencial energy & molecular pattern of solution after shaking or not?

I'll let a chemist answer exactly what happens in a NaCl + H2O solution (that's of course, if there are actually any left willing to put up with you).

 

[DrDave]

Let us consider potentisation of 1C dilution. One glass 1000 ml bottle, say 5 gm NaCl + 495 ml water is shaked/succused in it. It may change some molecular distribution/disassociation & some molecules may adhere to glass. Now pls tell will there be any addtion or change in potencial energy & molecular pattern of solution after shaking or not?

As a quick calculation on the example you give here - 5g NaCl is roughly 0.1 mol (5/58.5 = 0.085). 495 g H2O is roughly 27.5 mol (495/18). Therefore, in your solution you have 0.2 mol of ions (each 1 mol NaCl dissolves to form 1 mol Na+ and 1 mol Cl-), and therefore you have roughly 100 times as many water molecules as ions (27.5/0.2 = 137.5). What this says to me, as someone else said before, any time that an ion/salt molecule/whatever, interacts with the surface it's going to get instantly belted off by about 100 water molecules - any interaction with the surface will be by the solvent just through the sheer numbers of solvent molecules compared to solute.

Shaking should not change the above argument, and as my understanding of such a solution is a constantly moving random distribution of the solute ions, surrounded by solvent molecules - shaking it will make no difference to the structure, as there is no structure to speak of, you'll go from one random 'arrangement' to another, if you can call it that seeing as it is constantly rearranging due to molecular motion anyway.

Hope I've got this right But I've included my working so you can check it for me

 

[Kumar]

DrDave,

Many thanks. Now I have two questions:-

1. Whether this is a close system or open system?

2. Whether rearrangement of molecules of solute & solvent due to dilution & shaking in solution, will create some changes in potencial energy of solution--leading to nett change of energy OR not?

 

[juninho]

I'll let a chemist answer exactly what happens in a NaCl + H2O solution (that's of course, if there are actually any left willing to put up with you).

Well, I've got an honours degree in Chemistry and you're right, I can't be arsed to feed the troll.

 

[Jocce]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Good Intention

How results were then differenciated between control & treatment groups--if under other medical treatment?

Exactly...test is flawed and the results are not valid. What everyone has kept telling you.

If this is your system to decide, how can you say many effects of medical substances are not by 'self immune responses' or by "self healing" unless test reports confirm 100% positive results?

We can say that when the PC in DBPC is properly utilized in the trial. You should really know that by now...

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Law of conservation of energy: in any given system the amount of energy is constant; energy is neither created nor destroyed, but only transformed from one form to another.

As per this basic science law, amount of energy in any modern or other older system as homeopathy is constant neither could be created nor destroyed. Why then to try & tell only empity portion of half filled glass?

Pls maintain nature banlance/homeostatis because if you will dig for making mountains for yourself, your can leave a pit for your small children".

By this law, just understand nature's style for balancing itself or maintain hormony among its beings:-

I think that quote should be framed and put up on a wall somewhere as an example of how not to generate an hypothesis; how to extend an analogy inappropriately; how to mix (yet not potentise) metaphors; to put it simply, how to write nonsense. Wonderful stuff.

 

[EHocking]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Good Intention

Jocce has answered this more succinctly than I will below, but as you asked,
How results were then differenciated between control & treatment groups--if under other medical treatment[/quote]This, again, is the point, Kumar. The results did not account for or address the use of allergy medicines during the trial. Therefore the results are invalid. The experimentors set out to test homeopathetic remedies against placebos only. By introducing a third, uncontrolled, variable into the trial, the results, and therefore the conclusions are invalidated.

Still you can say doubtfull, not worst or dishonest?

I did not say doubtful, I said, "inaccurate". That is, the experimentors, by not accounting for a third variable (proven medical treatments), did not measure what they set out to measure, and that is difference between the effectiveness of a homeopathetic remedy vs a placebo.

If this is your system to decide, how can you say many effects of medical substances are not by 'self immune responses' or by "self healing" unless test reports confirm 100% positive results?

Obfuscation, Kumar, but to humour you, accurate, double-blinded, placebo controlled tests of medicine have been performed that unequivocably "prove" their efficacy. Indeed, such tests are required before such medicine can be sold to the general public.

Visible/measurable effects can be side/adverse/toxoc effects which can only be possible in concentrated/unnatural healing substance as body is not adapted/habitual to these, wheras adapted/habitual to diluted/natural substances?

Is it not bit one-sided or pro interpretation?

I don't know, as I have no idea what the statement above is asking. But, if I read it right, yes, the body reacts to natural and/or syntetic substances depending on the concentration of that substance.

Anyway, just tell me:-

1. Whether this forum & modern medical system wants with pure heart/brain, that science of homeopathy & other 'can be bneneficial to the mass humanity type of systems'(may not be to some) so should be pursued & known with their best efforts or not?

2. If science of homeopathy or any other much beneficial system could be known-- will it be in the interest & benefit of modern medical system, science, humanity AND not in the interest & benefit of few with commercial vested interests, homeopathic or other communities OR not? Pls tell with pure heart/brain.

I cannot speak for this forum, but if the Hyppocratic oath is anything to go by, "modern" medicine is and does pursue treatments that are beneficial for mankind. Practices that avoid thorough testing of their treatments do no benefit mankind, only the bank balance of snake oil salesmen.

There are unethical people operating in both spheres of "medical" treatment.

The problem is that non-sCAM medicine is the only discipline that's controlled by scientific legislation and registration. By not participating in regulation, sCAM medicine smacks of charlatans.

 

[Kumar]

EHocking,

Thanks. Btw, can you brief me, Why third, uncontrolled, variable into the trial was not considered before doing the experiment? Anyway it can be considered as improper experiment, but still it can't be taken as negative.

I read previous trials:-

Reilly DT, Taylor MA, McSharry C, Aitchison T.

The hypothesis that homoeopathic potencies are placebos was tested in a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. The study model chosen compared the effects of a homoeopathic preparation of mixed grass pollens with placebo in 144 patients with active hayfever. The homoeopathically treated patients showed a significant reduction in patient and doctor assessed symptom scores. The significance of this response was increased when results were corrected for pollen count and the response was associated with a halving of the need for antihistamines. An initial aggravation of symptoms was noted more often in patients receiving the potency and was followed by an improvement in that group. No evidence emerged to support the idea that placebo action fully explains the clinical responses to homoeopathic drugs.

Is evidence for homoeopathy reproducible?

Reilly D, Taylor MA, Beattie NG, Campbell JH, McSharry C, Aitchison TC, Carter R, Stevenson RD.

University Department of Medicine, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, UK.

We tested, under independent conditions, the reproducibility of evidence from two previous trials that homoeopathy differs from placebo. The test model was again homoeopathic immunotherapy. 28 patients with allergic asthma, most of them sensitive to house-dust mite, were randomly allocated to receive either oral homoeopathic immunotherapy to their principal allergen or identical placebo. The test treatments were given as a complement to their unaltered conventional care. A daily visual analogue scale of overall symptom intensity was the outcome measure. A difference in visual analogue score in favour of homoeopathic immunotherapy appeared within one week of starting treatment and persisted for up to 8 weeks (p = 0.003). There were similar trends in respiratory function and bronchial reactivity tests. A meta-analysis of all three trials strengthened the evidence that homoeopathy does more than placebo (p = 0.0004). Is the reproducibility of evidence in favour of homoeopathy proof of its activity or proof of the clinical trial's capacity to produce false-positive results?

Whether all four trials were conclusive as you said? Does it look justified that in all trials there was a diference between homeopathic & placebo, somewhat similarily? Sorry but it looks bit fishy to me.

 

[Kumar]

]Overview
Figure 3 compares the underlying patterns from the four trials based on daily visual analogue scale data from all 253 randomised patients and the main objective measures. The subjective changes measured by the visual analogue scale show a therapeutic response from homoeopathy across the four trials. There was a lesser and more variable response in the placebo groups, which probably accounts for the evidence of some statistical heterogeneity (χ2=9.04, df=3, P=0.03). The pooled estimate of the treatment effect (middle column, fig 3) showed an average improvement in visual analogue scores in the homoeopathy group compared with the placebo group (improvement 11.1 mm, 95% confidence interval 3.3 to 18.8; P<0.01). Thus, overall, the trend of the individual trial results and pooled data point towards homoeopathy differing from placebo. The trends in the objective measures all follow the same direction as the subjective measures (fig 3), again indicating a difference between a homoeopathic dilution and placebo.

Figure 4 shows the average response to homoeopathic immunotherapy over time in the four trials. A distinct separation emerges between the action of homoeopathy and placebo. On average, over the last two weeks after randomisation, patients who received homoeopathy had a 28% improvement compared with 3% among those in the placebo group. There was a mean reduction of the visual analogue scale score of 10.9 mm in the homoeopathy group compared with 1.1 mm in the placebo group (95% confidence interval for difference 4.2 to 15.4, P=0.0007; two sided, two sample t test).

We found that homoeopathy and placebo had different effects. Compared with placebo, homoeopathy provoked a clear, significant, and clinically relevant improvement in nasal inspiratory peak flow, similar to that found with topical steroids.15 However, the subjective improvement was less clear. Although the objective measure consistently improved in all five centres, the subjective results were better than placebo in only four of the five centres and overall there was no difference between the groups. If the objective results are valid the discrepancy in the subjective measurements may be partly due to under recruitment compounded by aggravations and possible initial placebo responses during the run-in period in both groups, perhaps reflecting the positive expectations of the participants.23 Patients with rhinitis are keen to enter studies in their quest for better symptom control.24 Subjective improvement began before the end of the placebo run-in phase in both groups, and this lessened the chance of distinguishing between the groups.25 26 A larger sample size may have shown a subjective difference between the groups.

More initial aggravations occurred in patients who received homoeopathy, and this may have further complicated the subjective results. The pattern of temporary worsening followed by improvement, seen in this trial and observed in clinical homoeopathy for over 200 years,27 28 is not typical of placebo.

Validity of results
Like any other therapy, homoeopathy requires rigorous scientific testing, and one study is insufficient evidence. Some perspective may be gleaned by viewing the results of this trial in the context of the series of which it is part. Except for the subjective measure in this fourth trial, the subjective and objective results show a trend across these four trials clearly pointing to homoeopathy being different from placebo. If the results were due to chance then some trends in favour of placebo would be expected. So does homoeopathy work or are our results due to some other factor?

Recent attempts to resolve the controversy surrounding homoeopathy have centred on the 180 or so controlled trials to date. A criteria based review in 1991 found that the evidence was positive but not conclusive.29 In a 1997 update, other workers concluded that 73% of the existing trial data supported homoeopathy being more effective than placebo, with the pooled odds ratio from a criteria based meta-analysis of 89 trials suggesting homoeopathy showed around twice the overall mean effect of placebo. The difference was significant and proved robust in sensitivity analyses that included correction for publication bias.30 A third working group, independently set up by the European Commission, selected 17 comparisons in 2001 patients for a meta-analysis. The pooled P value was highly significant, and the group commented that “it is likely that among the tested homeopathic approaches some had an added effect over nothing or placebo.”31 Are these findings “meta-errors” or, however implausible, does something tangible lie at the core of homoeopathy?

To interpret these findings as arguing for homoeopathy having an effect may now be more plausible than our previous hypothesis of serial false positive results.3 32 For now, we conclude that this study has failed to confirm our original hypothesis that homoeopathy is a placebo.http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=10948025

Did you made all this wrong?

 

[Kumar]

.......
Summary

Homoeopathy has been constantly ridiculed and described as non-scientific. Despite opposition it has existed for the last 200 years and is growing in popularity. It was initially developed by a doctor whose scientific methodology was rigorous. Despite the difficulties concerning the concept of serially vibrating and diluting substances to produce remedies, the positive double-blind trial results illustrate an activity in the preparations which is beyond that of placebo. Furthermore, the more rigorous the trial the more positive the data illustrates these substances to be potent or challenges the methodology with which we currently evaluate drugs. Outcome studies have further illustrated that these preparations can be useful in clinical practice and could potentially reduce on-going drug costs. With so much evidence in favour of Homoeopathy I believe it is not scientific of professionals to remain cynical of the subject. It is not the, "Modern Age Panacea", and if the profession could accept it's principles much work could be done to illustrate it's strengths and weaknesses instead of efficacy against placebo. In this way we could work forward to integrate homoeopathy into daily practice and have another therapeutic arm instead of a threatening alternative system of medicine.

http://www.earthsremedy.com/clinicalevidence.htm

Doesn't this link tells as I think, funding, attentions, medical bias, complementary system, cost etc. & PRACTICAL EFFECTS+ Your DBPC studies? Doesn't this link also tries crudes+potencies as I feel?

 

[Rolfe]

Furthermore, the more rigorous the trial the more positive the data

This is a lie. It is a lie that is often told by homoeopaths, but it is easy to find the truth.

The truth is that the better-designed the study, the more likely it is to produce a negative result. Discussed on this page.

As the quality score increases (better studies) the odds ratio (for homeopathy versus placebo) goes down, and goes down to about 1-2. The authors of the letter comment that:

"some (but by no means all) methodologically astute and highly convioncing homeopaths have published results that look convincing but are, in fact, not credible. Viewed in this way, the reanalysis.... can be seen as the ultimate epidemiological proof that homeopathic remedies are, in fact, placebos."

Of course this has been pointed out to Kumar many times before. But as usual he prefers to believe the lies which are told by people supporting his pre-conceived notions, and to ignore the evidence.

Rolfe.

 

[Kumar]

This is a lie. It is a lie that is often told by homoeopaths, but it is easy to find the truth...

It can be expected that an Anti-homeopathy illuminati will show us some empity portion of glass only. But, nothing convince me that nothing is there. Moreover, my personal observations satisfy me for the effect different from placebo. All such, as indicated in this system, mostly comes out similarily on practical experiances, but as not definable within modern testing technology, people can cook & pop up many 'TTTT'. Furthur, In view of public/common money & means mostly given to MSs, even say 10- 20% positive results can be thought as 50%++. If you don't give required food to one of your child & give that share also to other child, you shouldn't expect same development in both children. Anyway it can be a big mistake to treat two of your children differently.

Since something, which can be sufficient, if cared equally or suitably, is there in this & other systems, just add something to science & humanity. Just is an indication or an appeal.