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Homeopathy? You May As Well Have a Glass of Water, Says Expert

Posted on: Monday, 19 December 2005, 18:00 CST

By TOM KELLY

HOMEOPATHY is a waste of time and no better than a glass of water, Britain's first professor of complementary medicine declared yesterday.

Edzard Ernst, from Exeter University, said research showed there were no medical benefits to using such treatments.

He said: 'Homeopathic remedies don't work.' Homeopathy is supported by Prince Charles and used by millions of Britons to treat a range of common ailments.

But Professor Ernst said: 'Study after study has shown it is simply the purest form of placebo.

'You may as well take a glass of water than a homeopathic medicine.' Asthma, migraines, skin disease, irritable bowel syndrome and depression are conditions supposed to be improved by homeopathy.

There are about 3,000 registered homeopaths in the UK.

Around four in ten English GPs will refer patients to a homeopath.

Homeopaths do not treat physical, emotional, mental or even spiritual illnesses separately; they regard them as being connected. And no matterhow many symptoms are experienced, only one remedy is taken that is aimed at all those symptoms.

Based on the theory that 'like cures like', homeopathy has always been controversial.

It supposedly treats illness by giving patients substances that cause the very same symptoms. But the remedies are given in tiny amounts.

They are often so diluted there is little or no active ingredient in them.

Professor Ernst, who took the first chair in complementary medicine at Exeter's Peninsula Medical School in 1993, said this meant there was no scientific basis to the treatments 'The incredibly dilute solutions used by homeopaths make no sense,' he told The Observer newspaper.

'If it were true, we would have to tear up all our physics and chemistry textbooks.' Professor Ernst pointed to his study of arnica as evidence of the failure of the so-called remedies. Arnica is a standard homeopathic treatment for bruising.

The professor gave one group of patients arnica after surgery.

Another group of patients were given a placebo. Neither group knew which treatment they were getting.

Professor Ernst discovered it made no difference if the patients received arnica or the placebo they all recovered at the same rate.

In another study, Swiss scientists compared the results of more than 100 trials of homeopathic medicines with the same number of trials of conventional medicines.

The statistics covered a range of conditions, from respiratory infections to surgery.

The scientists found homepathicopathy had no more than a placebo effect.

Professor Ernst said that in some cases patients who were prescribed homeopathic treatments might report improvements.

But he said this was probably because of the psychological lift given by the sometimes 90-minute interviews carried out by sympathetic practitioners during diagnoses.

Professor Ernst warned that the Health Service which currently funds five homeohospitals could not afford to pay for such excessive attention.

In October, the Smallwood report, commissioned by Prince Charles, called for more complementary medicines particularly homeopathy to be given on the NHS.

Homeopathy was developed 250 years ago by German doctor Samuel Hahnemann. It has been used in the UK for two centuries.

The British-based Society of Homeopaths said that 30million patients across Europe use the treatments.

Professor Ernst also cast doubt on chiropractic, which treats illnesses through spine manipulation. And he said the laying on of hands to 'cure' patients was equally invalid.

But he remains a supporter of using other complementary medicines in certain cases.

These include herbal remedies, acupuncture and hypnotherapy.

Professor Ernst said, however, that they must be taken alongside conventional medicines.

Complementary medicine combines conventional medicine and the various forms of alternative medicine, such as osteopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, homeopathy and herbal remedies.

t.kelly@dailymail.co.uk

Source: Daily Mail; London (UK)

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