Asthma is a serious and increasingly common disease. There are approximately 15 million people with asthma in the U.S., and in 1990 this disease cost the nation $6 billion, including $1.6 billion in hospital care, $1 billion in lost wages for parents who stayed home with sick children, $1 billion in medication, and $850 million in lost wages of adult sufferers.
Sir William Osler, considered the Father of Modern Medicine, was known to say, "Asthmatics don't die, they just 'pant into old age.'" However, new research on the homeopathic treatment of asthma that has been published in The Lancet (December 10, 1994) suggests that relief is in sight for asthma sufferers.
Research conducted by professors at the University of Glasgow, Europe's largest medical school, indicates that those patients given an exceedingly small homeopathic doses of whatever substance to which they are most allergic can provide significant relief within the first week of treatment. The authors called this unique method of individualizing medicines "homeopathic immunotherapy."
This double-blind, placebo-controlled trial showed that over 80% patients given a homeopathic remedy improved, while only 38% of patients given a placebo experienced a similar degree of relief. The patients were assessed by a homeopathic physician and a conventional physician. When the patients and doctors were asked if they felt the patient received the homeopathic medicine or the placebo, both the patients and the doctors tended to guess correctly.
The experiment was relatively small, with only 24 patients. In order for statistically significant results, such experiments must have a very large difference between those treated with a medicine and those given a placebo. Such was the case in this study.
The researchers utilized conventional allergy testing to determine what substances the asthmic patients were most allergic, and then gave a 30th potency of this substance to half of the subjects (neither the experimenters nor the subjects knew who was given the medicine and who was given a placebo). The 30th potency refers to the number of times the medicine was diluted 1:10 with distilled water, with vigorous shaking inbetween each dilution.
This dose is so small that homeopaths and modern scientists acknowledge that there should be no remaining molecules of the original allergen. Homeopaths theorize that the unique pharmacological process of serial dilution with vigorous shaking inbetween each dilution may create an even more potent medicine. New concepts in physics, especially relating to chaos theory and fractals, suggest that homeopathic medicine is best understood through these cutting edge concepts of science.
Long History of Success
The authors of this study had previously conducted two other experiments using homeopathic medicine in the treatment of another allergic condition, hayfever. One of these studies was also published in The Lancet (October 18, 1986).
Along with their recent asthma study, the authors performed a meta-analysis, reviewing all of the data from the three studies which totaled 202 subjects. The researchers found a similar pattern in the three studies. Improvement begins within the first week and continues through to the end of the trial four weeks later (research has not yet investigated longer time frames).
The results of this meta-analysis were so stunning that the authors concluded that either homeopathic medicines work or controlled clinical trials do not. Because modern science bases itself on controlled clinical trials, it is more likely that homeopathic medicines are effective.