Homeopathy

[Tony]

When I was 11 years old I peed in Beaver Lake, to my great shame. Since we get our water from it, you can all thank me for your urine homeopathic remedy and whatever it has cured. Heh.

Crazy man.

Tred

[Savonarola]

When I was 11 years old I peed in Beaver Lake, to my great shame. Since we get our water from it, you can all thank me for your urine homeopathic remedy and whatever it has cured.

What an excellent way to relieve us of the inconvenience of urination!

[coralie.koonce]

Well, this is strange. I thought Tony had a recent, longer post on here complaining about postmodernism, and I put a post after it complaining about this whole discussion. Both are now gone.

I did a little research at the Food Co-op, Avalon, and Walgreen's. It seems that the three top companies selling homeopathic products at least in this area are Boiron, Hyland's and NatraBio. I looked at Boiron's Children's Chestal Cough Syrup; Hyland's Calms, Calms Forte, and a third formula, all for nervous tension, insomnia, or sleeplessness; Natra Bio Adrenal Support; Boiron for cold sores and fever blisters, and both Hyland and NatraBio remedies for poison ivy/oak.
Except for the first children's cough syrup which had 9 ingredients of which 6 are 3C and 3 are 6C, all the other formulas were at X dilutions ranging from 1 to 30X but most around 3X to 6X. The highest dilutions were for the adrenal support (adrenal exhaustion from stress and fatigue). Some ingredients were herbal, some mineral, and some unidentifiable by me at least.
So it looks like the best-selling homeopathic companies are not abiding by classic doctrine.

Now, Walgreen's. I was surprised to see a homeopathic (external) remedy on the shelves with their other muscle pain relief--Arnica Gel. It seems to me that I have read somewhere that this remedy is counted as one of the homeopathic success stories.
But what I really wondered about in Walgreen's was the rest of the OTC remedies that are made by pharmaceutical companies or in the case of Prilosec, a heartburn remedy, by Proctor and Gamble. Zantac is made by Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Excedrin by Novartis, Benadryl by Pfizer, etc. They must all sell a lot because they have TV ads and those are extremely expensive. However, I don't know how much they are regulated by the FDA or whether they are required to demonstrate their efficacy by double-blind tests.
So how does a good, right-thinking skeptic regard OTC remedies in general?

[coralie.koonce]

Sorry, the posts I missed were over at Pseudoscience and Pseudoskeptics.

[Dardedar]

So it looks like the best-selling homeopathic companies are not abiding by classic doctrine.

DAR
This is the new trend. It's called complex homeopathy. Skeptic dictionary has a blurb on it here.

So how does a good, right-thinking skeptic regard OTC remedies in general?

DAR
I am much less suspect of products that actually contain ingredients than I am of ones that do not.

D.
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"There have been several reviews of various studies of the effectiveness of homeopathic treatments and not one of these reviews concludes that there is good evidence for any homeopathic remedy (HR) being effective. Homeopaths have had over 200 years to demonstrate their wares and have failed to do so. Sure, there are single studies that have found statistically significant differences between groups treated with an HR and control groups, but none of these have been replicated or they have been marred by methodological faults. Two hundred years and we're still waiting for proof! Having an open mind is one thing; waiting forever for evidence is more akin to wishful thinking." Link

[Doug]

So how does a good, right-thinking skeptic regard OTC remedies in general?

DOUG
According to homeopathy "theory," if you were to empty the container of an OTC drug and fill the bottle with tap water, it would be even more effective.

And someone wants us to take homeopathy seriously?

[Dardedar]

DOUG
According to homeopathy "theory," if you were to empty the container of an OTC drug and fill the bottle with tap water, it would be even more effective.

DAR
And if you want to make it even more effective, do it again. And then do it again. More dilution = more effective according to homeopathy.

Since the claims of homeopathy seem so hard to swallow (even "silly" as Coralie has said) we are getting this new variation which has far lower dilutions and more diverse ingredients. Good. This is at least less silly. But if the ingredients chosen are still based upon the baseless "like cures like" and "the Law[sic] of Similars", then "good, right-thinking skeptics" are probably not going to be persuaded. Not this one anyway. Seems like a waste of time.

I am sure there are many natural, herbal, alternative cures for many diseases/infections. I have had relatives with this problem and have known of this remedy for many years.

***
Cranberry Juice Helps Prevent Bladder Infections

In March of 1994 (Journal of the American Medical Association), researchers at Harvard Medical School were able to show that women who drank 10 ounces of cranberry juice each day were 58 percent less likely to have bladder infections (urinary tract infections).

Many people thought that they had fewer bladder infections because the cranberry juice made the urine in the bladder more acidic. The acid in the bladder would kill the bacteria arriving in the bladder. Recent research has shown that this hypothesis was wrong!!

Amy B. Howell and others from Rutgers University conducted experiments to understand how cranberry juice lowers the numbers of bladder infections. The study was published as a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine (Oct. 8, 1998). They found that cranberry juice's ability to prevent bladder infections had nothing to do with increasing the acid levels in the bladder. Instead they demonstrated that a compound present in the juice called tannin was able to prevent the bacteria (most commonly Escherichia coli or E. coli) from attaching to human cells that line the inside surface of the urinary tract (urinary tract= bladder, urethra (tube from the bladder to the outside), ureters (tube from the bladder to the kidneys). If the tannins were present, the bacteria could not bind to those human cells and as a result the bacteria could be washed out of the bladder during the next urination.

The researchers also found out that these tannins are only present in cranberry juice and in blueberries. Tannins were NOT present in many other foods including lemons, oranges, apples, bananas, and carrots. So if you are bothered by this infection, a glass of cranberry juice a day may well keep the bladder infection away. Please remember, cranberry juice should not be used with some medications. Check with your physician first.

Link
***

DAR
So we have good evidence that it works, and good theory explaining how it works. So it is an alternative natural remedy that is welcomed in the evidence based family (with exceptions, for bad cases or if you don't catch it early enough cranberries won't work and antibiotics will then save you). So this remedy has two important ingredients homeopathy wants to have but does not have. Evidence it does work and theory explaining how it works.

Any alternative remedy which can provide these two things, especially the first one, is welcomed into the family of evidenced based medicine. If it isn't, it should be.

D.