Alternative medicine prescribed a bitter pill

The world may be beating a path to the doors of homeopathic practitioners as an alternative to conventional medicines, but a study has concluded they may just as well be taking nothing.

The study, published in yesterday’s edition of the medical journal The Lancet, is likely to anger the growing number of followers of alternative therapies that include homeopathy.

“There was weak evidence for a specific effect of homeopathic remedies, but strong evidence for specific effects of conventional interventions,” the study found.

“This finding is compatible with the notion that the clinical effects of homeopathy are placebo effects,” it added after examining findings from 110 homeopathy trials and an equal number of conventional medical trials.

In an editorial, The Lancet urged doctors to tell their patients they were wasting their time taking homeopathic medicines – but also to make more time to connect with the patients rather than just prescribing them medicine.
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“Now doctors need to be bold and honest with their patients about homeopathy’s lack of benefits, and with themselves about the failings of modern medicine to address patients’ needs for personalised care,” the journal said.

Entitled “The end of homeopathy”, the editorial queried how homeopathy was growing in popularity when for the past 150 years trials had found it ineffective.

But the British Homeopathic Association, which says it has 1000 doctors on its books, strongly disagreed.

“The report should be treated with extreme caution. It is being heavily spun,” said Peter Fisher, of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital.

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