Homeopathy
Homeopathy is a sophisticated medical science and natural system of healing whose methods and medicines are designed to reinforce and amplify the body’s inherent immune systems of defense and restoration. Because homeopaths view symptoms as inherent defenses, the medicines they use mimic these defenses and thus augment the self-healing response.
Homeopathic practitioners create and use medicines that are derived from natural substances that would normally cause symptoms similar to those being experienced by a patient. This is the application of the “law of similars” (“like-cures-like”) that is the basis for all homeopathic diagnosis, treatment and understanding of how the human body functions.
This is a view of human health and healing that is still poorly understood and often disparaged by mainstream medicine, which is organized to “fight” disease and infective agents. But the idea of treating or preventing an illness by using agents that cause the illness itself is familiar in Western medicine in immunizations and some allergy treatments. Homeopathy also differs from other health approaches that use natural materials, such as herbal medicine, because its medicinal agents are prepared from micro- or nano-doses of active substances.
Homeopathy is a certified profession, available from practitioners who hold degrees in licensed medical or naturopathic disciplines. Therefore its practice and treatments – as provided by independent practitioners — are not subject to the non-discrimination provisions of Section 2706. But homeopathy is used widely in the US, including by those who also use other integrative therapies. Homeopathy has been far more formally accepted in several European countries for decades.
Examples of Use | Education & Certification | References |
Insurance | Research |
Examples of Use:
Homeopathy is routinely used to treat a wide variety of health issues:
- Acute conditions like colds, ear infections, bruising, migraines, allergies and sore throats; and
- Chronic conditions like asthma, depression, chronic fatigue, autism, and arthritis.
Homeopathic treatments are provided primarily by physicians, osteopaths and naturopaths who are trained in the practice and whose state license permits them to use homeopathy as an adjunctive treatment (see Education below). Because homeopathic remedies have been approved in the US since the 1930’s and are regulated by the FDA, consumers have easy access to many homeopathic remedies in natural food and vitamin stores and through online sources.
Symptoms: Body Under Repair
Homeopaths hold a distinct view of the human body’s functioning and its properties of healing and recovery. Homeopathic practice is based on reinforcing the body’s innate systems of protection. This is accomplished by viewing the symptoms presented by patients as markers of those healing systems at work. The homeopath is concerned with strengthening this process, rather than suppressing or managing the symptoms, which can diminish the potency of natural defenses, inhibit recovery, and possibly cause problems elsewhere. (This may be why some drugs that help resolve the symptoms of a targeted illness might also produce side effects.)
Homeopaths reinforce these innate protective processes by applying preparations made from dilutions of natural substances that – were they ingested in large amounts – would produce the same symptoms that the patient is experiencing. This is a therapeutic technique based on a natural phenomenon that has been observed throughout history — using the source of an ailment to cure it — often referred to as “like cures like.”
When the German physician who founded homeopathy formalized a methodology around this phenomenon in the late 1700s it became The Principle of Similars, and it remains the basis for homeopathic medicine today.
(For good overviews of contemporary practice today, see the articles and links to resources listed in the References section at the end of this page.)
In homeopathic practice this reinforcement process entails several diagnostic and treatment steps:
- When a patient presents with a complaint, an extended conversation helps the practitioner fully understand the nature of the symptoms (fever, fatigue, swelling, pain, etc.), their possible sources, and the patient’s lifestyle
- This process of establishing a “Totality of Symptoms” creates a match with homeopathic medicines that have been shown to be effective for treating similar symptom profiles.
- The medicine is then administered to establish a “Minimum Dose:” the least amount required to resolve the ailment.
Some of the precepts of homeopathic medicine clearly run counter to those in which conventional medicine is practiced. In particular, the curative effects of minute, often indiscernible levels of an active ingredient defy simple explanation, when contrasted with conventional methods that assume only large-enough doses can produce maximum effects. But recent advances and understandings from physiology are confirming the significant effects of nanodoses of hormones and cell signal agents (see the Research Section below.
And as with other once-poorly understood and rejected therapies like acupuncture, massage, and herbal therapy, homeopathy originated at a time when therapeutic “evidence” consisted of observed outcomes and patient satisfaction that was sustained over many decades, if not centuries. As with those practices, the technologies that now illustrate their beneficial effects, now including nanotechnology, may do the same for homeopathic treatments, and provide a new way to view and understand what are now still elusive curative properties.
In the meantime, the practice continues to grow around the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that more than 500 million people make use of homeopathic medicine.
Education, Training and Certification
Advanced degrees in homeopathic medicine are not available in the US. Individuals who plan to practice in North America can gain certification through organizations such as the following (see links in the References section at the end of the article):
- Council for Homeopathic Certification
- American Board of Homeotherapeutics
- Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians
State licensing boards (for all medical practices or for specific disciplines), determine which specialties, including homeopathy, can be integrated into those licensed practices. Some states may also have regulations about incorporating specialists who are certified in “alternative” or “complementary” disciplines.
- Only three states — Arizona, Nevada, and Connecticut — license MDs, DOs {and NDs?) to include homeopathy as part of their medical practice
- Several US states license naturopathic physicians (NDs) to diagnose and treat illness using many methods of natural therapies including homeopathy.
- Minnesota, California, Rhode Island, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Idaho and New Mexico each permit unlicensed complementary and integrative practitioners (i.e.: certified homeopathic practitioners) the freedom to practice as long as they give full disclosure of their training and background. Each of these states has its own regulations and guidelines
Insurance Coverage
Health insurance may cover part or all of your visits with a homeopath, depending on your physician’s health-care license or certification qualifications and their participation with your insurance plan.
Because homeopaths are not licensed, their services as delivered by independent practitioners will not covered by insurers where the provisions of Section 2706 are properly implemented.
More to come
The Research
The Science:
Although in recent years many research projects have shown positive outcomes for homeopathic applications, and the results have been published in prominent medical journals, the practice still faces considerable skepticism from Western medical science. The British Medical Association even reportedly referred to the practice as witchcraft, an assertion that must have raised eyebrows in Buckingham Palace, where the Queen is attended by a physician who practices homeopathy.
Clinical research (focused on patient outcomes) published in peer-reviewed journals have shown positive results in the treatment of respiratory allergies, influenza, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, childhood diarrhea, post-abdominal-surgery recovery, attention deficit disorder, and reducing the side effects of conventional cancer treatments. Several hundred basic science studies have confirmed the biological activity of homeopathic medicines. The problem from a research credibility perspective has been connecting the two: biological activity leading to treatment effectiveness.
Small Dose? No Dose?
Despite this research record of effectiveness that reflects the growing acceptance of homeopathy by the public (the U.S. National Health Interview Survey of 2007 showed more than 1.5 million adults used homeopathy) — plus the integration of the practice in contemporary physician, osteopathic and naturopathic practices — its scientific credibility remains opaque and often heatedly dismissed because of the central tenet of its medical philosophy: That small doses of highly distilled natural substances can provide any curative action at all. When the highest levels of the dilution process leave no measurable evidence of the original agent, the skepticism rises accordingly.
But the advent of powerful new technologies like nanotechnology, which can describe the activity of formerly unseen chemical and biological processes, may help in our understanding of homeopathy’s effects at infinitesimal doses. Research done by a 2008 Nobel Laureate Luc Montagnier, who with colleagues discovered the AIDS virus in 1982, has made use of this technology to identify unexpected physical properties in molecules of fluids used in very high dilutions. The phenomenon: electromagnetic waves produced by DNA in water. Writing about these effects in 2009, Montagnier said:
“What we have found is that DNA produces structural changes in (the) water, which persist at very high dilutions, and which lead to electromagnetic signals that we can measure.”
The Research Base is Global
The study of the effects of nanoparticles is relatively new in science, as is its application in human biology and health. Montagnier’s studies (which had nothing to do with affirming homeopathy) build on the work of others and complement similar research in England, France and India. While scientific access to nanoparticles is undoubted and is providing greater insights into the nature and properties of fundamental life structure, its potential to prove or disprove homeopathic processes is still suggestive at this stage, but intriguingly suggestive.
When confronted by an interviewer who wondered if his work was drifting into pseudoscience, Montagnier was adamant: “No, because it is not pseudoscience. It’s not quackery. These are real phenomena which deserve further study.”
See the Reference Section next for examples of some of those further studies.
References for Homeopathy
Articles and Studies
Huffington Post articles from homeopathic specialist and contributing writer Dana Ullman, MPH.
The Case For Homeopathy: Historical and Scientific Evidence:
The Swiss Government’s Remarkable Report on Homeopathy
How Homeopathic Medicines Work: Nanopharmacology at its Best:
WebMD Topic Overview:
What is Homeopathy
Book Excerpt:
Ullman, Dana (1993): A Modern Understanding of Homeopathic Medicine, In Discovering Homeopathy, Medicine for the 21st Century, Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books
RESEARCH
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) at the NIH
Homeopathy: An Introduction (Including “The Status of Homeopathy Research”)
Biomedical Central (Open Access)
Bell IR, Koithan M. A model for homeopathic remedy effects: low dose nanoparticles, allostatic cross-adaptation, and time-dependent sensitization in a complex adaptive system. (PDF) BMC Complement Altern Med. 2012 Oct
22;12(1):191.
Professional Organizations and Certification for Homeopaths
The National Center for Homeopathy (NCH) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to promoting health by advancing the use and practice of homeopathy. NCH supports education in, awareness of, and increased access to homeopathy. NCH maintains the largest, most diverse membership in the homeopathic community and is the national go-to resource for all who are interested in learning about homeopathy.
Find a Homeopath. The NCH Practitioner Directory is the largest list of professionals that practice homeopathy in the US. Some exclusively practice homeopathy, and others include homeopathy as a part of a broader treatment practice.
Certification in homeopathy in North America:
- Council for Homeopathic Certification (CHC): This organization certifies classical homeopaths.
- American Board of Homeotherapeutics (ABHt): This organization certifies licensed medical and osteopathic physicians in classical homeopathy.
- Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians (HANP): This organization certifies naturopaths (NDs).
Professional specialty organizations for homeopaths:
- North American Society of Homeopaths (NASH)
- The Academy of Homeopathic Veterinarians – Veterinarians
- The Homeopathic Nurses Association – Nurses
- American Institute of Homeopathy – Medical professionals