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Physicochemical Investigations of Homeopathic Preparations: A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis—Part 3 (beginning)

Since this is long, I am dividing it into two parts. I will give excerpts from their Discussion section in the second part.

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The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine Vol. 27, No. 1 pp. 45-57 (January 2021)

Physicochemical Investigations of Homeopathic Preparations: A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis—Part 3

Alexander Tournier (1,2), Sandra Würtenberger (3), Sabine D. Klein (1), and Stephan Baumgartner (1,4,5)

1 Institute of Complementary and Integrative Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
2 Water Research Lab, Heidelberg, Germany.
3 Scientific & Regulatory Affairs, Hevert-Arzneimittel GmbH & Co. KG, Nussbaum, Germany.
4 Society for Cancer Research, Arlesheim, Switzerland.
5 Institute of Integrative Medicine, University of Witten/Herdecke, Witten, Germany.

Abstract

Objectives: In parts I and II of our review of physicochemical research performed on homeopathic preparations, we identified relevant publications and analyzed the data in terms of individual experiments, looking for the most promising techniques that were used in the past. In this third part, we analyze the results of the experiments seeking to extract information about the possible modes of action underpinning homeopathic preparations.

Methods: We summarized the results from the 11 experimental areas previously introduced, extracting the general findings and trends. We also summarized the results in terms of specific research topics: aging, medium used for potentization, sample volume, temperature, material of potentization vessel, and, finally, the use of molecules to probe homeopathic samples.

Results: We identified a number of effects that appear consistently throughout the data: Differences to controls seem to increase with: time, moderate temperature, small samples volume, and in ionic medium, whereas high temperatures seem to abolish differences to controls. Based on the present analysis, there is no consistent evidence to date for the nanoparticle hypothesis to explain specific homeopathic treatment effects. However, the quantum coherence domain hypothesis, the dynamic water cluster hypothesis, and the weak quantum theory are still contenders and need to be further assessed experimentally.

Conclusions: The field requires further targeted experimentation to validate past findings reporting differences between homeopathic dilutions and controls, and to expand these findings by specifically testing the three main working hypotheses that are currently at hand.

Free full text:

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/acm.2020.0243


Excerpts:

“In the previous two parts of this review, we found promising experimental evidence supporting the idea that homeopathic dilutions have physicochemical properties different than appropriate controls.1,2 However, not knowing the mode of action through which homeopathy might work leads to a big stumbling block for research into this medical treatment method.

“Several hypotheses have been suggested to explain the preclinical and clinical effects of homeopathic preparations; however, consistent experimental evidence to back those hypotheses has been lacking so far...Any explanations of the specific treatment effects induced by homeopathic drugs would have to cover two areas: the pharmaceutical mode of action3 and the pharmacological mode of action.4 The latter would have to answer the basic question of pharmacodynamics, that is, how homeopathic remedies work in living organisms, whereas the former would concentrate on the question of the effects at a physicochemical level. In the context of our systematic review of physicochemical investigations,1,2 we considered it useful to relate the empirical results we identified to some recently discussed hypotheses for the pharmaceutical (physicochemical) mode of action of homeopathic remedies. Not being aware of a recent systematic review of the theories of how homeopathy works on a physicochemical level, we refer to Bellavite et al.,3 who identified three major conceptual approaches to possibly explain specific remedy effects of homeopathic preparations: the formation of (1) water clusters or clathrates, (2) coherent domains, and (3) nanoparticles from the original substance.3"

“The Quantum Coherence Domains (QCD) theory was developed by Preparata and Del Giudice et al.8,9 This theory predicts the formation of stable water regions or domains in water, which—by carrying some information related to the material potentized—could explain specific remedy properties of homeopathic preparations.”

“More recently, nanoparticles of elements corresponding to the starting material from which the homeopathic sample was made were postulated.12–16 This launched the idea that the many interesting properties of nanoparticles, which are currently being researched, could serve to explain homeopathic treatment effects.12–16

”To complete the picture, we mention a fourth approach that invokes non-local effects found in extensions of the quantum theory to macroscales, such as the Weak Quantum Theory (WQT).17 This theory serves as a formal framework to describe possible quantum-like entanglement effects between the patient, the homeopathic substance, and the practitioner to describe the clinical effects of homeopathy.18–23

“Other hypotheses have been proposed to explain homeopathic treatment effects on a physicochemical level, such as nano-bubbles,24 epitaxy,25 hormesis,26,27 silica-compounds,28 isotopic positional correlations,29 amino acids and peptides,30 and others. However, the consensus opinion of the authors is that the four main conceptual approaches outlined earlier are currently the most commonly discussed hypotheses within the homeopathic research community.”

“It was deemed out of scope for the present article to enter into any discussion of how these physicochemical hypotheses could relate to any pharmacological mode of action.”

“Results

“Qualitative analysis per experimental areas

“In this section, we relate the results from the experiments that looked at differences between homeopathic preparations and controls.”

“Nuclear magnetic resonance”

“...the more recent investigations with NMR relaxation provide some evidence for nano-sized supramolecular structures within homeopathic remedies.

“Spectroscopy”

“In summary, the majority of studies investigating the average absorbance of preparations compared with succussed controls reported an increase in absorbance (mainly in the UV).

“Electrical impedance”

“Most experiments did not use succussed/potentized controls...Many experiments reported excess conductivity for the homeopathic preparations investigated.

“Analytical methods”

“Three main topics were addressed: decrease of the concentration of potentized substances on dilution, leaching from potentiation vessel wall, and possible differences in concentration between homeopathic preparations and controls.”

“There is some evidence for deviations from the expected logarithmic dilution during potentization due to adsorption to and leaching from the potentization vessel walls, and maybe due to froth flotation. There is no solid evidence for a difference in such trace levels of the original material between homeopathic preparations and controls.”

“Imaging methods”

“Thirteen experiments (12 publications) used different microscopic tools such as classical optical microscopy, fluorescence microscopy, electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy (AFM) to study homeopathic preparations.”

“No clear evidence emerged regarding a possible difference between homeopathic preparations and adequate controls with respect to the number, size, or nature of the nanoparticles observed.”

“Further, three investigations described measurements of homeopathic preparations by gas discharge photography, a method based on measurements of coronal discharge from samples exposed to high-frequency alternating current at high voltage....significant differences between homeopathic preparations and controls were observed.”

“Various physical”

“In this category, we summarized all those experiments that could not be assigned to other categories...The experiments of the category ‘Various Physical’ did not add substantially to the body of evidence.”

“Luminescence”

“The experiments using thermoluminescence reported that homeopathic preparations break up water structure. However, some confounding factors remain, and further investigations are required.”

“Raman spectroscopy”

“In the present state of the research, there is only weak evidence for specific properties of homeopathic samples identifiable by Raman spectroscopy.”

“Calorimetry”

“Overall, considering that this area is dominated by one research group, independent replications are needed before firm conclusions can be drawn.”

“Chromatography”

“Due to the lack of a statistical evaluation, the relevance of the effects reported is difficult to assess.”

“Electrochemistry”

“All these experiments tended to report differences between preparations and controls. However, the three relatively old experiments111,159,160 would need replication. Three investigations by the same Italian group91,100,102 reported results measuring the electromotive force, which also warrants further investigation.”

“Qualitative analysis per research topic

“In this section, we review the evidence regarding specific research topics: factors that appear to affect the experiments and modalities that come out as significant in the field.”

“Effect of aging”

“The analysis of the experimental results regarding aging effects indicates that ions leaching from the glassware containers used for production or storage may play an important role in understanding the physicochemical processes in homeopathic preparations.”

“Role of potentizing medium”

“The overall findings indicate that the presence of solutes might increase the size of the effect measured, thereby indicating that solutes might be important for the mode of action of homeopathic preparations.”

“Temperature and other external influences”

“High temperatures (>70°C) seemed to abolish specific properties of homeopathic preparations in most studies,40 whereas incubation at moderate temperatures (30°C–50°C) tended to increase differences to controls.”

“Role of substance of potentizing vessel”

“Experiments not performed in borosilicate glass (90%) tended to report more positive findings. This is compatible with the hypothesis that the presence of ions might play a role in stabilizing the observed phenomena.”

“Using molecules as probes”

“These observations are in line with the hypothesis that the hypothetical water structures involved in homeopathy might carry an electric charge or dipole moment.”

“Isolating structures and characterizing their properties”

“Their results suggest that these structures are mainly composed of water, are charged, and have distinct thermodynamic properties.”

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