Wednesday, March 17, 2010

New Study on Homeopathy May Quiet Critics Once and For All

I just finished reading about one of the most amazing studies I've ever heard of on homeopathy. If this one doesn't stop the chatter about homeopathy being fake or only working via a placebo effect, I don't know what will!

In the study, performed by Moshe Frenkel, MD at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and published in the prestigious International Journal of Oncology, breast cancer cell cultures were treated with four homeopathic preparations:
  1. Carcinosin (also known as an "isode" being actually made from cancerous tissue)
  2. Conium
  3. Thuja
  4. Phytolacca
All of these homeopathic remedies, for one reason or another, are suggested in homeopathic literature to be potentially useful in cases of breast cancer, and outside of the U.S., they are commonly employed in cancer care treatment plans.

Well, the study results certainly didn't disappoint. All four remedies (diluted well beyond the point where one would expect a bio-chemical effect) showed PRONOUNCED CYTOTOXIC EFFECTS. In other words, they stopped cancer cell growth, altered gene expression that regulated the cell cycles, and induced apoptosis (cancer cell DEATH!). Carcinosin and phytolacca had the strongest cytotoxic effects of all.

Of course (no surprise to anyone familiar with homeopathy) the remedies were also shown to have zero negative effects on non-cancerous breast cells.

So, does this mean that anyone out there with breast cancer should madly rush to their local health food store and pick up a bottle each of these remedies? I'd say at the very least it couldn't hurt, but researchers do caution (and I concur) that this was NOT a cancer treatment trial- ie a study done on people with cancer. Therefore, we should at most (right now) be cautiously optimistic.

It's also important to note that if homeopathic remedies may be effective in treating cancer, why wouldn't they be helpful in the treatment of ANY acutely or chronically diseased body tissue?

In my opinion, interested patients should not just run out to the store and start buying remedies, but instead should enlist the help of a practitioner trained in homeopathy, especially the use of isode remedies (like carcinosin). One of the key, most important facets of homeopathy is that, for it to work, it needs to be the right remedy. If it's not, it won't really do anything. Figuring out what remedy that is isn't always easy.

There are, or course, a number of ways to try and do this, the most commonly employed method being using your doctor's brain, or the combination of their brain and a homeopathy computer program. Fully admitting my bias, I feel kinesiological testing is as good as it gets. (See my website for more info on this), but I think any well trained homeopath has a good chance. That being said, I do still feel it's important to note that (again in my opinion and the opinion of some other docs out there) homeopathy is not as easy to practice today as it used to be. The sole reason for this is that the amount of toxins we are bombarded with on a daily basis in this modern age far exceeds anything the average person was exposed to back in the time that homeopathy first came about. These toxins sometimes can have the effect of "clouding the picture", making it difficult to see the right remedy, and/or rendering the remedies less effective or more likely to cause a negative reaction when the energetic wave they set off gets blocked on its way out of the body.

The system I employ helps me search for the affected tissues/organs, but also helps me identify these toxic "blocks" and (also using homeopathy and sometimes herbs) remove them first. Again, if you'd like to learn more about these techniques you can see my website, or contact me directly.

Lastly, I think it's also important to point out the fact that, not only does this study show promise for the effectiveness of homeopathic remedies, it also provides some pretty clear, undeniable proof as to the presence of something BELOW or BEYOND the level of biochemistry (ie blood and guts) at work here. In other words, it provides yet another piece of evidence that many types of healing, especially profound healing, happen on a deeper level. Based on some of the evidence I've been recently learning more about, I would go even further and just say that LIFE happens, begins and/or is influenced on a level deeper than we are consciously aware of.

This is another entire topic I hope to blog about and possibly lecture about in the near future. For now, if you are interested, click on the link to my store above and go to the "Additional Learning Tools" page on the right. Once there, check out the selection of videos I have listed that go into this topic in depth.

The future of medicine is definitely NOT going to come in the form of more drugs and more surgery, or at least the future of HEALING won't.

Aloha......

2 comments:

Le Canard Noir said...

For a discussion as to why this is a hopelessly inadequate study, please read the following critique,

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/03/a_homeopathic_bit_of_breast_cancer_scien.php

Dr. Daniel Chong said...

Thanks for that link. Very interesting for sure. There are obviously flaws in the study, but nothing mentioned in the discussion you mentioned PROVES the study's finding to be FALSE. There was a lot of "I seriously wonder about these results because of...." statements made. That is great. We should seriously wonder about anything that has findings which could be used for such important things, especially if certain aspects of the study were less than perfectly done. However, I never read anything that said "The findings from this study are false because...." In other words, to me, even in the face of the comments made in the link you provide, the findings here still warrant further investigation. I would never use what was found in this study as my sole basis to recommend women with breast cancer use these treatments instead of conventional ones, and I stated this in my post. I do feel thought that his study still raises the question of "If?", which should at least stimulate more investigation. If after all there is any possibility we could use something as harmless as homeopathic medicines to treat women with breast cancer, rather than poisoning and cutting them, then hoping they come out the other side OK, shouldn't we look into this?