telekinetic

I was about to link my mother (a firm believer in homeopathic healing, but an otherwise extremely intelligent woman) to some James Randi youtubes about homeopathy, and I ran into a conundrum: Is the benefit of reducing someone's ignorance (and wasted money on sugar pills) worth the cost of destroying their faith in a placebo?

She only uses homeopathy for nuisance remedies (colds, allergies, etc), not as a replacement for modern medicine, and in this capacity, she seems pleased in their 'effectiveness'. Should I rob her of that in the name of enlightenment?

edit: For the purpose of this thread, plz assume that it is proven that homeopathy is placebo only. I do not wish to debate water vibration memory.

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twisted no more

Mantus

When my mom got sick she spent thousands of dollars trying to get better. Most of it was scams. Some of it made her feel worse. However it has been determined that what a person believes greatly influences how their body reacts. I never attacked my moms beliefs but simply slipped her enough information to find her own way.

Eventually she found her own way to believe in, and sustain, her personal health. Now she balks at homeopathic medicines believing them to be a complete scam but knows that it helped her form the beliefs she needed to live a healthy life.

pan6467

I am reminded of the one M*A*S*H episode where they ran out of morphine and had to give sugar water out.

It was based on a true study that found if people believe that something works, even if it is a placebo, the placebo will work for a certain percentage.

I am a firm believer in the powers of the mind and that if you truly believe something will work, it will work, maybe not to the full effect you need it to, but enough to make a slight difference.

If your mom believes this stuff works for her colds and allergies and to her the results are what she desires..... then let her. As long as she isn't spending her life savings and she is happy with the results, why worry?

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Hain

Instead of informing your mother of her ignorance, congratulate her on power to her herself. She only needed to think she was getting better and she did!

ratbastid

You don't need to change her thinking, you need to change yours.

If she thinks something works, and then it does... then guess what? It works! So why would you lie to her and tell her it doesn't, when it obviously does? Just because it works via some mechanism you disapprove of? How silly is that?

The_Jazz

Given that she's using it for minor ailments and not replacing modern medicine for the major stuff, what's the harm? As long as she's not using the usually recognized dangerous stuff (efedra/pseudo-efedra, St. John's wort, etc.), then there's little problem. Let her believe what she wants to believe. Any victory wouldn't be worth the battle.

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Johnny Rotten

After having my share of colds and allergies... I would actually prefer a non-pharmaceutical solution the next time I need relief. That stuff can make you feel weird, give you headaches, mess with your sleep patterns, and cause drowsiness and fogginess.

Personally, I think homeopathy is crap. But if it makes her feel better, well I'd argue that it's safer than OTC or prescription drugs.

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Willravel

The placebo effect can only do so much. When people start suggesting homeopathic medicine for cancer or pneumonia, they need to stop talking.

Wouldn't your mother be better off doing something about her medical issues that actually works because it works? Thinking away sneezing can't stop the release of histamines as a response to exposure to an allergen. I mean there are alternatives to Benadryl or Claritin, like local honey or air filters, but the placebo effect is really only relative.

Put me under the "tell her the truth" option.

Ustwo

I had this come up here a while back and I left the thread rather then making it clear to someone that what they think was so good was total bullshit.

I've written two replies to this one to tell her and one not to, and deleted both.

The obviously easy one is to not tell her, and let her feel better because she took her magic pill.

The other is to tell her because she is being ripped off. They are selling snake oil and she is buying it. If your mother was being sold a service she thought she needed but they weren't really doing anything for her you would tell her and this is the same thing.

So I'd say it comes down to the kind of person your mother is, and how she reacts to this kind of knowledge. I personally would tell her, no reason to spend money on perpetuating the snake oil industry.

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Jinn

I echo Ustwo's sentiment that it really depends on your mother. I've got a hard-on for dispelling myths and quack science, but it really helps people to believe in something.

It's the same reason that I wouldn't tell people, even if I found some incontrovertible truth that God didn't exist. Some people need to believe in something bigger than themselves, or that what they're doing really helps.

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"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

inBOIL

If she continues to believe in snake oil, then there's a chance that one day she'll use something that really is dangerous. For this reason alone I'd tell her.

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And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

ratbastid

See, you've got two things to consider here. Your mom's health is one. Your relationship with your mom is the other. You MIGHT improve the former by barging in there and telling her that her beliefs are wrong, but I guarantee you WILL damage the latter.

Here's my advice: subscribe to the scientific method. If something works--even if it doesn't seem to you like it should work--then it works. I don't see why homeopathy should work, in fact it seems entirely bogus to me. But if she sees results she's happy with, then it's not our place to argue with her results.

If she were diagnosed with cancer (way to play the scare tactic there, by the way, guys) and wanted to do a homeopathy-only response to it, I'd want to follow the same philosophy. Do an experiment. Try it for a brief time--long enough to let it show results if it's going to, but not long enough to endanger her recovery in any significant way. I'd work with her doctor to figure out how long that is. If at the end of that period it's producing sufficient results (as had been defined prior to the experiment), then great, carry on, and continue to monitor it very closely for ongoing results the same as you would with any course of treatment. And if not, then switch to something else--probably something more traditional--and see if that produces results.

Ustwo

It would be a mighty fragile relationship for it to be damaged by saying homeopathic medicine doesn't work.

You don't try a known worthless treatment for a time for cancer, most cancers are not better treated by not treating them for a worthless experiment in order to show whats already known.

And if her doctor agreed to this in a non-terminal case, they should lose their license.

For the OP, telling/not telling, minor, as nothing is being harmed besides her pocket book a little, but I just can't even fathom letting my mothers cancer progress untreated (and homeopathy = no treatment) just so I don't have to explain to her why its worthless.

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ratbastid

Well, Ustwo, you're right. Damn the consequences and to hell with anyone--including loved ones--who disagree, but hey: at least you're right.

OBVIOUSLY I'm not saying to allow her to endanger herself by trying placebo-based treatment in the case of really serious illness. I guess it went without saying that I'm talking about dealing with a situation where somebody really had their heels dug in.

vanblah

If you have absolute proof that it is a placebo then it probably wouldn't hurt to present that evidence.

However, please keep in mind that not all homeopathy is bullshit.

Medicine itself is pretty much bullshit when you get right down to it. There is a lot of guess work in it ... however educated those guesses might be. Medicine (and homeopathy) are NOT exact sciences. Nothing to do with the human body is an exact science.

telekinetic

This? This is what I did not want. The part of homeopathy that isn't bullshit is the part affected by the placebo effect.

Anyways, thanks for the advice guys...I think I'm going to email her a link to a vid and see what she thinks. Not taking sides with it either way. She has her master's degree, and does some radical treatments on kids with autism...I think the fact that she is on the cutting edge of research that mainstream medicine doesn't understand (but that she can document works) makes her more likely to believe other fringe stuff. If she still wants to believe that water dilluted to such an extreme that it isn't statistically likely that even a single atom of the preperation is present in the dilution after knowing the facts, I'm not going to push the point.

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Jinn

Since vanblah opened the can of worms..

I must say that yes, homeopathy is bullshit. You're right that nothing is an exact science, but homeopathy is not science at all.

It does not work.

Experiment after experiment after test after test has shown that homeopathy in its current form does absolutely nothing for the human body beyond drinking a similar quantity of water would.

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"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

ratbastid

Except that the placebo effect DOES work (or at least CAN work). It has been tested and proven to work--enough so that there's concern among the medical community that not controlling for placebo effect in randomized double-blind placebo-controlled studies may be causing an under-reporting of the actual efficacy of tested medicines. It's hard for people to accept, because it doesn't work via any mechanism that medical science can currently explain. But dismissing snake-oil out of hand simply because it's snake-oil begs the question.

"Doc, when the will is invoked, the recuperative powers of the physical body are simply extraordinary. Just give me a couple of hours to get dressed."
--Agent Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks

vanblah

So what was the purpose of asking? You basically said ...

"Hey, should I say something to someone that they may not agree with? Oh, by the way, only respond to this thread if you agree with me."

You must have missed the part where I said that if you have definitive proof that the product is a placebo then it probably wouldn't hurt to bring it up.

Besides, we aren't really talking about a placebo here. We are talking about a product that contains ingredients which are presumably sold as a treatment. I mean, have you analyzed the product and determined that it is indeed a sugar pill?

Where do you get your evidence that it does or does not work? The internet? Trade journals? Other doctors? Pharmaceutical companies? Pharmacists? So-called "Naturopaths"? All of them have a bias; with the possible exception of the internet which is so full of misinformation on BOTH SIDES that it's laughable.

For instance, there is new evidence that "the power of positive thinking" doesn't actually work either. So everyone who claims that just because a product made the patient "think" they felt better are full of shit according to this study.

Personally, I don't use ultimatums or broad-generalizations such as "all [insert generalization here] is bullshit." I am an open-minded skeptic ...

Ustwo

Actually the question isn't about if the placebo affect is real.

The 'gold standard' for a drug trial is the double blind with a placebo. If the drug doesn't do BETTER than the placebo, then its not a good drug, if it does, than you have a potential winner.

So the placebo affect is already built into the treatment, you ideally should be getting drugs which have already shown they are a better than just thinking you are taking the drugs.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

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telekinetic

I almost didn't mention homeopathy, but I figured if I just called it 'something I know is a placebo' I'd get a thread full of "what is it?!" I wanted to discuss the philosophical implications, not the medical ones.

However, since I'm satisfied with the philosophical answers that I got, we can move on...

No, we really are talking about a placebo. Homeopathy contradicts everything we know about material, and specifically what we know about atoms and molecules. A 5 gram bottle of a 30X dilution (pretty much par for the course) means that it has been diluted to 1 part per 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. (10^30). Which is unfortunate, because 5 grams of sugar only has 8.8 x 10^21 molecules in it. This means that for every 5 gram bottle of homeopathic preparation, you have approximately one chance in 100,000,000 (one hundred million) of getting a SINGLE MOLECULE of the 'preparation'

Another example, from the wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy

Go read the sources in that article if you are still curious curious.

Open minded I'll grant you, but if you're still not willing to admit that homeopathy is anything but snake oil, you're not much of a skeptic.

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ratbastid

It's worse than that. It's not just that the homeopathic preparation is vastly unlikely to contain any of the so-called "active" ingredient. It's that the active ingredient CAUSES the symptom that the preparation is intended to cure.

You take a substance, you give it to a person, and you see what happens to them. Say they get nauseated. Fine, so then you take some of that substance and put it in water. Then you dilute it like crazy. The more diluted it gets, the more powerful it "is". Now that water retains a vibrational memory of the substance that causes nausea--and the less there is actually IN that water, the more strongly it "wants" that substance. When someone experiencing nausea takes this preparation, the water will pull from their body the substance that causes that symptom.

Which, from a scientific point of view, is perhaps marginally better than holding a vibrating tuning fork against your head and whistling for UFOs. There's no reason at all that that should work.

I'm sticking to my guns on this one: if somebody's taking it, and it seems to be helping, and there's no reason to think they're harming themselves by taking it, then it's helping, and it's an act of purest egotism to try to talk them out of it.

vanblah

I never said that homeopathic remedies work or didn't work. I just said that not ALL homeopathy is bullshit. The "theory" behind it is sound (antibiotics and other inoculations) ... these compounds exist in nature therefore we should be able to take advantage of them in natural remedies (if you discount the spirituality side which is a whole other argument).

While I AM skeptical of almost all homeopathic remedies on the market I don't ever discount anything just because somebody says it's bullshit. I'm somewhat of a radical materialist when it comes to this kind of stuff--I need to see it to believe it (or disbelieve it). Would I use a homeopathic product? Probably not. Unless someone really had irrefutable proof that it worked.

Perhaps I should refine my stance ... I assumed (my bad) that you were lumping naturopathic "medicine" in with homeopathic remedies. While I am still skeptical of naturopathy I find the evidence for its success somewhat stronger than in so-called homeopathic remedies.

So it probably comes down to an argument of semantics and is pointless beyond entertainment. I also don't put a lot of stock in Wikipedia as a source ... especially in an article with an obvious bias starting as early as the second paragraph.

telekinetic

You cannot just assert that the 'theory' behind something is sound. What do you see that theory being? I'm still not sure you entirely understand it...it is nothing like antibiotics, it has nothing to do with herbal remedies, and other than requiring a leap of faith in the face of massive scientific evidence, it has little to do with spirituality, either...so I'm not sure why you broght those up.


Homeopathy is a subset of naturopathy, not the other way around, so any implication that I was talking about naturopathy as a whole is undue extrapolation on your part...your assumption was erraneous.

You don't put a lot of stock in wikipedia as a source? Wikipedia has an 'obvious bias'? Good one. Do you understand what wikipedia is, and how it works? I gave you that link because it was easier than pasting in the 147 annotated references at the bottom. On a subject such as homeopathy, with a loud minority and companies with a financial stake in the accuracy, wikipedia editors are going to be extremely diligent with their sourcing, to prevent critics from having any viable methods of attacking the article.

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vanblah

I was only illustrating the theory behind the part that a "weakened strain of something" can sometimes help during a treatment. Which is a sound theory as proven by antibiotics and other vaccinations. Read the second line from your Wikipedia article. I didn't say that the remedies work ... only that the theory is sound.

Bold is mine. There's your spirituality.

Like I said, "MY BAD."


Didn't say Wikipedia had a bias ... just the article itself. Yes, I have a pretty clear understanding of what a Wiki is and what Wikipedia itself is. I also know what Wikipedia claims to be ... I have been a contributor to Wikipedia in the past ... not so much now. It's sort of "muddy" information now. Just because an article has a ton of sources listed at the bottom doesn't give it any more credibility. I've written term papers before, too.

Jinn

There's skeptical, and there's "doesn't believe anything".

You seem to be far less the latter, and far more the former.

Incredulity only goes so far, then it just becomes "that guy who won't ever agree with anything."

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"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

vanblah

Directed at me? I'm not sure how to take that.

I make it a point to remain open-minded but skeptical. It is my answer to cynicism (which I have had enough of in my life). My friends confuse cynicism with skepticism so arguments can be fun with them when a discussion turns to a hot topic. I also have a healthy dose of Devil's advocate in me ...

I certainly have my own biases and cynicisms (let's talk music some time -- but even then I can see the merits of music I don't care for).

roachboy

well this is a curious little question, isn't it?
if these remedies are indulged for nuisance things and they help, then who's to say they don't work?
what does "working" mean in such a situation?

and if they work in your mom's view, why would you think of this as necessarily a placebo effect?

i don't have a particular position on the question itself--i mean i don't particularly have a position on homeopathic approaches one way or another in general...and i suspect that these questions have already come up, but within different frameworks (i read through the thread earlier so don't remember exactly)

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it make you sick.

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Manuel Hong

If it helped, it worked. Not your job to analyze why or how. BTW, it's her health, her body, her decision. You need to MYOB with your mom. (even if it hurts or frustrates you)
As an aside, there are very good schools that have expansive programs in homeopathy. (Bastyr comes to mind)
Why do so many of you who are informed by anything BUT personal experience have such strong negative opionions about it?

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Believe nothing, even if I tell it to you, unless it meets with your own good common sense and experience. - Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha)

Ustwo

Mom:These nice men came to winterize my house, they only charged me $200 dollars.

Son: What did they do?

Mom: The fluffed the insulation in the walls using some magnets, it only took them 30 minutes and it feels so much warmer in here.

Son: .....

A scam is a scam.


Pretty much by definition if a school has an expansive program in homeopathy it no longer qualifies as a good school.

Scientific method, learn it, love it, live by it. Its the cornerstone of western scientific progress.

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Manuel Hong

If mom is duped by scammers fluffing insulation, it's amazing that mom manged to survive to her age.
People learn by experience. People don't learn by being told.
Everything else you say Us2 is rhetoric, what you've read or been told to believe. It's obviously not from personal experience.
But hey! That's okay with me. It's up to you to have your experiences and learn from them as you mature in life.
Best of luck with that, Mate!

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Believe nothing, even if I tell it to you, unless it meets with your own good common sense and experience. - Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha)

Ustwo

As a doctor I've never done my job with a chainsaw, ever. I can't see how it would work, it makes no logical sense, but you know I've never experienced it! I think perhaps I should try, after all I've never seen it done, its only rhetoric.

There is a fine line between open mindedness and just being naive. Most people think homeopathy is a fancy word for herbal, very few really know what idiocy it is. Educating them is a service. Show them the theory as it really is, show them the studies, and if they want to take sugar pills still, well thats fine.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

ratbastid

I believe I've just discerned Ustwo's motto.....

There's NOTHING scientific about your attitude in this thread. NOTHING. Science isn't about being right in advance.

Manuel Hong

Hey Ustwo,
I thought you were a lawyer, not a doctor...?

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Believe nothing, even if I tell it to you, unless it meets with your own good common sense and experience. - Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha)