Homeopathy/Scientific Investigations of Homeopathy

In progress!
This is a provisional bibliography.

How healthy are chronically ill patients after eight years of homeopathic treatment? – Results from a long term observational study Claudia M Witt & al BMC Public Health 2008, 8:413
Results
(...) Physical and mental quality of life scores also increased considerably. Younger age, female gender and more severe disease at baseline were factors predictive of better therapeutic success.
Conclusion
Patients who seek homeopathic treatment are likely to improve considerably. These effects persist for as long as 8 years.

Mega!

'Homeopathic and conventional treatment for acute respiratory and ear complaints: A comparative study on outcome in the primary care setting, Max Haidvogl BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2007, 7:7
... Adverse drug reactions occurred more frequently in adults of the conventional group than in the homeopathic group (C: 7.6%; H: 3.1%, p = 0.0032), whereas in children the occurrence of adverse drug reactions was not significantly different (H: 2.0%; C: 2.4%, p = 0.7838).
Conclusion
In primary care, homeopathic treatment for acute respiratory and ear complaints was not inferior to conventional treatment.

Nowt wrong there!

Bias against homeopathy
A systematic review of how homeopathy is represented in conventional and CAM peer reviewed journals Timothy Caulfield and Suzanne DeBow BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2005, 5:12
Conclusion
A considerable difference exists between the number of clinical trials showing positive results published in CAM journals compared with traditional journals. We found only 30% of those articles published in CAM journals presented negative findings, whereas over twice that amount were published in traditional journals. These results suggest a publication bias against homeopathy exists in mainstream journals. Conversely, the same type of publication bias does not appear to exist between review and meta-analysis articles published in the two types of journals.

It's a conspiracy!

Recent evidence from the Cochrane center
Kassab S, Cummings M, Berkovitz S, van Haselen R, Fisher P.

Homeopathic medicines for adverse effects of cancer treatments. Cochrane Database. 2009
This review looked at whether these medicines could help patients with problems caused by cancer treatments. Eight studies with a total of 664 participants were included in this review. Three studied adverse effects of radiotherapy, three studied adverse effects of chemotherapy and two studied menopausal symptoms associated with breast cancer treatment. Two studies with low risk of bias demonstrated benefit: one with 254 participants demonstrated benefits from calendula ointment in the prevention of radiotherapy-induced dermatitis, and another with 32 participants demonstrated benefits from Traumeel S (a complex homeopathic medicine) over placebo as a mouthwash for chemotherapy-induced stomatitis.

Homeopathy IS mouthwash!

'An end to the placebo nonsense?

Dynamized preparations in cell culture. Sunila ES, Kuttan R, Preethi KC, Kuttan G. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2009 Jun;6(2):257-63.
We have evaluated the cytotoxic activity of 30C and 200C potencies of ten dynamized medicines against Dalton's Lymphoma Ascites, Ehrlich's Ascites Carcinoma, lung fibroblast (L929) and Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell lines and compared activity with their mother tinctures during short-term and long-term cell culture. The effect of dynamized medicines to induce apoptosis was also evaluated and we studied how dynamized medicines affected genes expressed during apoptosis. Mother tinctures as well as some dynamized medicines showed significant cytotoxicity to cells during short and long-term incubation. Potentiated alcohol control did not produce any cytotoxicity at concentrations studied. The dynamized medicines were found to inhibit CHO cell colony formation and thymidine uptake in L929 cells and those of Thuja, Hydrastis and Carcinosinum were found to induce apoptosis in DLA cells. Moreover, dynamized Carcinosinum was found to induce the expression of p53 while dynamized Thuja produced characteristic laddering pattern in agarose gel electrophoresis of DNA. These results indicate that dynamized medicines possess cytotoxic as well as apoptosis-inducing properties.

Dynamized Carcinosinum was found to induce the expression of p53!