Regular aerobic exercise improves the quality of sleep, mood and vitality, according to a new study.
The study is the first to examine the effect of aerobic exercise on middle-aged and older adults with a diagnosis of insomnia.
About 50 per cent of people in these age groups complain of chronic insomnia symptoms. The study is scheduled for publication in the journal Sleep Medicine.
The aerobic exercise trial resulted in the most dramatic improvement in patients' reported quality of sleep, including sleep duration, compared to any other non-pharmacological intervention, according to a Northwestern University release.
"This is relevant to a huge portion of the population," said Phyllis Zee, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at the Northwestern University and senior study author.
Kathryn Reid, research assistant professor at Northwestern, who led the research, says: "Insomnia increases with age," Zee said.
"Around middle age, sleep begins to change dramatically. It is essential that we identify behavioural ways to improve sleep. Now we have promising results showing aerobic exercise is a simple strategy to help people sleep better and feel more vigorous."
The drug-free strategy also is desirable, because it eliminates the potential of a sleeping medication interacting with other drugs a person may be taking, Reid said.
Sleep is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle, like nutrition and exercise, noted Zee, a professor of neurology, neurobiology, and physiology at the Northwestern University.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Popping a pill can help treat alcoholism
An updated review of studies has confirmed that a little-used medication can help treat alcoholism. Twelve-step programs have been the mainstay for helping alcoholics to quit drinking, but a significant number of people who try these programs do not find them helpful or suffer relapses.
The Cochrane review finds that the medication naltrexone ” brand names are Depade and ReVia ” when combined with counseling or interventions like Alcoholics Anonymous, can help cut the risk of heavy drinking in patients who are dependent on alcohol.Naltrexone works by blocking the pleasurable feelings, or "high," a person gets from drinking alcohol, thereby reducing motivation to drink. Naltrexone can be taken daily as a pill and is available as a long-acting injection.
Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.
Michael Soyka, senior author of the review and colleagues examined the results of 50 previously published high-quality studies on naltrexone and alcohol dependence. Overall, the studies enrolled nearly 7,800 patients diagnosed with alcohol dependence.
Of these, about 4,200 patients took naltrexone or a similar drug called nalmefene. The rest of the patients took a placebo or had some other type of treatment. Treatment with naltrexone ranged from four weeks to a year, with most patients receiving about 12 weeks of treatment. Most patients also received counseling.
Researchers found that patients who received naltrexone were 17 percent less likely to return to heavy drinking than were patients who received a placebo treatment.
"That would mean that naltrexone can be expected to prevent heavy drinking in one out of eight patients who would otherwise have returned to a heavy drinking pattern," Soyka said.
Naltrexone also increased the number of people who were able to stay abstinent by 4 percent. While at first glance that might not seem like a miracle cure for alcoholism, Soyka said that the effectiveness of naltrexone is on par with medications used for other psychiatric conditions.
"Naltrexone is moderately effective in reducing alcohol intake. It's about as effective as antidepressants in depressive disorders," he said.
"From a safety point of view, there are few safety concerns. Nausea is the most frequent side effect."The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research, published the review.
Textaphrenia & textiety: Message conveys disorder
MELBOURNE: Ever heard of textaphrenia, textiety or post-traumatic text disorder? These are some of serious mental and physical disorders that teenaged Australian "text addicts" are suffering from, a new study has revealed.
The research into youth communication habits identified the risks teens face from texting excessively every day, and the symptoms included anxiety, insecurity, depression, low self-esteem and "repetitive thumb syndrome".
According to figures released by Boost Mobile, a reseller of the Optus network, text messaging has increased by 89% in the last two years.
Jennie Carroll, a technology researcher from RMIT University in Melbourne, has studied of the effects of modern communication since 2001 and said the mobile phone had become meshed into teenagers' lives.
Her study identified four distinct disorders — textaphrenia, textiety, post-traumatic text disorder and binge texting.
Textaphrenia is thinking a message had arrived when it hadn't, while textiety is the anxious feeling of not receiving or sending text messages.
"With textaphrenia and textiety there's a feeling no one loves me, no one's contacted me," the Daily Telegraph quoted her as saying.
Post-traumatic stress disorder involved physical and mental injuries from texting, like walking into things while texting and even crossing a road without looking. "There were reports from Japan of 'repetitive thumb syndrome' and thumbs growing because of texting leading to 'Monster Thumbs'," she revealed.
Binge texting is when teens send multiple texts to feel good about themselves and try to attract responses.
"This is the reverse of the anxiety — you think you've been left out of the loop so you send a lot of texts and wait for responses," Carroll explained.
The research into youth communication habits identified the risks teens face from texting excessively every day, and the symptoms included anxiety, insecurity, depression, low self-esteem and "repetitive thumb syndrome".
According to figures released by Boost Mobile, a reseller of the Optus network, text messaging has increased by 89% in the last two years.
Jennie Carroll, a technology researcher from RMIT University in Melbourne, has studied of the effects of modern communication since 2001 and said the mobile phone had become meshed into teenagers' lives.
Her study identified four distinct disorders — textaphrenia, textiety, post-traumatic text disorder and binge texting.
Textaphrenia is thinking a message had arrived when it hadn't, while textiety is the anxious feeling of not receiving or sending text messages.
"With textaphrenia and textiety there's a feeling no one loves me, no one's contacted me," the Daily Telegraph quoted her as saying.
Post-traumatic stress disorder involved physical and mental injuries from texting, like walking into things while texting and even crossing a road without looking. "There were reports from Japan of 'repetitive thumb syndrome' and thumbs growing because of texting leading to 'Monster Thumbs'," she revealed.
Binge texting is when teens send multiple texts to feel good about themselves and try to attract responses.
"This is the reverse of the anxiety — you think you've been left out of the loop so you send a lot of texts and wait for responses," Carroll explained.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Gene link to 130 brain diseases identified
PARIS: Scientists on Sunday said they had discovered a bouquet of proteins that play a critical role in the development of more than 130 brain diseases.
Their study also highlights a surprising link between these disorders - including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's - and the evolution of human behaviour, they said. The human brain is a labyrinth of millions of specialised nerve cells interconnected by billions of electrical and chemical pathways called synapses.
Within synapses are proteins that combine together, forming a molecular machine known as the post-synaptic density, or PSD, which is believed to disrupt synaptic functioning, causing disease and behavioural change.
Reporting in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Seth Grant of Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute led a team that extracted PSDsfrom synapses of patients undergoing brain surgery.
"We found over 130 brain diseases involve the PSD - far more than expected," said Grant. "The human PSD is at centre stage of a large range of human diseases affecting millions of people."
Besides common and debilitating neurodegenerative disorders, these include epilepsies and childhood development diseases such as autism.
The PSDs identified so far come from combinations of 1,461 proteins, each encoded by a separate gene.
"We now have a comprehensive molecular playlist of 1,000 suspects," noted Jeffrey Neobels, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine inTexas, commenting on the study. "Every seventh protein in this line-up is involved in a known clinical disorder, and over half of them are repeat offenders."
The findings open several news paths toward tackling these illnesses, including better diagnosis, the authors said. To help accelerate this goal, the researchers have released all their data into the public domain, and created the first-ever "molecular roadmap" for human synapses showing how proteins and diseases interconnect. "We can also see ways to develop new genetic diagnostic tests," Grant said.
The study also revealed the proteins in PSDs have deep evolutionary roots and play an indirect role in cognitive behaviours such as learning and memory, as well as emotion and mood. Compared with other gene-encoded proteins, PSD proteins evolved much more slowly.
Read more: Gene link to 130 brain diseases identified - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Gene-link-to-130-brain-diseases-identified/articleshow/7130653.cms#ixzz18cg6oJ8n
Their study also highlights a surprising link between these disorders - including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's - and the evolution of human behaviour, they said. The human brain is a labyrinth of millions of specialised nerve cells interconnected by billions of electrical and chemical pathways called synapses.
Within synapses are proteins that combine together, forming a molecular machine known as the post-synaptic density, or PSD, which is believed to disrupt synaptic functioning, causing disease and behavioural change.
Reporting in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Seth Grant of Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute led a team that extracted PSDsfrom synapses of patients undergoing brain surgery.
"We found over 130 brain diseases involve the PSD - far more than expected," said Grant. "The human PSD is at centre stage of a large range of human diseases affecting millions of people."
Besides common and debilitating neurodegenerative disorders, these include epilepsies and childhood development diseases such as autism.
The PSDs identified so far come from combinations of 1,461 proteins, each encoded by a separate gene.
"We now have a comprehensive molecular playlist of 1,000 suspects," noted Jeffrey Neobels, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine inTexas, commenting on the study. "Every seventh protein in this line-up is involved in a known clinical disorder, and over half of them are repeat offenders."
The findings open several news paths toward tackling these illnesses, including better diagnosis, the authors said. To help accelerate this goal, the researchers have released all their data into the public domain, and created the first-ever "molecular roadmap" for human synapses showing how proteins and diseases interconnect. "We can also see ways to develop new genetic diagnostic tests," Grant said.
The study also revealed the proteins in PSDs have deep evolutionary roots and play an indirect role in cognitive behaviours such as learning and memory, as well as emotion and mood. Compared with other gene-encoded proteins, PSD proteins evolved much more slowly.
Read more: Gene link to 130 brain diseases identified - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Gene-link-to-130-brain-diseases-identified/articleshow/7130653.cms#ixzz18cg6oJ8n
Drinking water before meals good
Read more: Drinking water before meals good - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/diet/Drinking-water-before-meals-good/articleshow/6425577.cms#ixzz18cf24gby
Have you tried out every trick in the book to lose weight – crash diets, gyms, or simply starving yourself?
Now, try a simple trick – drink a glass or two of water before meals, as that's the best way to curb appetite and shed those pounds – says a new research.
Scientists have reported that just two 8-ounce glasses of water taken before meals, can lead to weight loss.
"In this recent study, we found that over the course of 12 weeks, dieters who drank water before meals, three times per day, lost about 5 pounds more than dieters who did not increase their water intake," said Brenda Davy of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
The simple reason is that it fills up the stomach with a substance that has zero calories. People feel fuller as a result, and eat less calorie-containing food during the meal.
And it gets even better if you replace sweetened calorie-containing beverages with it.
Although there's no exact amount of water one should drink, experts advise that most healthy people can simply let thirst be their guide.
The general recommendations for women are about 9 cups of fluids — from all beverages including water — each day, and men at about 13 cups of fluids.
Read more: Drinking water before meals good - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/diet/Drinking-water-before-meals-good/articleshow/6425577.cms#ixzz18cfVgVZM
Publication: The Times Of India Mumbai; Date: Sep 23, 2005; Section: Editorial;Page: 30
New Vistas Of Healing
Lancet article gets it wrong on homoeopathy
By SURINDER PURI
Is it possible that the venerable science magazine The Lancet has got it horribly wrong? In a recent issue the magazine ran an editorial titled, ‘The end of homoeopathy’ which said, ‘‘Now doctors need to be bold and honest with their patients about homoeopathy’s lack of benefits, and with themselves about the failings of modern medicine to address patients’ needs for personalised care’’. As a practising path for the last 30 years, it is difficult to understand how one study can claim to conclusively prove the end of an entire branch of alternative medicine. It is true that homoeopathy evokes extreme reactions and its efficacy has been debated since the time of Samuel Hahnemann, the German doctor who founded this line of medicine as an alternative to the more brutal medical practices that were prevalent in his time almost 200 years ago.
The major bone of contention in this debate as well as The Lancet study is the efficacy of homoeopathic
medicines. Homoeopathic medicines have routinely been dismissed as placebos and any improvement in a patient’s condition by taking homoeopathic medication has been dismissed as the placebo effect. Homoeopathic theory says that the more diluted a substance is, the more effective it becomes; where the quantity is reduced but its inert energies are increased. First the mother tincture is prepared which is an alcohol based extract of the substance from which subsequent potencies are made. One drop of the mother tincture is diluted with 99 drops of plain alcohol. This is called the first potency. The next potency will be prepared by diluting one drop of the first potency with another 99 drops of alcohol. This is called the second potency and so on. This can even go beyond one million potencies. The more recent and more physical the symptoms in a patient, usually lower the potency of the medicine prescribed. Physical and recent symptoms in a patient are indicative of the fact that the illness is in a superficial or more recent form and, thus, to combat that, lower the potency. In homoeopathy, the symptoms are seen to differ from
individual to individual. For instance, two patients may suffer with migraine, but the cause of migraine in both could be different. So how can the treatment be the same in both cases? Homoeopathy assumes that every patient is different even if they suffer from similar illnesses. Also, homoeopathy treats the cause and not the symptoms. If one were not to treat the cause, it is likely that the patient will become dependent on medicines to suppress the symptoms from time to time. In allopathy, a patient is likely to be pumped with steroids to alleviate the symptoms of an ailment quickly. But it is well known that the sideeffects of the steroids are often worse than the original ailment. Allopathic medicines too aren’t quite free from the placebo tag. Prozac which captured the imagination of the world as the wonder mood drug is, according to Irving Kirsch, a psychologist at the University of Connecticut, no more than a placebo. He along with Guy Sapirstein conducted 19 clinical trials of Prozac and other such anti-depressants and concluded that it was the expectation of improvement rather than any change in the brain’s chemicals that was the reason for 75% of the drug’s effectiveness. No good doctor, homoeopath or allopath, will deliberately harm his patients. A good practitioner of homoeopathy will carefully evaluate each case and suggest the best possible treatment. For instance, if I get a patient who has renal stones, I will not take up the case unless I see all the relevant investigations. One has to see the site and size of the stones to be able to evaluate whether homoeopathy is likely to benefit the patient. If the stone is lodged in the cortex and other parts of the kidney are functioning properly, then there is no urgency for any surgical intervention. But if the stone is very large and lying in the pelvic area of the kidney, completely blocking the passage, there is danger of kidney damage and such a case needs to be operated upon immediately. 19-12-2010 New Vistas Of Healing
epaper.timesofindia.com/…/getFiles.asp?… 1/2
It is unfortunate that an entire stream of science is being discredited on the limited evidence published by The Lancet. Allopathy as a whole is rarely dismissed, even though many allopathic doctors make wrong diagnoses or botch up surgeries. The fault, the world is willing to concede in such cases, lies with individual practitioners and not with the field of medicine. Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) was once said to be the panacea for all menopausal women. Today, there is no bigger evil for menopausal women than HRT. There is growing enthusiasm for homoeopathy in the western world. In the US alone, the value of homoeopathic remedies has grown from $170 million in 1995 to $400 million in 1999. Could this skyrocketing popularity be behind the unease in certain quarters — people who have a vested interest in keeping us in a perpetual druginduced haze? The writer, a practising homoeopath, said this to Archana Jahagirdar .
19-12-2010 New Vistas Of Healing
epaper.timesofindia.com/…/getFiles.asp?… 2/2
New Vistas Of Healing
Lancet article gets it wrong on homoeopathy
By SURINDER PURI
Is it possible that the venerable science magazine The Lancet has got it horribly wrong? In a recent issue the magazine ran an editorial titled, ‘The end of homoeopathy’ which said, ‘‘Now doctors need to be bold and honest with their patients about homoeopathy’s lack of benefits, and with themselves about the failings of modern medicine to address patients’ needs for personalised care’’. As a practising path for the last 30 years, it is difficult to understand how one study can claim to conclusively prove the end of an entire branch of alternative medicine. It is true that homoeopathy evokes extreme reactions and its efficacy has been debated since the time of Samuel Hahnemann, the German doctor who founded this line of medicine as an alternative to the more brutal medical practices that were prevalent in his time almost 200 years ago.
The major bone of contention in this debate as well as The Lancet study is the efficacy of homoeopathic
medicines. Homoeopathic medicines have routinely been dismissed as placebos and any improvement in a patient’s condition by taking homoeopathic medication has been dismissed as the placebo effect. Homoeopathic theory says that the more diluted a substance is, the more effective it becomes; where the quantity is reduced but its inert energies are increased. First the mother tincture is prepared which is an alcohol based extract of the substance from which subsequent potencies are made. One drop of the mother tincture is diluted with 99 drops of plain alcohol. This is called the first potency. The next potency will be prepared by diluting one drop of the first potency with another 99 drops of alcohol. This is called the second potency and so on. This can even go beyond one million potencies. The more recent and more physical the symptoms in a patient, usually lower the potency of the medicine prescribed. Physical and recent symptoms in a patient are indicative of the fact that the illness is in a superficial or more recent form and, thus, to combat that, lower the potency. In homoeopathy, the symptoms are seen to differ from
individual to individual. For instance, two patients may suffer with migraine, but the cause of migraine in both could be different. So how can the treatment be the same in both cases? Homoeopathy assumes that every patient is different even if they suffer from similar illnesses. Also, homoeopathy treats the cause and not the symptoms. If one were not to treat the cause, it is likely that the patient will become dependent on medicines to suppress the symptoms from time to time. In allopathy, a patient is likely to be pumped with steroids to alleviate the symptoms of an ailment quickly. But it is well known that the sideeffects of the steroids are often worse than the original ailment. Allopathic medicines too aren’t quite free from the placebo tag. Prozac which captured the imagination of the world as the wonder mood drug is, according to Irving Kirsch, a psychologist at the University of Connecticut, no more than a placebo. He along with Guy Sapirstein conducted 19 clinical trials of Prozac and other such anti-depressants and concluded that it was the expectation of improvement rather than any change in the brain’s chemicals that was the reason for 75% of the drug’s effectiveness. No good doctor, homoeopath or allopath, will deliberately harm his patients. A good practitioner of homoeopathy will carefully evaluate each case and suggest the best possible treatment. For instance, if I get a patient who has renal stones, I will not take up the case unless I see all the relevant investigations. One has to see the site and size of the stones to be able to evaluate whether homoeopathy is likely to benefit the patient. If the stone is lodged in the cortex and other parts of the kidney are functioning properly, then there is no urgency for any surgical intervention. But if the stone is very large and lying in the pelvic area of the kidney, completely blocking the passage, there is danger of kidney damage and such a case needs to be operated upon immediately. 19-12-2010 New Vistas Of Healing
epaper.timesofindia.com/…/getFiles.asp?… 1/2
It is unfortunate that an entire stream of science is being discredited on the limited evidence published by The Lancet. Allopathy as a whole is rarely dismissed, even though many allopathic doctors make wrong diagnoses or botch up surgeries. The fault, the world is willing to concede in such cases, lies with individual practitioners and not with the field of medicine. Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) was once said to be the panacea for all menopausal women. Today, there is no bigger evil for menopausal women than HRT. There is growing enthusiasm for homoeopathy in the western world. In the US alone, the value of homoeopathic remedies has grown from $170 million in 1995 to $400 million in 1999. Could this skyrocketing popularity be behind the unease in certain quarters — people who have a vested interest in keeping us in a perpetual druginduced haze? The writer, a practising homoeopath, said this to Archana Jahagirdar .
19-12-2010 New Vistas Of Healing
epaper.timesofindia.com/…/getFiles.asp?… 2/2
the lancet racket!!
Publication: The Times Of India Mumbai;Date: Aug 29, 2005;Section: Times Nation;Page: 8
Health minister leads India’s defence of homeopathy
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
New Delhi: India is getting ready to hit back at a report that appeared in the medical journal Lancet recently, claiming that the 250-year old system of medicine, homoeopathy, has no real curative powers.
India’s argument: How can an entire system of medicine that is practised in over 66 countries and has treated millions of people, be wrong?
Their case: India has hundreds of studies confirming that homoeopathy works. Moreover, homoeopathy is now proving extremely useful for veterinary science. Health minister Dr A Ramadoss is planning to ask Lancet to send the original research papers. “On that basis, we will send them our findings. This is a serious issue because India is the largest homoeopathy user. We will counter this with scientific tests and data,’’ he said. Secretary, department of ayurveda, yoga and homoeopathy, Uma Pillai said, “How can a study dismiss an entire system of medicine? In India, we have exhaustive studies on homoeopathy that show its efficacy. It’s now being used in veterinary care in US, Europe and India. It is even being used for supplementary therapy. I don’t think the study has been fair’’. Joint secretary Shiv Basant added: “The study is preposterous. Homeopathy stands on a firm foundation in over 66 countries. Treating homoeopathy like some kind of voodoo is outrageous. Some therapies might not work that well. But that does not mean we brand the entire practice as useless’’. Another health ministry official said, “We will soon send Lancet a detailed report on what homoeopathy has done over the years. I don’t think the printed study makes much of a difference. The market for homoeopathic remedies has exploded in the last five years — growing from $25m in 1999 to $32m in 2004 in over-the-counter sales. The complementary medicine market as a whole has been valued at 147 million pounds, showing an overall increase of 45% since 1999. Now, even general physicians are suggesting homoeopathy’’. Carried out by Matthias Egger, at the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine of the University of Berne in Switzerland, the study said homoeopathic treatment is no more effective than a placebo, the dummy substance used in medical trials.
This conclusion was reached after Dr Egger and his team reviewed a mountain of published evidence, comparing 110 trials of homoeopathic remedies against a placebo with 110 trials of conventional medicines. The ailments being treated in these trials included respiratory-tract infections,pollen allergies and asthma, gynaecological and obstetric problems, muscle and joint ache and intestinal upsets.
19-12-2010 Health minister leads India’s defence of h…
epaper.timesofindia.com/…/getFiles.asp?… 1/1
Health minister leads India’s defence of homeopathy
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
New Delhi: India is getting ready to hit back at a report that appeared in the medical journal Lancet recently, claiming that the 250-year old system of medicine, homoeopathy, has no real curative powers.
India’s argument: How can an entire system of medicine that is practised in over 66 countries and has treated millions of people, be wrong?
Their case: India has hundreds of studies confirming that homoeopathy works. Moreover, homoeopathy is now proving extremely useful for veterinary science. Health minister Dr A Ramadoss is planning to ask Lancet to send the original research papers. “On that basis, we will send them our findings. This is a serious issue because India is the largest homoeopathy user. We will counter this with scientific tests and data,’’ he said. Secretary, department of ayurveda, yoga and homoeopathy, Uma Pillai said, “How can a study dismiss an entire system of medicine? In India, we have exhaustive studies on homoeopathy that show its efficacy. It’s now being used in veterinary care in US, Europe and India. It is even being used for supplementary therapy. I don’t think the study has been fair’’. Joint secretary Shiv Basant added: “The study is preposterous. Homeopathy stands on a firm foundation in over 66 countries. Treating homoeopathy like some kind of voodoo is outrageous. Some therapies might not work that well. But that does not mean we brand the entire practice as useless’’. Another health ministry official said, “We will soon send Lancet a detailed report on what homoeopathy has done over the years. I don’t think the printed study makes much of a difference. The market for homoeopathic remedies has exploded in the last five years — growing from $25m in 1999 to $32m in 2004 in over-the-counter sales. The complementary medicine market as a whole has been valued at 147 million pounds, showing an overall increase of 45% since 1999. Now, even general physicians are suggesting homoeopathy’’. Carried out by Matthias Egger, at the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine of the University of Berne in Switzerland, the study said homoeopathic treatment is no more effective than a placebo, the dummy substance used in medical trials.
This conclusion was reached after Dr Egger and his team reviewed a mountain of published evidence, comparing 110 trials of homoeopathic remedies against a placebo with 110 trials of conventional medicines. The ailments being treated in these trials included respiratory-tract infections,pollen allergies and asthma, gynaecological and obstetric problems, muscle and joint ache and intestinal upsets.
19-12-2010 Health minister leads India’s defence of h…
epaper.timesofindia.com/…/getFiles.asp?… 1/1
IIT-B team shows how homoeopathy works
| IIT-B team shows how homoeopathy works Malathy Iyer TNN (TOI, 16TH DEC, 2010) Mumbai: Six months after the British Medical Association wrote off homoeopathy as “witchcraft’’ that had no scientific basis, we may now have an irrefutable answer to what makes this ancient form of medicine click. Scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) have established that the sweet white pills work on the principle of nanotechnology. Homeopathic pills—made of naturally occurring metals such as gold and copper-—retain their potency even when diluted to a nanometre or one-billionth of a metre, states the IIT-B research published in the latest issue of Homoeopathy, a peer-reviewed journal published by the reputed Elsevier. IIT-B’s chemical engineering department bought commonly available homoeopathic pills from neighbourhood shops, prepared highly diluted solutions and checked under powerful electron microscopes to find nanoparticles of the original metal. “Our paper showed that certain highly diluted homoeopathic remedies made from metals still contain measurable amounts of the starting material, even at extreme dilutions of 1 part in 10 raised to 400 (200C),’’ said Dr Jayesh Bellare. His student, Prashant Chikramane, presented the paper ‘Extreme homoeopathic dilutions retain starting materials: A nanoparticulate perspective’, as part of his doctoral thesis. IIT theory proves what some homoeopaths have always known Homoeopathy was established in the late 18th century by German physician Samuel Hahnemann. While it is widely popular in certain countries, especially India, the British Medical Association and the British parliament have in recent times questioned homoeopathy’s potency. Around four years ago, British research papers rubbished homoeopathy as a mere “placebo’’. “Homoeopathy has been a conundrum for modern medicine. Its practitioners maintained that homeopathic pills got more potent on dilution, but they could never explain the mechanism scientifically enough for the modern scientists,’’ said Bellare. For instance, if an ink-filler loaded with red ink is introduced into the Powai lake, Bellare said, there would be no chance of ever tracing it. “But the fact is that homoeopathic pills have worked in extreme dilutions and its practitioners have been able to cure tough medical conditions,” he added. “We had analyzed ayurvedic bhasmas a few years ago and found nanoparticles to be the powering agent ,” the team members said. For the first time, scientists used equipment like transmission electron microscope, electron diffraction and emission spectroscopy to map physical entities in extremely dilution. They could measure nanoparticles of gold and copper (the original metal used in the medicines). American homoeopaths—Dr Joh Ives from Samueli Institute in Virginia and Joyce C Fryce from the Centre of Integrative Medicine, University of Maryland—said, “We are all familiar with the simple calculations showing that a series of 1:99 dilutions done sequentially will produce a significant dilution of the starting material in very short order,” they wrote in a special editorial in the journal. But as dilution increases, this theory goes awry. “(But) Chikramane et al found that, contrary to our arithmetic, there are nanogram quantities of the starting material still present in these ‘high potency’ remedies.’’ The hypothesis is that nanobubbles form on the surface of the highly diluted mixtures and float to the surface, retaining the original potency. “We believe we have cracked the homoeopathy conundrum,’’ said Bellare. According to homoeopath Dr Farokh J Master, the IIT theory has proven something what practitioners have always known. “My instruction to my patients has always been to dilute the pills in water and stir it 10 times with a spoon. Then remove the spoon , dip it in another cup of water and stir 10 times. I advise my patients to do this in five cups before discarding the first four cups and then drinking the fifth cup in two equal doses,’’ said Master. MEDICALFACTS FOR... Homeopathy works on the principles of nano-particles, say IIT-B's department of chemical engineering team Using state-of-the art techniques, they could find particles of the original element as small as one-billionth of a metre The hypothesis is that a nanoparticle-nanobubble rises to the surface of the diluted solution; it is this 1% of the top layer that is collected and further diluted. So, the concentration remains AGAINST... Homeopathy is merely a placebo, said a meta-analyses published in the Lancet in 2005. The British Medical Association said that homeopathy had no scientific basis; dub it witchcraft Many National Health Services in the UK excluded homeopathy from their purview   |
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