User talk:Ramanand Jhingade

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Homeopathy article

Welcome to CZ... I read the homeopathy article and the discussions.

My feeling is that much more should be written about the lab research that is done on animals and cell cultures. As you point out, sometimes there's no room for placebo effects.

What do you think? I can work with you on that if you agree it's a good idea.

Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 22:55, 31 August 2008 (CDT)

I'd be interested to hear about the work on cell cultures. I admit I have not seen anything since Benvenistes work. Chris Day 23:02, 31 August 2008 (CDT)

Chris, Ramanand,

Let's take a look at this:

http://www.science.smith.edu/departments/Biochem/Chm_357/Articles/homeopathy_molecular%20mechanisms.pdf

Towards understanding molecular mechanisms of action of homeopathic drugs: An overview - AR Khuda-Bukhsh - Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 2003 - Springer

Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 00:30, 1 September 2008 (CDT)

I looked at that article (why is it at the Smith College site?) and found the following sentences:

Davydov [18], who investigated solitons very carefully, postulated a ‘soliton excitation model’ which suggested that the homeopathic drugs acted like solitons which are responsible for ‘high temperature-superconductivity’ as well as for the well-known extraordinary sensitivity of biological systems. [...] Therefore, the question of transfer and retention of medicinal properties in the highly diluted homeopathic medicines has largely been satisfactorily explained within the confines of physical sciences.

So, high temperature-superconductivity explains satisfactorily that homeopathic drugs have medicinal properties. Superconductivity is of high technological and economical importance; there is much more money to be made from the high-T superconductivity of homeopathic drugs than from healing the sick.--Paul Wormer 09:24, 1 September 2008 (CDT)

Cher Pierre, Merci. I know Molecular Biologists are working on studies like that (I have read the article you mentioned); as a Doctor, I should be healing the sick. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I feel people should try Homeopathy before commenting on it.—Ramanand Jhingade 21:34, 1 September 2008 (CDT)

I tend to rely on the commentaries of people I trust. If somebody tells me he-she has witnessed spectacular changes after an homeopathic treatment, I trust him-her that it is not necessarily a placebo effect. There are at least four people around me, whose opinions I value, who told me about such changes. The evidence-based discourse classifies such testimonies as very low quality data in its hierarchy of truth, so I try very hard to explore the plausibility of homeopathy in other fields (lab research, physics, magnetic resonance imagery,...).

In the field of acupuncture, the use of modern imaging techniques changed everything. This is what I wrote in the acupoint page:

Scientific evidence

Until recently, it was believed that the existence of acupoints could not be scientifically demonstrated because the theoretical system underlying acupuncture was mystical in nature and the practice of acupuncture was alien to the scientific method.

However, neither the theoretical nor the practical context of acupoints could prevent modern research from studying their existence.

In 1998, the groundbreaking study by Lu & al.,(verif+quote needed), published in the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that a seemingly unimportant area of the fifth toe could cause an activation of the visual cortex, when properly localized and stimulated in accordance with traditional acupuncture theory and practice.

Following this discovery, a host of new researches using state-of-the-art neural imaging techniques obtained results as surprising with other acupoints (but not sham points).

In a 2005 review of 7 intense years of research on this previously neglected aspect of physiology, Lewith & al. appreciate the progress accomplished using modern imaging techniques:

Studies show that specific and largely predictable areas of brain activation and deactivation occur when considering the traditional Chinese functions attributable to certain specific acupuncture points. For example, points associated with hearing and vision stimulates the visual and auditory cerebral areas respectively".[2]

In Proof versus plausibility: rules of engagement for the struggle to evaluate alternative cancer therapies, John Hoffer explains to fellow doctors and critiques of CAM how CAMs should be approached fairly (he wrote in the Canadian Medical Association Journal):

The effort should be made to identify genuinely promising new approaches and to explore, rather than refute, them. (...)

The lesson to be learned from this is that the parameters of the debate about alternative therapies — the "rules of engagement" — between mainstream cancer researchers and proponents of alternative therapy need to be clearly defined and the goals must be explicit and common to both parties. To do otherwise leads to the risk of unintended confusion and heightening of the barrier of mistrust that already stands between many individuals involved in this debate. Proponents of alternative therapy have an obligation to provide grounds for biological plausibility, such as sound theoretical or preclinical data, or for clinical plausibility, in the form of authentic, well-prepared case reports, in order to justify the investment of time and energy in exploring the merits of a novel anticancer therapy. But plausibility, not proof, should be sufficient to initiate the process.

I hope to collaborate on biological plausibility; as I understand, you are working on clinical plausibility; it would be great to have "authentic, well-prepared case reports", do you agree?

Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 13:07, 2 September 2008 (CDT)