Australian study says homeopathy is no more effective than a placebo
Homeopathy, which is trying to muscle its way into mainstream health care, is ineffective and may even do more harm than good, study finds
Homeopathy is no more effective than a placebo, according to an extensive study by Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).
The council assessed research into the effectiveness of the alternative medicine on 68 health conditions and concluded "there is no reliable evidence that homeopathy is effective".
Homeopathy claims to "let likes cure like", by using highly diluted forms of the ailment it is treating. The Australian Homeopathic Association states the practice treats patients as a "whole person, taking into account personality, lifestyle and hereditary factors as well as the history of the disease".
But the NHMRC review, conducted by a working committee of medical experts, said homeopathy had no impact on a range of conditions and illnesses including asthma, arthritis, sleep disturbances, cold and flu, chronic fatigue syndrome, eczema, cholera, burns, malaria and heroin addiction.
It’s very easy for people to fall in[to a] trap that because they did ‘A’, ‘B’ follows
For the 68 conditions - including those listed - the review either concluded definitively that homeopathy was not more effective than a placebo, or at the very least there was no reliable evidence to suggest it was.
"No good-quality, well-designed studies with enough participants for a meaningful result reported either that homeopathy caused greater health improvements than a substance with no effect on the health condition [placebo], or that homeopathy caused health improvements equal to those of another treatment," the report said.