Researchers across France have looked at how Flu patients were treated in the 2009 – 2010 Flu season and to determine the characteristics and management of patients visiting allopathic general practitioners (AGPs) and homeopathic general practitioners (HGPs) for influenza-like illness (ILI).

The study was an observational study and looked at the records of AGPs (65) and HGPs (124) and took account of 461 patients.

The results showed that men tended to go to allopaths (who were also mainly men)and women to homeopaths (who were also manly women).

Patients of both kinds of doctors went to see them after the appearance of symptoms, (with AGP patients seeing their doctor earlier – after the appearance of symptoms than HGP patients) and both self treated – AGP patients with cough suppressants or expectorants, and HGP patients with homeopathic remedies.

The study reported in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, concluded that homeopathy is widely accepted for the treatment of Flu-type treatments in France, and does not preclude the use of allopathic medications.

However, patients treated with homeopathic medications only were more satisfied with their treatment than other patients.

Whilst many doctors are already concerned at the potentially negative effects on patients’ health of ‘overdiagnosis’ (and the costs incurred), this article looks at the problems conventional medicine faces with the technological expansion of healthcare in rich developed nations, as sceptical voices have long warned of the downside – too much medicine.

This article follows on from the BMJ issue (2002)which addressed the issues raised bythe medicalisation of birth, sex, and death, among other aspects of ordinary life.

The BMJ articles started by considering “whether doctors could become pioneers of de-medicalisation, handing back power to patients, resisting disease mongering, and demanding fairer global distribution of effective treatments.”

It has now moved on in its “Too Much Medicine” campaign and plans to highlight and contribute to the growing evidence base on overdiagnosis and overtreatment.

Researchers from the Laboratoires Boiron, at Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, in France have studied the use of homeopathic medicines in children with migraine.

The research, published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, was an observational, prospective, open, nonrandomized, noncomparative, multicenter study, undertaken in 12 different countries.

The researchers looked at results from homeopathic prescribing doctors (59) who were treating children (5-15) with migraine.

As in all homeopathy the doctors were able to diagnose their patients and come up with an individualised homeopathic remedy for them.

The results showed that the frequency, severity, and duration of migraine attacks decreased significantly during the 3-month follow-up period and children spent significantly less time off school during follow-up than before inclusion.

Almost all patients were given homeopathic remedies in order to try to prevent migraine (98%)

The most commonly used PREVENTATIVE homeopathic remedies were: Ignatia amara (25%; mainly 9C), Lycopodium clavatum (22%), Natrum muriaticum (21%), Gelsemium (20%), and Pulsatilla (12%; mainly 15C).

Homeopathy alone was used for the treatment of migraine attacks in a third of the cases (38%).

The most commonly used homeopathic remedies used as treatments were Belladonna (32%; mainly 9C), Ignatia amara (11%; mainly 15C), Iris versicolor (10%; mainly 9C), Kalium phosphoricum (10%; mainly 9C), and Gelsemium (9%; mainly 15C and 30C).

Homeopath Robert Medhurst has presented a year long series of articles on research validating homeopathy. This time the focus is on Paradoxical Effects of Drugs and Hormesis.

He reports how he once asked a prominent medical scientist and noted critic of Homoeopathy what he’d do if he were given the results of a clinical trial showing that homeopathy actually worked. His response was, “I’d design a different trial.”

From near and far for the last 70 odd years, those working in the area of Homoeopathy have been asked by their medical counterparts to, “Show us your proof!”  That proof has been around for quite some time. In the last 50 or so years there have been lots of trials conducted on these medicines, many done double blind and most, placebo controlled. In some respects it may be wise to look with scepticism at clinical trials themselves, particularly given comments made a while back in the Lancet by Canadian Epidemiologist, David Moher.  He found that in clinical trials done on orthodox drugs, the results in some cases may have been exaggerated by up to 50%. Although there are methodological difficulties involved with clinical trials and homeopathy, in the absence of any other objective measure, clinical trials are probably one of the best indicators we have. This is the first of a number of articles looking at the work that’s been done in this area. Prior to looking at these, I thought it might be useful to explore some of the non-clinical areas that provide some fairly solid proof of a homeopathic effect. Click here to see some of the more notable.

Most doctors and patients tend to take the term suppression for granted. They have only a vague sense of what it means as it applies to medicine—but what is it really and what impact does it have upon health? This great article discusses the phenomenon of suppression and how it lies at the very foundation of the explosion of chronic disease around the globe.