Why homeopathy is not a science, and dietary supplements are not medicines. “Hit list” of homeopathic medicines

The main difference between dietary supplements and homeopathic remedies is their purpose.

A dietary supplement, namely a biologically active food supplement, is designed to supplement the diet with vitamins and minerals that a person lacks in everyday life. Homeopathic remedies are aimed at treating a person for various symptoms and diseases.
For example, at the beginning of the 21st century, one of the American skeptics offered $1 million to anyone who could prove the effectiveness of homeopathic remedies, and it is worth noting that no one has taken this money yet! Many doctors and scientific associations call homeopathic remedies a Placebo pill, and precisely a dummy, an exclusively commercial enterprise that has nothing to do with medicine.
With dietary supplements, everything is also not so simple; they can really help the body, but only to replenish the mineral and vitamin composition of food, and not in the treatment of various diseases. And if, due to some characteristics of the body or illness, for example, calcium is poorly absorbed in you, it will also not be absorbed in dietary supplements. And modern businessmen make millions and billions of profits by promising people a miraculous recovery from ordinary chalk powder and a beautiful jar.

To buy or not to buy is still your choice. After all, even the Placebo effect sometimes cures

Homeopathic remedies are made not only from botanical raw materials, although 60% of medicines are of plant origin. In homeopathic pellets and mixtures you can find a wide range of natural substances, even poisons (I don’t remember that dietary supplement manufacturers declare the presence of poisons in their pills).

The main difference between dietary supplements and homeopathic medicines is the concentration of the substance from which they are produced.

When preparing homeopathic preparations in accordance with the principles of homeopathy, the healing substances in the preparations are diluted to very small and often negligible concentrations, down to several millionths of a percent. The impact of homeopathy on the patient’s body is made through informational influence, and not through the medicinal properties of the drug.

As for dietary supplements, their effect on the body occurs due to the very substance from which the dietary supplement is prepared.

Regarding the previous answer, I would like to add that homeopathy is recognized throughout the world, as well as in Russia, as a traditional method of treatment; homeopathy has no side effects, there are no allergies from homeopathic remedies, they are cheap and not counterfeited. I recommend looking on the Internet what homeopathy is, perhaps the previous author will change his attitude towards this serious branch of medicine.

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The most correct interpretation of the answer is given by the reference book "Register of Dietary Supplements" in the section "Question-Answer about Dietary Supplements" registrbad.ru/bad/faq.php Definitely, homeopathic preparations are medicines. Therefore, the difference between dietary supplements and drugs should be considered. It is generally accepted that dietary supplements are nutraceuticals and parapharmaceuticals.
Nutraceuticals are sources of nutrients in doses not exceeding six daily human needs. Parapharmaceuticals are sources of nutrients in which the dosage of active substances is lower than therapeutic.
If the dosage of active substances exceeds the doses mentioned above, it is already a medicine.

What is the difference between dietary supplements and homeopathic medicines?

Dietary supplements are substances that seem to cure, but how exactly is not completely clear. Can they be obtained from other sources, such as fish oil? By the way, some dietary supplements later become medicines. I also have tablets with almost the same composition under different brands, but some are a dietary supplement, while others are medicine.
And homeopathic medicines know how they work. They work on the principle of “knocks out a wedge with a wedge.” That is, as an example, they treat fever with an antipyretic in a low dosage. Because of the drug, the body’s reactivity to this symptom increases and, as a result, the body begins to fight further on its own.

These are different groups of drugs with different mechanisms of action on the body.

Why homeopathy is not a science. Professor of the Kazan Federal University Liliya Ziganshina explains

Interviewed by Ilnur Yarkhamov

Two weeks ago, a special commission at the Russian Academy of Sciences recognized that homeopathy as a medical field is pseudoscientific. The Russian Ministry of Health and the Federal Antimonopoly Service supported the scientists' conclusions.

However, the direction itself is more than 200 years old. During this time, homeopathy acquired its own scientists, pharmacologists, research institutes, medical and health centers. But the companies that produce homeopathic medicines are the most impressive force. Therefore, it is not surprising that the so-called homeopathic lobby has appeared in the scientific community.

The scientific life of Kazan is directly related to these events. Previously, KazanFirst reported that there is such a lobby at the Butlerov Chemical Institute of Kazan University. It blocks open public debate around homeopathy.

⇒ Kazan Federal University has its own homeopathic lobby

But the Institute of Chemistry is not the only structural unit of the university that has the rights to broadcast and replicate its scientific truth.

At the Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology, homeopathy is not viewed as a science. All clinical studies that are available to staff in the Cochrane Library prove that homeopathy does not stand up to scientific criticism; the results do not prove the effectiveness of the treatment.

How should the system for admitting drugs to the market be structured in Russia? Why is homeopathy comparable to believing in a miracle? Liliya Ziganshina, professor at the Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology, spoke about this in an interview with KazanFirst.

- What is homeopathy?

I am not a professional in homeopathy. But I know because I teach pharmacology. Homeopathy has existed since ancient times. The German physician Hahnemann is the founder of this trend.

Homeopathy can be defined as the treatment of like with like. Homeopathy has its own understanding of the disease and the action of the medicine. It is different from the understanding of diseases and drug mechanisms in traditional medicine. In homeopathy there are some elements of rational grains.

But from the perspective of evidence-based medicine, there are no high-quality studies that would confirm the effectiveness of homeopathic interventions for diseases that are clinically significant for the health and fate of patients. A lot of such studies have been carried out. But for them to meet the requirements of evidence-based medicine, there are none.

During this wave of interest in homeopathy, I searched the Cochrane Library for research results. This is the main source of evidence-based knowledge in the field of health care today. I typed in the word “homeopathy” and a large number of Cochrane systematic reviews came out. There are so many of them that you won’t be able to look through them all at once.

The conclusions of almost all reviews in a wide range of clinical areas say that there is no convincing evidence to support the effectiveness of homeopathy.

- What is the Cochrane Library?

This is the largest database of systematic reviews and clinical studies. At the same time, the library is considered as a periodical, as a magazine. It has periodic releases. It is very prestigious to publish in it; the impact factor is more than 6 units. This is health research in all areas of clinical medicine. Including in the organization of the healthcare system and in the economics of healthcare. These are scientists from all over the world. Today it is more than 130 countries of the world. The Collaboration has over 37,000 people who are actively involved in the development of Cochrane systematic reviews. There are many works in the Cochrane library that refer to homeopathy. But there is still no evidence that would be confirmed in well-conducted clinical studies.

There are supporters of homeopathy among women. They use the drug "Mastodinon". It is considered homeopathic and women see that it cures. It seems to me that the medicine contains a significant proportion of active ingredients. In my opinion, Mastodinon is more of a herbal medicine. But for some reason it is still called a homeopathic remedy. Why did this happen, is it some kind of mimicry?

I don't know this particular drug. Moreover, there are now a lot of biologically active supplements. It is possible that such tricks are used to obtain regulatory approvals quite widely. I used to work with regulatory authorities. Now I am not in control of the situation. I can't comment. If everything you say is true, then this is a very sad situation. For homeopathic medicines today, the regulatory requirements are probably somehow eased in order to obtain marketing authorization.

- In your opinion, how should the mechanism for admitting drugs to the pharmacological market be structured?

I was lucky enough to work at the World Health Organization. It has a mandate to make recommendations to countries and their health systems.

How should it be? The process is very important. There is such a professor, Hans Hogerseil. He served for many years as Director of the WHO Department of Essential Medicines. I worked in his department and was part of a committee of experts on the selection and use of medicines. He developed the concept of drug selection. The procedure for developing this drug list is extremely important. We have been building this system in Tatarstan for many years.

Selection of drugs is a procedure that, in its essence, should be horizontal and work on a “bottom-up” principle. That is, it was not an order from above to do something or include any medications. And from below, from healthcare professionals - doctors who will treat, pharmacists who will provide medications.

But the most important thing that needs to be conveyed to our medical audience is that it should not be exposed to the discussion that some drugs are of high quality and others are not. This is the job of specialists in regulatory authorities. Doctors were not taught this. They were taught to make diagnoses and select the right medications. And not whether the medicine is of high quality or not, but therefore whether it works or not, whether it has pharmacological and side effects, and what these side effects are. Will the side effects be important to the patient? This is the level of competence not of doctors, but of pharmaceutical workers. We regularly publish rejected batches of drugs. But the market mechanisms of interest of manufacturers exaggerate this discussion and involve both the doctors themselves and their patients in it.

Let's return to homeopathy. There are two main principles by which homeopathic medicine is created. First, like is cured by like. That is, a substance that harms the body can also cure it. The second is ultra-high and multiple dilution of the active substance in water. Don't you think these principles are mutually exclusive?

In general, it is believed that the more repeated the dilution, the higher the activity of the homeopathic medicine. These principles actually argue with the principles of our pharmacological science, with the postulates of theoretical science. In my opinion, homeopathy is akin to a religious worldview. Its principles must be professed.

The level of development today still requires proof. Today the whole world has agreed with this. There are no opponents here.

- What do you teach your students? Do you give them lectures on homeopathy?

Today we teach students basic, clinical pharmacology, evidence-based medicine. As part of our teaching activities at the university, we did not have the opportunity to study homeopathy. But before that, the staff of our department worked as the department of clinical pharmacology and pharmacotherapy of the Kazan State Medical Academy. As part of the series of lectures on clinical pharmacology, we covered issues of homeopathy. But this was scientific coverage. Homeopathy is a phenomenon, it exists, it has its own history.

- Do you gather doctors to tell them about the latest developments and innovations?Xin pharmacology?

We have not yet managed to undergo licensing within the walls of KFU in order to provide postgraduate education for doctors in clinical pharmacology. This is in our plans, we want to do this.

- What is clinical pharmacology?

This is a branch of pharmacology that studies drugs as applied to a sick person, depending on the etiology of his disease and the characteristics of his body and kinetic characteristics. The father of domestic clinical pharmacology is Boris Evgenievich Votchal. He gave roughly this definition. Clinical pharmacology as a science in our country has been developing since the 60s of the last century.

And since 1997, this area has been developing as a practicing medical specialty. In all the past years before joining KFU, we had the opportunity to introduce this specialty in Tatarstan. We were successful; more than 55 clinical pharmacologists worked in Tatarstan in those years.

Since we have not yet submitted documents for licensing residency training in clinical pharmacology, we do not train clinical pharmacologists. If in our first years of work at KFU, the chief doctors, out of old memory, called me and asked to assign them a clinical pharmacologist, now people have lost the habit, they are used to doing without a clinical pharmacologist.

And such specialists are very much needed. They don’t conflict with anyone anywhere, they can fit in and help. There are so many medications, there are so many interactions between them that the doctor simply does not have enough time to understand it, since he is absorbed in the patient.

My grandmother is regularly left with newspapers about traditional medicine in her mailbox. Allegedly, some kind of badger fat cures everything: from eye diseases to legs. What to do with medicine that preaches everything natural?

The most powerful drugs that can kill on a needle, for example, cardiac glycosidedigoxin, are obtained from the foxglove plant. Morphine, too, depending on the dose, can kill on the needle. It is obtained from the milky juice of the poppy.

Traditional medicine exploits people's understanding that everything that is natural and natural is useful and harmless. This is not true. We are talking about chemophobia.

I would recommend not taking any dietary supplements at all. Never. If grandparents or their grandson eat a varied diet, and now have access to many foods, if a person is in the sun more often, sleeps well and generates only good thoughts, then no dietary supplements are needed. And if something hurts, you need to see a doctor and only he can prescribe medicine.

Dietary supplements do not undergo the same control as medicines. They only pass through food industry regulations. And they may contain very potent substances or drugs.

- Tell us about your center. How did he appearIin a large family of KFU departments? How many people work here and what do you do?

Our scientific and educational center for evidence-based medicine “Cochrane-Russia” was established by order of the rector on July 11, 2016. We are still very small, but we are no longer newborns.

We are very glad that we were not called a research laboratory, but a scientific and educational center. This is what reflects what we do. We want to be a non-virtual center, along with a large number of research laboratories at departments. We want to be a center that determines the vector of development of medical and pharmaceutical education.

Today we have 18 people officially employed at a fraction of the rate. But we work tirelessly, day and night, Saturday and Sunday. These are not only department employees, but also young people.

- Is your main credo education or research?

Educational and research. It is wrong to separate them like that; they are inextricably linked. In science, systematic Cochrane reviews are being developed.

About the pseudoscience of homeopathy, it turned out that many people take homeopathic medicines and don’t even know about it.

The reason is simple: manufacturers carefully try to hide the essence of their crafts under scientific definitions and words. However, this is nothing new, because there have always been many opponents of empty drugs, and you can outwit them and sell them your drug only if you bashfully hide your face and call your drug not homeopathic, but simply supposedly with “low concentration.”

According to one of the experts who signed the anti-homeopathic memorandum of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the head of the Encyclopatia.ru project, neurologist Nikita Zhukov, people uselessly spend money on a number of widely used drugs in Russia.

First, let's talk about the so-called “hidden homeopathy,” which tries in every possible way to hide its belonging to homeopathy thanks to crooked formulations. However, it does not contain an active substance: in 100,000,000 tablets there is approximately one molecule of it or even less, since antibodies are very large protein molecules (homeopaths do not know this; they “cannot” study chemistry, physics and biology).

ANAFERON: prevention and treatment of ARVI; affinity purified antibodies to human interferon gamma – 0.003 g with a content of no more than 10–15 ng/g (nanograms of substance per gram of tablet). Included in the recommendations for the prevention of acute respiratory viral infections and influenza from 2007.

ARTROFUN: rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and other joint diseases; antibodies to human TNF-α at a dosage of 10–15 ng/g.

IMPAZA: treatment of impotence. Some pro-erection antibodies to endothelial NO synthase, affinity purified, in what dosage? Yes, yes, 10 −15 ng/g.

TENOTEN: sedative; antibodies to brain-specific protein S-100/Tenoten): oral antibodies in a dosage of 10–15 ng.

PROPROTENE-100: drug for the treatment of alcoholism; antibodies to the brain-specific protein S-100 at a dosage of 10 −1991 (!) ng/g.

KOLOFORT: treatment of IBS and other intestinal problems; antibodies to human tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) - 0.006 g, antibodies to brain-specific protein S-100 - 0.006 g, antibodies to histamine - 0.006 g are applied to lactose in the form of a mixture of three active aqueous-alcoholic dilutions of the substance, diluted respectively in 100 12, 100 30, 100 200 times.

The next group of drugs, theoretically, judging by calculations, may contain some amount of the active substance, but we will never know for sure. Manufacturers use homeopathic terminology and dilution methods (“D” with a digital index indicates the degree of dilution: D1 = 10, D2 = 100, D3 = 1000, etc.), which are not generally accepted and are not tested in any way. The main problem is that homeopathic medicines with the possible presence of some substances may have an undesirable effect, but no one has any idea what, since homeopathy is not a science and does not require scientific (or any other) testing of its medicines.

AFLUBIN: for the treatment and prevention of acute respiratory viral infections and influenza. Contains herbs (gentian, aconite, bryonia) in various dilutions, iron phosphate and lactic acid (also diluted) and ethyl alcohol in a normal concentration of 43%. Included in the 2007 influenza treatment guidelines.

VIBURCOL: antipyretic and anti-inflammatory agent in the treatment of respiratory diseases in children. It contains chamomile, belladonna, nightshade, lumbago, plantain and carbonated lime named after Hannemann (Calcium carbonicum Hahnemanni, “In homeopathy, carbonated lime obtained from oyster shells is used. The carbonated lime obtained in this way is not chemically pure, but, nevertheless, not can be replaced by any other drugs, since it was with this kind of lime preparation that Hannemann carried out his experiments."

You can buy this amazing substance separately. What’s most interesting is that the stronger the dilution, the less substance there is and... the more expensive it is! Ideal business.

GENTOS: from cystitis and prostatitis. Trees are also used: poplar, sabal (palm tree), as well as hemlock, iron picrate and potassium iodide, of course, in dilutions and with the most important active component - 43% ethanol.

INFLUCID: from ARVI and influenza. Aconite, gelsemium, emetic root, steppe, sable and phosphorus. Herbs are herbs, but you can read about homeopathic phosphorus in a collection of jokes.

MASTODINON: for the treatment of fibrocystic mastopathy, which usually does not require treatment. Contains herbs (twig, cohosh, violet, pearwort, iris, lily) in different dilutions.

PUMPAN: homeopathic cardiology (coronary heart disease, heart failure, arrhythmias). Contains hawthorn, ram, lily of the valley, foxglove and potassium carbonate.

REMENS: PMS, menopause, amenorrhea and other gynecological things. Contains black cohosh, pilocarpus, sanguinaria plants, plus something “lachesis” from the venom of a South American snake, cuttlefish ink. The further, the more scientific, you can’t say anything.

TRAUMEL S: for fractures, dislocations and other minor issues such as arthritis and bursitis. A whole bouquet of herbs: calendula, arnica, witch hazel, yarrow, St. John's wort, belladonna, wrestler, chamomile, comfrey, daisy, echinacea, plus mercury oxide named after Hannemann himself (Mercurius solubilis Hahnemanni) and something completely magical: calcareous sulfur liver (Hepar sulphuris calcareum), “a mixture of equal parts of oyster shell ground into fine powder and pure sulfur powder is kept in white heat for 10 minutes.” If so, then you might go crazy laughing.

CINNABSIN: treatment of sinusitis. Two herbs (goldenseal, echinacea) and two magic ingredients: mercury sulfide, potassium dichloride.

ENGISTOL: such an immunomodulator for the treatment of any inflammatory and infectious diseases. Contains three different dilutions of the herb with the cool name “swallow swallow” and two dilutions of sulfur.

And now classical homeopathy - super pacifiers, the manufacturers of which do not hide the fact that there is nothing inside.

AGRI: homeopathic antigrippin; contains the herbs aconite, belladonna, steppe, lumbago, plus the above-mentioned sulfur liver, iron phosphate and (the most interesting) arsenic iodide, more details - be careful, nonsense. Included in the 2007 influenza treatment guidelines.

OSCILLOCOCCINUM: a true standard. Are there still people who have not heard about the discovery of parallel universes by homeopaths? So: the drug contains the liver of a certain Barbary duck unknown to biologists (perhaps this is a real Muscovy duck) in such a dilution that, most likely, it exists somewhere in a parallel world. The drug was included in the recommendations for the treatment of influenza from 2007.

STODAL: cough suppressant. Contains a whole ecosystem: lumbago, sorrel, steppe, emetic root, sundew, burnt sea sponge (Spongia marina tosta), Cochineal mealybug (an insect), Lobaria pulmonata lichen and some (apparently, original content) “myocarde”.

The most important thing: if you were ever “helped” by any of these drugs, then it was a 100% placebo effect. You can continue to use them at your own risk, but they have nothing to do with medicine. All uses of the word “contains” are metaphors.

Often in common parlance you can hear something like: “When we have a runny nose, we prefer to be treated with homeopathy: some herbs, or natural remedies in general.” There is an error in this phrase - herbal medicine and traditional medicine differ from homeopathy in the same way as a truck differs from a scooter.

Let's figure out what dietary supplements, herbal medicine and homeopathy are.

Dietary supplements are biologically active food additives, in other words, food fortifiers, which are increasingly needed in our world due to the deterioration of the quality of products and the growing deficiency of vitamins, microelements and other important biologically active substances in the population, starting from childhood.

It is no longer a secret that a deficiency of micro-macroelements, vitamins, and proteins leads to metabolic disorders and the development of various chronic diseases. The statistics of morbidity in schools and ailments among schoolchildren is impressive in scope - about 50% of primary school students feel weak, lethargic and unable to concentrate on educational material due to a lack of essential nutrients - proteins, vitamins, minerals.

Dietary supplements are not a medicine, so general practitioners not only do not prescribe them, they may not know many of the nuances of nutrition, because This is the sphere of another narrow specialty - a dietitian or nutritionist.

Nutritionology, in short, is the science of nutrition of body cells, one of the modern branches of dietetics. More precisely, it is the science of the role of individual food ingredients - nutrients, nutrients and other components that are contained in foods, their absorption by the body, consumption, expenditure, and their role in maintaining health or the occurrence of diseases.

Herbal medicine, in turn, is the treatment and prevention of chronic diseases with the help of medicinal plants. In modern medicine, herbal medicine is used as an additional method of treatment. Hippocrates also described more than two hundred medicinal plants, recommending herbal medicine as one of the most effective and at the same time gentle ways to get rid of many ailments. While the effectiveness of some alternative methods of healing is often questioned, herbal medicine methods are not only approved by modern medicine, but are also actively practiced. There are traditional methods of herbal medicine, which are an integral part of traditional therapy, and medical ones, which is one of the areas of scientific medicine. In modern medicine, unlike traditional medicine, phytotherapeutic preparations are practically not used independently. Modern herbal medicine is herbal treatment as an addition to drug therapy.

Both of these directions are not related to homeopathy and differ significantly from it. Therefore, when drinking a glass of fragrant herbal infusion, it is incorrect to say that you are using homeopathy. So what is homeopathy?

Homeopathy, a method of treatment that has existed for more than 200 years, is based on two principles. The first is the idea that “like cures like” (similia similibus curantur). The founder of homeopathy, Hanemann, believed that an overdose of certain drugs leads to the appearance of symptoms of the same disease that is being treated, and therefore like should be treated with like. For such a treatment system, he derived a number of patterns that come from a different method of treatment from the classical one.
It seems absurd, but homeopaths believe that if you give such a substance to the body in a minimal dose, the body will try to cope with it, and it will find strength, reserves and a way to cope with it. And having learned to cope with a small symptom, you can cope with a full-blown disease. In the old days, the body was accustomed to poison in order to save itself from poisoning. It should be noted that the vaccination system in official medicine is based on this principle.

The second principle is that small concentrations of a substance can have a more pronounced therapeutic effect. This principle has been controversial for a long time, there were individual facts and explanations for the action of the principle, but since there was not enough reliable data on the effectiveness of this method, on Memorandum No. 2 of February 6, 2017, a number of specialists in the field of medicine, biology, chemistry, pharmacology, homeopathic diagnostic and treatment methods were recognized as pseudoscientific and it was recommended that the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation reconsider, in the light of current scientific data, the decisions taken more than 20 years ago without sufficient grounds to introduce homeopathy into the Russian healthcare system.

So, dietary supplements are food, and homeopathy is (was considered until recently) a medicine. Dietary supplements, unlike homeopathic remedies, help replenish the deficiency of essential biologically active substances (nutrients) in order to prevent the development of pathologies associated with vitamin deficiencies, microelementosis, etc.