Why homeopathy is not a science, and dietary supplements are not medicines. "Shooting list" of homeopathic medicines

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

Dietary supplement - namely, a biologically active food supplement, is designed to supplement the diet with vitamins and minerals, which a person lacks in ordinary life. And homeopathic remedies are aimed at treating a person from various symptoms and diseases.
For example, at the beginning of the 21st century, one of the American skeptics offered one million dollars to those who 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 just 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 as a replenishment of the mineral and vitamin composition of food, and not in the treatment of various diseases. And if, as a result of some features of the body or a disease, for example, calcium is poorly absorbed by 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 powdered chalk 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 drugs are of plant origin. In homeopathic balls and potions, you can find a wide range of natural substances, up to poisons (I don’t remember that manufacturers of dietary supplements declared the presence of poisons in their pills).

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

In the manufacture of homeopathic preparations in accordance with the principles of homeopathy, the medicinal substances in the preparations are diluted to very small and often negligible concentrations, up to several millionths of a percent. The impact on the body of a patient of homeopathy is made with the help of information impact, and not 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 they are not counterfeited. I recommend looking on the Internet for what homeopathy is, perhaps the previous author will change his attitude towards this serious section 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 the therapeutic one.
If the dosages of active substances exceed the doses mentioned above, this is already a medicine.

What is the difference between dietary supplements and homeopathic medicines?

Dietary supplements are substances that seem to treat, but how exactly is not fully understood. Well, can they be obtained from other sources, such as fish oil. By the way, some dietary supplements later become medicines. And I also have tablets with almost the same composition under different brands, but some are bad, and others are medicine.
And homeopathic medicines know how they work. They work on the principle of "knock out a wedge with a wedge." That is, as an example, they treat the temperature 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. Explains Professor of Kazan Federal University Lilia Ziganshina

Interviewed by Ilnur Yarkhamov

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

However, the direction itself is more than 200 years old. Homeopathy during this time has acquired its own scientists, pharmacologists, research institutes, medical and health centers. But the most inspiring force comes from the homeopathic medicine companies. Therefore, it is not surprising that the so-called homeopathic lobby appeared in the scientific community.

The scientific life of Kazan is directly related to these events. Earlier, KazanFirst said that there is such a lobby at the Butlerov Chemical Institute of Kazan University. It blocks open public discussion 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 right to broadcast and replicate its scientific truth.

The Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology does not look at homeopathy as a science. All the clinical studies that are available to the Cochrane Library staff prove that homeopathy does not stand up to scientific scrutiny, the results do not prove the effectiveness of the treatment.

How should the system of admission of medicines to the market be built in Russia? Why is homeopathy comparable to believing in a miracle? Professor of the Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology Lilia Ziganshina spoke about this in an interview with KazanFirst.

- What is homeopathy?

I am not a professional in homeopathy. But I know insofar as I teach pharmacology. Homeopathy has been around 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 differs from the understanding of diseases and mechanisms of medicine in traditional medicine. There are some elements of rational grains in homeopathy.

But from the standpoint 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. Many such studies have been carried out. But for them to meet the requirements of evidence-based medicine - there are none.

During this rising 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 today. I typed the word "homeopathy" and a large number of Cochrane systematic reviews came out. There are so many that it's impossible to see them all at once.

The conclusions of almost all reviews in various fields of clinical medicine say that there is no conclusive evidence to support the effectiveness of homeopathy.

- What is the Cochrane Library?

It is the largest database of systematic reviews and clinical studies. At the same time, the library is considered as a periodical, as a journal. 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 health care system and in the health care economy. 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.

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

I don't know about this particular drug. Moreover, now there are a lot of biologically active additives. Perhaps such tricks are used to obtain regulatory approvals and 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, probably, regulatory requirements are somehow eased in order to obtain marketing authorization.

- In your opinion, how should the mechanism for admission of drugs to the pharmacological market be built?

I was lucky to work for 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 Hogerzeil. He served for many years as Director of the WHO Essential Medicines Department. I worked in his department, was a member of the 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.

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

But the most important thing that needs to be conveyed to our medical audience is that there should not be a discussion that some drugs are of high quality and others are not. This is the work of specialists in regulatory bodies. Doctors were not taught this. They were taught to make diagnoses, to choose the right medicines. And not about whether the medicine is of high quality or not, but because it works or not, whether it has pharmacological and side effects, and what these side effects are. Whether the side effects will be important to the patient. This is the level of competence not of doctors, but of pharmaceutical workers. We regularly publish rejected series of medicines. But the market mechanisms of manufacturers' interest exaggerate this discussion and involve both doctors themselves and their patients in it.

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

It is generally believed that the more diluted, the higher the potency of the homeopathic remedy. 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 agreed with this. There are no opponents here.

- What do you teach your students? Do you lecture them 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 deal with homeopathy. But before that, the staff of our department worked as the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Pharmacotherapy of the Kazan State Medical Academy. As part of the series of lectures on clinical pharmacology, we covered the issues of homeopathy. But it 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 innovationsXin pharmacology?

We have not yet managed to get licensed within the walls of KFU in order to carry out postgraduate education of doctors in clinical pharmacology. This is in our plans, we want to do it.

What is clinical pharmacology?

This branch of pharmacology, which deals with the study of drugs in application 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 direction has been developing as a practicing medical specialty. All the past years before joining KFU, we had the opportunity to introduce this specialty in Tatarstan. We were successful, in those years more than 55 clinical pharmacologists worked in Tatarstan.

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

And such experts are very much needed. They do not conflict with anyone anywhere, they can fit in and help. There are so many drugs, so many interactions between them, that the doctor simply does not have enough time to understand this, as he is absorbed by the patient.

Newspapers about traditional medicine are regularly left in the mailbox for my grandmother. Allegedly, some kind of badger fat cures everything: from eye diseases to feet. How to be with such medicine which preaches everything natural?

The strongest drugs that can kill on a needle, for example, cardiac glycosidedigoxin, are obtained from the purple or woolly 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 to take any dietary supplements at all. Never. If grandparents or their grandson eat a varied diet, and now there is access to many foodstuffs, 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, then you need to see a doctor and only he can prescribe the medicine.

Dietary supplements do not pass the control that medicines pass. They pass only through the regulations of the food industry. And they can 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 young, but not 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 not a virtual center, along with a large number of research laboratories at the departments. We want to be the center that would determine the vector of development of medical and pharmaceutical education.

Today we have 18 people officially employed at a share of rates. But we work tirelessly, day and night, on Saturday and Sunday. This is not only the staff of the department, but also the youth.

- Is your main credo education or research?

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

It turned out that homeopathy is pseudo-scientific, that many people take homeopathic medicines and do not 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 a lot of opponents of empty drugs, and you can outwit them and sell them your drug only if you shyly hide your face and call your drug not homeopathic, but simply supposedly with a “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, a neurologist Nikita Zhukov, people waste money on a number of widely used drugs in Russia.

To begin with, let's talk about the so-called "hidden homeopathy", which is trying in every possible way to hide its affiliation with homeopathy thanks to crooked formulations. However, it does not contain an active substance: in 100,000,000 tablets there is approximately one of its molecules or even less, since antibodies are very large protein molecules (this is unknown to homeopaths, they “can’t” in chemistry, physics and biology).

ANAFERON: prevention and treatment of SARS; antibodies to human gamma interferon, affinity purified - 0.003 g with a content of not more than 10-15 ng / g (nanogram of substance per gram of tablet). Included in the recommendations for the prevention of SARS and influenza from 2007.

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

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

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

PROPROTEN-100: remedy 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 bowel problems; antibodies to human tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) - 0.006 g, antibodies to the brain-specific protein S-100 - 0.006 g, antibodies to histamine - 0.006 g. 100 12, 100 30, 100 200 times.

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

AFLUBIN: for the treatment and prevention of SARS and influenza. Contains herbs (gentian, aconite, bryony) 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. In the composition of chamomile, belladonna, nightshade, backache, plantain and carbonic lime named after Hahnemann (Calcium carbonicum Hahnemanni, “In homeopathy, carbonic lime obtained from oyster shells is used. can be replaced by no other preparations, since it was with this kind of calcareous preparation that Hannemann made his experiments”).

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

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

INFLUCID: from SARS and influenza. Aconite, gelsemium, emetic root, stepping stone, window sill and phosphorus. Herbs they are herbs, but you can read about homeopathic phosphorus in a collection of jokes.

MASTODYNON: for the treatment of fibrocystic mastopathy, which usually does not require treatment. As part of the grass (prutnyak, stalk, violet, pectoral, killer whale, lily) in different dilutions.

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

REMS: PMS, menopause, amenorrhea and other gynecological things. Contains plants of black cohosh, pilocarpus, sanguinaria, plus something "lachesis" from the venom of the South American snake, cuttlefish ink. The further, the more scientific, you will not say anything.

TRAUMEL S: for fractures, dislocations and other small things, like arthritis and bursitis. A whole bunch of herbs: calendula, arnica, witch hazel, yarrow, St. calcareum), “a mixture of equal parts of an oyster shell, crushed into a fine powder, and pure sulfur powder is aged for 10 minutes in white heat.” If, then you can go crazy with laughter.

CINNABSIN: treatment of sinusitis. Two herbs (golden root, echinacea) and two magical ingredients: mercury sulfide, potassium dichromate.

ENGYSTOL: such an immunomodulator for the treatment of any inflammatory and infectious diseases. Contains three different herb dilutions with the cool name "swallowtail" and two dilutions of sulfur.

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

AGRI: homeopathic antigrippin; contains herbs aconite, belladonna, stepping stone, lumbago, plus the above-mentioned sulfuric liver, iron phosphate and (most interesting) arsenic iodide, in more detail - carefully, nonsense. Included in the 2007 influenza treatment guidelines.

Ocillococcinum: a real benchmark. Are there still people who have not heard about the discovery of parallel universes by homeopaths? So: the drug contains the liver of some 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 remedy. It contains a whole ecosystem: backache, sorrel, stepping stone, emetic root, sundew, sea burnt sponge (Spongia marina tosta), cochineal worm (such an insect), lichen lobaria pulmonary and some (apparently original content) "myocarde" (myocarde).

Most importantly, if you have ever "helped" any of these drugs, then it was a 100% placebo effect. You can continue to use them on your own responsibility, but they have nothing to do with medicine. All uses of the word "contains" are metaphors.

Often in vernacular one can hear something like: "When we have a cold, we prefer to be treated with homeopathy: with some herbs, in general, with natural remedies." There is a mistake in this phrase - herbal medicine, traditional medicine differ from homeopathy in the same way as a truck differs from a scooter.

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

Dietary supplements are biologically active food supplements, in other words, food fortifiers, which are increasingly needed in our world due to the deterioration in 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 the deficiency of micro-macroelements, vitamins, proteins leads to metabolic disorders and the development of various chronic diseases. The statistics of morbidity in schools, 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, therefore, 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.

Nutrition, 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 products, their absorption by the body, consumption, expenditure, their role in maintaining health or causing diseases.

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

Both of these directions are not related to homeopathy and differ significantly from it. Therefore, drinking a glass of fragrant herbal infusion, it is incorrect to say that you use 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 notion that "like cures like" (similia similibus curantur). The founder of homeopathy Hahnemann proceeded from the fact 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 system of treatment, he deduced a number of patterns that come from a method of treatment that differs from the classical one.
It seems to sound 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 will find strength, reserves and a way to cope with it. And by learning to cope with a small symptom, you can cope with a full-fledged disease. In the old days, the body was accustomed to poison in such a way as 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 caused controversy for a long time, there were separate facts and explanations of the operation of the principle, but since there was not enough reliable data on the effectiveness of this method, Memorandum No. 2 of February 6, 2017 methods of diagnosis and treatment were recognized as pseudoscientific and it was recommended that the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation reconsider, in the light of relevant scientific data, 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. A dietary supplement, unlike a homeopathic remedy, helps to compensate for the deficiency of essential biologically active substances (nutrients) in order to prevent the development of pathologies associated with beriberi, microelementoses, etc.