Homeopathy key to ovarian cysts?

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Ovarian Cysts

A cyst is a fluid-filled sac. In most cases a cyst on the ovary does no harm and goes away by itself. Most women have them sometime during their lives. Cysts are rarely cancerous in women under 50. Cysts sometimes hurt - but not always. Often, a woman finds out about a cyst when she has a pelvic exam.

When 40-year-old Nisha felt muscles to the right of her abdomen go into a spasm, she gasped in pain. It recurred over the next two months. An
ultrasound scan revealed she had a 30 mm cyst in her right ovary.

-Each time Reena, 50, ate oily food, she suffered shooting pain in her gall bladder. Doctors said she had gallstones. The only solution advised was to remove it.

Such chronic cases are typically treated by allopaths because most people wouldn't want to hand themselves over to homeopaths. After all, hardly anyone has heard of homeopathy dissolving gall stones and causing cysts to disappear. But it can happen.

Nisha says, "I was told to take birth control pills as these prevent the ovaries from producing eggs during ovulation." Cysts, incidentally, are formed when a follicle fails to rupture and release an egg, leaving behind fluid which forms a cyst.

Nisha didn't want to take contraceptive pills. Instead, she took a three-month course of homeopathic pills and pain-relieving tablets. After three months, another scan showed the cyst had disappeared.

Homeopathy's efficacy in ovarian cysts was corroborated, says Dr C Nayak, director, Central Council for Research in Homeopathy, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, by an article in the British Homeopathic Journal. The article, 'Homeopathic treatment of ovarian cysts', cited a study of 40 women with ovarian cysts. "After nine months of homeopathic treatment, the cysts disappeared in 90% cases," the article said.

Gallstones are another affliction that homeopaths claim they can treat. Incidentally, the Dalai Lama too suffered from it and opted for surgery recently.

The gall bladder stores bile which helps in digestion. When bile contains too much cholesterol, it can harden into stones. In allopathy, the only option is removing the gall bladder. While homeopathic doctors say removal of bladder may lead to irritation in the small intestine, detractors of homeopathy aren't convinced.

Dr Pradeep Chowbey, laparoscopic and endoscopic surgeon, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, says, "The gall bladder needs to be removed as the actual disease is in the wall of the organ. When its concentration goes down, stones are formed. Cholesterol is another factor. Some 6.9% of these stones can become cancerous. I doubt homeopathy's efficacy here."

There is excruciating pain when gallstones move and get lodged in ducts causing inflammation, fever and jaundice. A diet high in fats and low in fibre causes it.

Dr Kalyan Banerjee, a leading homeopath, counters this. "Homeopathy boosts the immune system and dissolves the stones, provided they aren't too hard," he says. "Patients should try homeopathic medicines for six months, before opting for surgery. Even after surgery, stones can recur in the bile duct."

On ovarian cysts, Dr Neerja Batla, additional professor, AIIMS, says cysts less than 50 mm usually regress on their own. "I'm not sure how far homeopathy helps."

Banerjee says, "Acute benign cysts take about six months to disappear. If it doesn't work out even then, surgery is advised." But get the cyst tested for malignancy. "If malignant, the ovaries and uterus are removed," he says.

Adds Nayak, "Our council conducted a clinical study to ascertain usefulness of a homeopathic medicine, Fel taur, for gallstones. Results showed that out of 267 patients, 262 showed improvement in varying degrees."

But ovarian cyst-sufferer Nisha has the last word on detractors of homeopathic treatment for her condition. "After the shooting pains I went through even with a 30 mm cyst and the consequent acidity through painkillers, homeopathy has given me a new lease of life."
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Move to make people use homeopathy for mother, child care

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TO Sensitise policy and opinion-makers, professionals of other systems of medicine, social scientists and commoners on benefits of homoeopathy, city-based Abhin Chandra Homeopathic Medical College and Hospital will organise a Statelevel campaign on ‘Homoeopathy for mother and child care’ here from tomorrow.


The two-day workshop will be organised by the State Health Department and Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

The Centre has selected Orissa as one of the few states to implement and use homoeopathy for mother and child health (MCH) as the existing infrastructure in the field at government sector is quite good, but due to several other reasons overall MCH implementation is not up to the mark.

Two New Studies Find Anti-Homeopathy Review Wrong

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In August of 2005, the prestigious British medical journal the Lancet published a review comparing clinical trials of homeopathy with trials of conventional medicine. The conclusion of this study, which was widely hailed as evidence that homeopathy is worthless quackery, stated that homeopathic medicines are non-effective and, at best, just placebos. What’s more, an accompanying editorial in the Lancet said this “evidence” should close the door on the non-toxic, alternative treatment method, and flatly proclaimed this review should mark “the end of homeopathy”. Now two newly published studies, one in the journal Homeopathy and the other in the mainstream medical Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, have both gone on record to say the Lancet review was enormously flawed and downright inaccurate. Instead of showing homeopathy doesn't work, the conclusion should have been that, at least for some ailments, it is effective.

Homeopathy involves giving very small doses of substances called remedies that, according to homeopathy, would produce the same or similar symptoms of illness in healthy people if they were given in larger doses. The goal of homeopathy is to stimulate the body's defense system in order to prevent or treat illness. Homeopathy treatment is tailored to each individual and homeopathic practitioners work to select remedies according to a total picture of the patient, including not only symptoms but lifestyle, emotional and mental states, and other factors.

The original claim made in the Lancet review that homeopathic medicines are worthless treatments (other than being placebos) was based on six clinical trials of conventional medicine and eight studies of homeopathy. But what trials, exactly, were studied? It turns out the Lancet did not reveal this most basic information and, as the new studies point out, seriously flawed assumptions were made about the data that was presented. There are a limited number of homeopathic studies so it is not difficult to pick and choose facts to interpret selectively and unfavorably, which appears to be just what was done in the original Lancet anti-homeopathy article.

Bottom line: the Lancet’s report showing homeopathy is worthless lacked the academic care and scientific approach called for in medical journals. In fact, it could well be seen as a hack job.

In a statement to the press, George Lewith, Professor of Health Research at Southampton University in Great Britain, stated: “The review gave no indication of which trials were analyzed nor of the various vital assumptions made about the data. This is not usual scientific practice. If we presume that homeopathy works for some conditions but not others, or change the definition of a 'larger trial', the conclusions change. This indicates a fundamental weakness in the conclusions: they are NOT reliable.”

The two recently published scientific papers that investigated the previous Lancet review conclude that an analysis of all high quality trials of homeopathy show positive outcomes. What’s more, the eight larger and higher quality trials of homeopathy looked at a variety of medical conditions. The new studies point out that because homeopathy worked consistently for some of these ailments and not others, the results must indicate that homeopathic remedies can’t be simply placebos. In addition, the studies conclude that comparing homeopathy to conventional medicine was a meaningless apples-and-oranges approach. There are also concerns that the original anti-homeopathy review used unpublished criteria. For example, the researchers didn’t bother to define what they meant by “higher quality” homeopathy research.

The new studies not only cast serious doubts on the original Lancet review, which was headed by Professor Matthias Egger of the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Berne, but they strongly indicate Egger and his team based their conclusions on a series of hidden judgments that were prejudiced against homeopathy. So far,Professor Egger has declined to comment on the findings of the new studies in Homeopathy and the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology,

A press statement from the National Center for Homeopathy explains that an open assessment of the current evidence suggests that homeopathy is probably effective for many conditions including allergies, upper respiratory tract infections and flu, but agrees that much more research is needed. To that end, the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) has announced it is currently supporting research in these areas:

* Homeopathy for physical, mental, and emotional symptoms of fibromyalgia (a chronic disorder involving widespread musculoskeletal pain, multiple tender points on the body, and fatigue).
* Homeopathy to help relieve or prevent brain deterioration and damage in stroke and dementia.
* Homeopathy (specifically the remedy cadmium) to potentially prevent damage to the cells of the prostate when those cells are exposed to toxins.
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Claim that homeopathy was just a placebo seriously flawed

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Washington, November 14: : A review that claimed homeopathy is just a placebo, published in The Lancet, was seriously flawed, according to two new studies.
The new studies suggest that the review was not based on a comparative analysis and is unjustified because of the heterogeneity of trials and lack of sensitivity analysis.

“The review gave no indication of which trials were analysed nor of the various vital assumptions made about the data. This is not usual scientific practice. If we presume that homeopathy works for some conditions but not others, or change the definition of a ''larger trial'', the conclusions change. This indicates a fundamental weakness in the conclusions: they are not reliable", said George Lewith, Professor of Health Research at Southampton University

In August 2005, The Lancet published an editorial entitled ''The End of Homeopathy'', prompted by a review comparing clinical trials of homeopathy with trials of conventional medicine.

The claim that homeopathic medicines are just placebo was based on 6 clinical trials of conventional medicine and 8 studies of homeopathy but did not reveal the identity of these trials.
The review was criticised for its opacity as it gave no indication of which trials were analysed or the various assumptions made about the data.

Sufficient detail to enable a reconstruction was eventually provided and the two new studies are based on such a reconstruction and challenge the Lancet review.

These two studies show that analysis of all high quality trials of homeopathy yields a positive conclusion.

The 8 larger higher quality trials of homeopathy were all for different conditions. Homeopathy works for some of these but not others, implying that homeopathy is not placebo.

The comparison with conventional medicine was meaningless. Doubts remain about the opaque, unpublished criteria used in the review, including the definition of ‘higher quality’.

This reconstruction casts serious doubts on the Lancet review, showing that it was based on a series of hidden judgments unfavourable to homeopathy.

An open assessment of the current evidence suggests that homeopathy is probably effective for a number of conditions including allergies, upper respiratory tract infections and flu, but more research is desperately needed.

Prof Matthias Egger of the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Berne, who led The Lancet trial, declined to comment on these findings.

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POWER OF HOMEOPATHY: Dengue patients look towards homeopathy now

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While cases of dengue are still trickling in, some patients claim to have found the cure to the dreaded disease in homeopathy.
Dr Aneeta Singla, a doctor who has a homeopathic clinic in Barewal, said she has treated 50 patients over the last few weeks and has at least three to four patients visiting her daily, most being from Rampura Phul. “As many as 48 of them have responded well to the treatment and only two did not get satisfactory results,” she explained.

“Homeopathy treats every case individually. Every case is studied in isolation of other dengue cases unlike in allopathy, where the treatment for a particular disease is almost similar for all patients,” she added.

“After the patient’s history is known, I prescribe medicines from amongst 18 medicines that I have found for the disease based on different kinds of symptoms. In patients whose platelet count had dipped to less than 7,000, the treatment has swung it back to over 1 lakh 50 thousand in just over a couple of days,” she claims.

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HOMEOPATHY AND DENGUE: SUGGESTED BOOK