Milgrom Lionel R
Department of Chemistry, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, South Kensington, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
J R Soc Promot Health. 2006 Sep;126(5):211-8. doi: 10.1177/1466424006068237.
As a therapeutic intervention, homeopathy is the target of increased scepticism because in the main, its remedies are diluted and succussed (potentized) out of material existence. This puts homeopathy seemingly at odds with the paradigm of conventional science, in particular, that atoms and molecules are the fundamental building blocks of all matter. Accordingly, homeopathy cannot work, so that any reported beneficial effects must, at best, be due to the placebo effect. The purpose of this article is to challenge that conclusion and to suggest that there may well be conventional science-based explanations of how homeopathy could be possible. Homeopathy's key principles are first described. Then the double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT), the chief means by which homeopathic remedies and prescribing are tested, is shown to be based on a linear reductionism that is too blunt an instrument with which to test the efficacy of complex interventions such as homeopathy The memory of water hypothesis, as a mechanism for how potentized remedies might work, is reviewed, along with some evidence for its existence. A possible rationale for the water memory effect is proposed in terms of a dynamic 'ordering' of water's constantly switching network of intermolecular hydrogen bonds, induced by the manufacturing process of homeopathic remedies. This could lead to a long-range molecular 'coherence' between trillions of mobile water molecules. However, the water memory effect is an essentially pharmacological explanation of homeopathy's putative efficacy. It is pointed out that healing also entails an interaction between consenting beings. From this point of view, an explanation of any therapeutic procedure should include an attempt to describe the nature of the patient-practitioner interaction. From this perspective, a quantum theoretical treatment of the therapeutic process, involving a form of macro-entanglement between patient, practitioner and remedy (PPR), is advanced as another possible explanation of the homeopathy's efficacy. This shows that the reason double-blind RCTs deliver at best only equivocal results on homeopathy's efficacy is because it effectively breaks the PPR entangled state. A comparison is made between the entanglement-breaking effect of double-blind RCTs and the wave-function 'collapsing' effect of observation in orthodox quantum theory. The article concludes by suggesting that the memory of water and PPR entanglement are not competing but most likely complementary hypotheses, and that both are probably required in order to provide a complete description of the homeopathic process. While awaiting experimental evidence of these hypotheses, it is suggested that observations of clinical outcomes would be superior to RCTs for further testing homeopathy's efficacy.
作为一种治疗手段，顺势疗法越来越受到质疑，因为其药物主要是经过稀释和振荡（增效）处理，已不存在物质实体。这使得顺势疗法似乎与传统科学范式相悖，尤其是传统科学认为原子和分子是所有物质的基本构成要素。因此，顺势疗法无法起作用，所以任何所报道的有益效果，往好里说，必定是由于安慰剂效应。本文的目的是对这一结论提出质疑，并表明很可能存在基于传统科学的解释来说明顺势疗法是如何可能起效的。首先描述顺势疗法的关键原则。然后指出，双盲随机对照试验（RCT）作为检验顺势疗法药物及用药方法的主要手段，是基于一种线性还原论，而这种方法对于检验像顺势疗法这样的复杂干预措施的疗效来说过于简单粗暴。回顾了水的记忆假说，即增效药物可能的作用机制，并列举了一些支持其存在的证据。从顺势疗法药物的制备过程所引发的水分子间氢键不断切换的动态“排序”角度，提出了水记忆效应的一种可能原理。这可能导致数万亿个流动水分子之间产生长程分子“相干性”。然而，水记忆效应本质上是对顺势疗法假定疗效的一种药理学解释。需要指出的是，治愈还涉及医患之间的相互作用。从这个角度来看，对任何治疗过程的解释都应尝试描述医患互动的本质。从这个视角出发，提出了一种对治疗过程的量子理论阐释，即涉及患者、从业者和药物（PPR）之间一种宏观纠缠形式，作为顺势疗法疗效的另一种可能解释。这表明双盲随机对照试验对顺势疗法疗效最多只能得出模棱两可结果的原因是它有效地打破了PPR纠缠态。将双盲随机对照试验的纠缠破坏效应与正统量子理论中观测的波函数“坍缩”效应进行了比较。文章最后指出，水的记忆和PPR纠缠并非相互竞争，而很可能是互补的假说，并且可能需要两者结合才能完整描述顺势疗法过程。在等待这些假说的实验证据期间，建议观察临床结果对于进一步检验顺势疗法的疗效会比随机对照试验更具优势。
