Chirumbolo Salvatore, Bjørklund Geir
Department of Neurological and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy.
Council for Nutritional and Environmental Medicine (CONEM), Mo i Rana, Norway.
Homeopathy. 2018 Feb;107(1):40-44. doi: 10.1055/s-0037-1608898. Epub 2017 Dec 28.
Homeopathic remedies usually contain a significant amount of ethanol as a co-solvent with water, a pharmaceutical formulation that may raise some concern when remedies are tested in vitro or in laboratory animals, due to the assessed toxicity of ethanol on cell cultures and organisms. The amount of alcohol in a homeopathic remedy is adjusted following the different homeopathic pharmacopoeias but it is rarely below 30% v/v, which is a molar mass established to meet both Hahnemann's traditional heritage and the hypothetical role of ethanol in "imprinting" water, through the formation of nanobubbles, with the homeopathic activity of the remedy.
This article aims at discussing the role of ethanol in homeopathic dilutions and how its chemical nature should affect the experimental approach in homeopathy.
While the content of ethanol in a homeopathic remedy should be as low as 20% v/v, which is a molar fraction able to catalyze the formation of nanobubbles in a dynamized alcohol-water dilution, this amount raises concern about ethanol toxicology in the experimental research with laboratory animals or in vitro. Several authors diluted 1:100 ethanol 30% v/v from their tested homeopathic dilutions with distilled water to prevent the cytotoxic effect of the alcohol, but in doing so, they probably reduced the ability of ethanol (now 0.3% v/v) to induce the formation of nanobubbles, thus probably affecting the homeopathic property of the same dilution. This may generate concerns about how to manage an experimental setting, to meet both the "chemical" nature of ethanol and its role in "homeopathy," an issue that is discussed in the article.
Any author working with homeopathic dilutions containing a molar fraction of ethanol higher than 20% should take into account the fact that ethanol is cytotoxic and may be a catalyst to the formation of nanobubbles, and so should adjust the experimental approach accordingly.
顺势疗法药物通常含有大量乙醇作为与水的共溶剂，这种药物制剂在体外或实验动物中进行测试时可能会引发一些担忧，因为乙醇对细胞培养物和生物体的毒性已得到评估。顺势疗法药物中的酒精含量会根据不同的顺势疗法药典进行调整，但很少低于30%（v/v），这一摩尔浓度既能满足哈内曼的传统理念，又能体现乙醇在通过形成纳米气泡“印记”水从而赋予药物顺势疗法活性方面的假设作用。
本文旨在探讨乙醇在顺势疗法稀释剂中的作用，以及其化学性质应如何影响顺势疗法的实验方法。
虽然顺势疗法药物中的乙醇含量应低至20%（v/v），这一摩尔分数能够在动态酒精 - 水稀释中催化纳米气泡的形成，但这一含量在实验动物或体外实验研究中引发了对乙醇毒理学的担忧。几位作者用蒸馏水将其测试的顺势疗法稀释剂中30%（v/v）的乙醇按1:100稀释，以防止酒精的细胞毒性作用，但这样做可能降低了乙醇（现在为0.3%（v/v））诱导纳米气泡形成的能力，从而可能影响同一稀释剂的顺势疗法特性。这可能引发关于如何设置实验以兼顾乙醇的“化学”性质及其在“顺势疗法”中的作用的担忧，本文将对此问题进行讨论。
任何处理乙醇摩尔分数高于20%的顺势疗法稀释剂的作者都应考虑到乙醇具有细胞毒性且可能是纳米气泡形成的催化剂这一事实，并相应调整实验方法。
