Homeopathy: The Bhaba Atomic Research Centre Study


 2011 Aug;17(8):705-10.

An exploratory study on scientific investigations in homeopathy using medical analyzer.

Source

Regional Research Institute for Homoeopathy, CCRH, Mumbai, India.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

The action of homeopathic medicines, in ultra-high dilution, is not directly observable. An attempt was made to explore autonomic response of selective homeopathic medicines, in healthy persons, using Medical Analyzer System (Electronics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India).

OBJECTIVE:

The objective of the study was to observe the action of homeopathic medicines on physiologic variability of heart rate and blood flow.

MATERIAL AND METHODS:

Pre- and postinterventional variability spectra of heart rate and blood flow of 77 subjects were recorded with the Medical Analyzer System, administering homeopathic preparations of Aconitum napellus (6c, 10M), Arsenicum album (200c, 1M), Gelsemium sempervirens (200c, 1M), Phosphorus (200c, 1M), Pulsatilla nigricans (200c) and Sulphur (200c, 1M) versus placebo control. The amplitude of the peaks viz. low-frequency, medium-frequency, and high-frequency was measured for postintervention analysis. An increase in the amplitude of any valid peak by 100% or a decrease by 50% was considered as significant change.

RESULTS:

Aconitum napellus produced a response in heart rate variability (HRV) with 30c potency and in blood flow variability with 1M potency. Sulphur 200c and 1M, Gelsemium 200c and Pulsatilla 200c, produced a 62.5% response in HRV against the placebo response of 16.6%. Gelsemium, Phosphorus, and Sulphur produced a response in blood flow variability with a 1M potency, similar to the response of Aconitum napellus 1M.

CONCLUSIONS:

These data suggest that it is possible to record the response of homeopathic medicines on physiologic parameters of the autonomic nervous system.

Comment in

PMID:
 
21787219
 
[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

More news here:

‘Medical Analyzer’ Proves Potentized Drugs ‘Works’- But The Real Question Is ‘How Homeopathy Works’.

 
 
 
 
 
 
1 Vote

Research has been reported to have done and still going on at BARC and TATA INSTITUTE OF RESEARCH,  about how different strengths of different medicines produces different changes in our body, and also how same potency of different medicine produces different impressions . A prominent section of homeopathic community enthusiastically celebrate this study as a ‘great fundamental research’ in homeopathy. Some of them even claim “this study has resolved all the riddles of homeopathy scientifically”.
Even though this study is useful in proving that homeopathic potentized drugs really work by observing the changes happening in physiological values, it no way help us to prove what is actually happening during potentization, what is the exact active principles contained in potentized drugs or, what is the mechanism of molecular processes involved in homeopathic therapeutics. They only answer the question “does homeopathy works?” But they do not answer the basic question “how homeopathy works”.
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Media reported as follows: BARC Medical Analyzer to enable objective study of homoeopathy
“Mumbai: Use of Medical Analyser developed by Bhabha Atomic Research Centre has shown that it would enable a better understanding of the selective action of homoeopathic medicines in different strengths on human beings.
Researches done by BARC, Regional Research Institute of Central Council for Research in homoeopathy, Mumbai, National Institute of Homoeopathy, Kolkata and Fr Muller Homoeopathic Medical College (FMHMC), Mangalore have indicated potential use of physiological variability in fundamental research in homoeopathy.
“The data reveals the selective action of homoeopathic medicines in different potencies especially in Heart Rate Variability (HRV), Blood Flow Variability (BFV) and Morphology Index Variability (MIV),” Dr Srinath Rao of FMHMC said during the Meeting on Advanced applications of Physiological variability held at BARC here last week.
Homoeopathy medicines beyond 12th potency do not contain even a single atom or molecule of the medicinal substance. Yet these medicines are effective in the treatment of large number of diseases and particularly the ones that are considered incurable in modern medicine.
Electronic division of BARC has been actively working on this aspect of homoeopathic medicines for the past three decades and their initial experiments with potencised medicines have recorded 50 to 150 per cent increase in the blood flow in affected parts of the body within 30 minutes of the indicated medicine in variety of patients, Rao said in his paper on `Fundamental Research in Homoeopathy: Experiments with SULPHUR` presented at the Meet.
“The reproducibility of these experiments largely depended upon the choice of indicated medicine, which was determined subjectively,” Rao said.
But with the development of Medical Analyser, BARC scientists, headed by J D Jindal, have shown that physiological variability show change in the spectrum caused by randomly selected potentised medicine and randomly selected control subjects (volunteers) in 2004 and “this opened the door to us for using physiological variability in the field of homoeopathy,” Rao said.
“We used in our experiments with SULPHUR, Anu Photo Rheograph developed by BARC which is based on the principles of Photo Plethysmography also developed by it,” Rao said.
Dr Nirupama Mishra and colleagues from National Institute of Homoeopathy, C Nayak from the Department of AYUSH along with other private doctors carried out an exploratory scientific trial on 72 healthy volunteers, studied different potencies of Aconitum Napellus and Nux Vomica with the placebo control.
Homoeopathy is one of the leading alternative systems of medicine worldwide introduced by Dr Samuel Christian Hahnemann (1755-1843). Since its introduction to the mankind, its basic principles have not changed as homoeopathy is primarily a specialised system of rational therapy based on fixed and definite laws of nature.
Homoeopathy has been mired in controversy due to its concept of drug dynamisation leading to ultra diluted form of medicines. “Since these kinds of medicines do not come under any measurable pharmacological standards, the attention of scientific fraternity has been focused on this apparent lack of existence of material substance in homoeopathic medicine and to its potency concept in the light of Avogadro`s law, rather than on its effectiveness,” Mishra said.
Both Rao and Mishra pointed out that it was necessary that more medicines and potencies are to be investigated with this scientific tool for the welfare of the humanity.”
BARC develops new medical instruments:
Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) has developed a host of new generation medical instruments opening fresh dimensions to understand health care.
The approach of medical practitioners will now be more objective in terms of diagnosis and action of different drugs on human body, said BARC officials.
“Mobile ECG, Plethysmograph, Peripheral Pulse Analyser (3-channel), Tele Stress monitor, and Intent Detection System are few technologies BARC has developed. Many of these have been transferred to manufacturers,” said BARC director RK Sinha at a two-day meet on ‘Advanced Applications of Physiological Variability’ organised by the Electronics Division.
The Electronic Division began development work in the field of Physiological Variability in active collaboration with city’sGrantMedicalCollegeand the JJ Hospital, All India Institute of  Medical Sciences (New Delhi),FatherMullerMedicalCollege(Mangalore), among others.
“These instruments, which have been tried and tested, have proved that even the Science of Homeopathy, Ayurveda and their effectiveness can be understood objectively,” Sinha said.
What is BARC Medical Analyzer Software?
Variability is the sign of life; therefore higher variability in physiological parameters is generally an indicator of better health. The use of variability for the diagnosis of several diseases is age old. Because of great potential of this technique, heart rate variability monitoring is a routine feature in the patient monitoring systems available in the market for employment in intensive care units and intensive cardiac care units. Bhabha Atomic Research Centre has integrated cardiac output, stroke volume/peripheral blood flow variability; with heart rate variability for the study of these changes in variety of diseases in a PC based Software developed called Medical Analyser. It has unique feature that it yields heart rate variability, cardiac output variability, stroke volume variability / peripheral blood flow variability from a single data acquisition session from the patient when used with Impedance Cardiovasograph hardware. The data acquisition is controlled by the PC, serially connected to the acquisition unit. The variability analysis and transfer to database is performed by the PC with the help of user-friendly software.
Principle: Short term analysis of variations in a physiological
parameter in time and frequency domain
Parameters (Hardware dependent): Heart Rate, Stroke Volume, Cardiac Output, Peripheral Blood Flow with Impedance Cardiovasograph and Heart Rate, Peripheral Blood Flow with Oxygen Saturation Monitor
Method of Analysis: Fast Fourier Transform
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MY COMMENT ON THIS REPORT:
Barc Medical analyzer enables homeopathic researchers to observe the changes in  physiological values such as Heart Rate Variability (HRV), Blood Flow Variability (BFV) and Morphology Index Variability (MIV) caused by administration of potentized homeopathic drugs. It is a great achievement, since it provides objective evidence that potentized drugs are capable of producing some sort of responses in the human organism. That proves ‘homeopathy works’!
As Dr. Rao has reported to have confessed,  ‘the reproducibility of these experiments largely depended upon the choice of indicated medicine, which was determined subjectively”. This inconsistency in ‘reproducibility of results’  attributed to the ‘subjectivity’ factor  is the greatest limitation of ‘medical analyzer study’ of homeopathic drugs. That means, if  our selection of similimum was not exact, or the potency of drug used was not genuine, we may fail in producing expected results. Such multiple variables make this study unreliable in reaching any clear conclusions. When we fail to produce results, we cannot say whether it was due to wrong selection of similimum, or due to the use of  wrongly potentized or wrongly labeled drugs, which are not so uncommon in homeopathic drug industry.
Even though this study is useful in proving that homeopathic potentized drugs really work by observing the changes happening in physiological values, it no way help us to prove what is actually happening during potentization, what is the exact active principles contained in potentized drugs or, what is the mechanism of molecular processes involved in homeopathic therapeutics. They only answer the question “does homeopathy works?” But they do not answer the basic question “how homeopathy works”.
Any fundamental research in homeopathy should provide answers to three vital questions.
1. What happens during potentization?
2. What is the exact active principles contained in potentized drugs?
3. What is the exact molecular mechanism by which these active principles act up on the organism therapeutically?
Unless a research could not help in addressing these three basic questions, it cannot be considered a ‘fundamental research in homeopathy’. Hence, studies conducted using Barc Medical Analyzer cannot be called ‘fundamental research in homeopathy’. Such baseless claims would give wrong messages to the community.
Did the researches really address these three vital questions? If  ’yes’, what are their answers?
My answer to these basic questions:
1. Potentization involves the process of ‘molecular imprinting’.
2. Active priniciples of potentized drugs are ‘molecular imprints’ of constituent molecules of drugs used for potentization.
3. These ‘molecular imprints’ act as artificial binding sites for pathogenic molecules, and relieves biological molecules from pathologic molecular inhibitions.
I would like to know the comments of  ’fundamental researchers’ on these concepts I am putting forward.
We all know after 12c drugs does not contains any molecules. We all know our potentized drugs really intervene the biochemical process of living organism, and rectify pathological molecular errors.
HOW HOMEOPATHY WORKS?  Answering this question should be the agenda of any ‘fundamental’ research project in homeopathy. That is the FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION of homeopathy now.