Is there proof that homeopathy works

asks Jaysway:
A. Recently, a chance scientific discovery has given conventional science an indication of how homeopathy might work - and has shaken up a few scientists, too!

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Q. What was it
A. A team of scientists in South Korea has discovered what happens when you dissolve a substance in water and then add more water. They believed - as most scientists do - that the dissolved molecules would just spread further and further apart as the solution was diluted. However, Kurt Geckeler and his colleague Shashadhar Samal were working at their lab in the Kwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea when they found that some molecules do the complete opposite.

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Q. What happened
A. The molecules they were working with first clumped together as clusters of molecules, then as bigger groups of those clusters. Then, as they were futher diluted, they got even closer together rather than drift apart.

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Q. How does this prove how homeopathy works
A. In homeopathy, substances are diluted in a certain way, and it's believed that the more they are diluted, the more potent the remedy becomes.

Some are so diluted until there are no molecules of the original substance left - homeopaths believe that the water holds an 'imprint' of the active ingredient and that this imprint of more potent than the original substance.

Other remedies are less diluted - often just six times - and these are the ones which may behave in a similar way to the molecules in the Korean research. It seems that by diluting a remedy, you may increase the size of the particles to the point when they become biologically active.

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Q. Wasn't the reaction just a fluke
A. No, Geckeler and Samal couldn't believe the results so they did more tests and got the same effect. Then they tried other molecules, and it worked with them, too.

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Q. What do homeopaths think
A. Peter Fisher, director of medical research at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, said that, although it didn't prove how homeopathy works, it was in line with it, and very encouraging. He explained that the idea of high-dilution homeopathy is based on the idea that water has properties which are not understood, and that it was more the solvent than the substances dissolved in it that was responsible for the effect.

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By Sheena Miller