Report says homeopathy 'all in the mind'

Homeopathy offers no real health benefits and its perceived effects are "all in the mind", according to new research.

A report in The Lancet said patients treated with homeopathy fared no better than those treated with placebo therapy.

Researchers from the University of Berne, Switzerland, studied the results of 110 trials involving homeopathy and placebo treatments for problems ranging from respiratory infections to post-surgical pain relief.

They also looked at 110 trials that used conventional medicine against placebo treatments. While small trials that were considered low quality showed some benefit for homeopathy over placebo, there was no difference between the two in higher-quality, larger trials. But the benefits of conventional medicine were seen over all the studies.

The study concluded: "When the analysis was restricted to large trials of high quality there was no convincing evidence that homeopathy was superior to placebo, whereas for conventional medicine an important effect remained."

This suggests that homeopathy works if you believe in it, according to Professor Matthias Egger, of Berne University. "Our study powerfully illustrates the interplay and cumulative effect of different sources of bias.

"To prove a negative is impossible, but we have shown that the effects seen in placebo-controlled trials of homeopathy are compatible with the placebo-hypothesis," he said.

Homeopathy was developed 250 years ago by Samuel Hahnemann, a German doctor who was concerned about the lack of effectiveness and the harm caused by traditional treatments.

It is based on the theory that diluting a drug makes it stronger, rather than weaker.

- INDEPENDENT