6 cheap analogues of homeopathic medicines

1. Milk

The main thing you need to know about homeopathic medicines is that there is no active ingredient in them. To be absolutely precise: it is sometimes there, but in doses tending to zero.

Homeopathy is based on a high dilution of beneficial chemical compounds. In the instructions, you can find the characters X or D. They denote a tenfold dilution (1 part of the active substance per 9 parts of water), or C is the more popular centesimal (1 part of the substance per 99 water).

If you take the standard homeopathic dilution of 30C, you get this. Something useful is put in a test tube with water in a ratio of 1: 99 and mixed thoroughly. Then take a drop of the resulting solution, place it in a new vessel with water in the same proportion and shake it again. Then again they take a drop of the resulting solution and... In general, this procedure is done 30 times. The final result (and the result is pure, practically pure water) is applied to the base substance and is called a homeopathic remedy.

The basis, as a rule, is sugar in one form or another. For example, milk, that is, lactose. It is found in milk and milk products. In general, drink a teaspoon of milk or add it to coffee or tea - get about the same lactose dose.

2. Distilled water

Besides being useless, homeopathic medicines have an important quality - they are safe. Even if they contain explicit poisons. And this, by the way, also happens.

For example, a loud story is associated with homeopathic poisons, which she retold in her bookSomeone on the Internet is wrong! "Someone on the Internet is wrong!" famous journalist, popularizer of science Asya Kazantseva.

In 2009, the American singer Alexa Ray Joel (daughter of the famous Billy Joel) broke up with her boyfriend and decided to commit suicide. The girl took 15 pain relievers from her first aid kits, but then got scared and called rescuers.

In the hospital, where the recollected suicide was taken, it turned out that Alexa was absolutely healthy and nothing threatened her life. And it could not be otherwise, because the girl tried to kill herself with the homeopathic medicine Traumeel. Although it contains mercury, belladonna, sulfuric liver and other poisonous substances, their concentration is so small (note the dilution D indicated in the formulation) that they are not capable of having any effect on organism.

3. Iced water, whipped in a shaker

Homeopaths explainMemorandum No. 2 of the RAS Commission for Combating Pseudoscience and Falsification of Scientific Research. ABOUT THE FALSE SCIENCE OF HOMEOPATHY the healing effect of the drugs is as follows: diluting the substance in water, each time they shake the test tube properly. The molecules of the active substance affect the molecules of the liquid, the water remembers this and then heals the body on its own.

This mechanism raises many questions. For example:

• How does water know what to memorize?
• There are always impurities in water, why doesn't it keep information from them?
• Why doesn't water remember information from the glass wall of the test tube?
• When memory water is applied to the sugar base of the tablet, the liquid generally evaporates. How can the pill treat?

Homeopaths have no answers to these questions. So, if you are planning to use a properly whipped pacifier, it is better to shake that one yourself. water, in the quality of which we are sure. And drink, sincerely believing in its healing power.

4. Herbal tea

Sometimes herbal ingredients are added to homeopathic remedies, again in multiple diluted doses. We will not discuss here herbal medicine: it just works, but in this case it's not about her. Let's focus on homeopathy.

Essentially, adding herbal ingredients is an attempt to manipulate the customer. A person sees such a remedy on the pharmacy shelf and builds a logical chain in his head: with herbs, it means, natural means, safe means, it will help and not harm.

What will not harm is really a fact. But, like other homeopathic remedies, this “medicine” will definitely not improve your condition. As we already wrote, the amount of active substances in it tends to zero.

5. Apple juice

One of the basic tenets of homeopathy is to treat like with like. In accordance with it, homeopathic pharmacists are looking for a substance, the intake of which can cause symptoms similar to the signs of the disease, and on its basis they prepare a "working" medicine.

For example, in pharmacies you can find a homeopathic drug for hangovers and alcohol addiction, in which there are quite a few alcohol. It is, of course, not the main element of the drug (the amount of the main one tends to zero), but acts only as a base solution. But it fits perfectly into the concept.

Of course, diluted ethyl alcohol cannot cure someone of a hangover, and even more so a pernicious passion for alcohol. But if you really want to treat like like like, drink apple juice: it also hasEstimates of Ethanol Exposure in Children from Food not Labeled as Alcohol-Containing alcohol, up to 0.77 g per liter. There is more ethanol in a glass of juice (200 ml) than in the 10 drops of the mentioned homeopathic remedy recommended for a single dose.

6. Deep breathing

When homeopathy does work, scientists tend to explain it by the placebo effect.

In double-blind, placebo-controlled studiesEvidence of Clinical Efficacy of Homeopathy. A Meta-Analysis of Clinical Trials. HMRAG. Homeopathic Medicines Research Advisory Group there were people who were cured by taking both outright pacifiers and homeopathy. No convincing evidence of a significant difference between the first and second scientists was found.

So, for example, it is not some homeopathic medicine that helps to calm down, but the belief that it can help. Just as effective but more economical to believe in other ways to take off stress and reduce anxiety. For example, deep breathing or exercise.

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There are a lot of homeopathic remedies. A complete list can be found in the firing listExecution list, compiled by neurologist-epileptologist Nikita Zhukov. All of them are equally useless - like any product containing an active substance in a concentration of "one molecule per universe."

Since 2017, the Commission for Combating Pseudoscience under the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences insistsMemorandum No. 2 of the RAS Commission for Combating Pseudoscience and Falsification of Scientific Research. ABOUT THE FALSE SCIENCE OF HOMEOPATHYthat doctors should not prescribe homeopathic remedies, and pharmacies should sell such drugs on the same shelf with medicines with proven effectiveness. But so far everything is still the same.