HOmeOpatHiC reMedIEs ArE nOthIng buT wATEr!!!
Does the most common criticism of homeopathy hold any water? (LOL)
TLDR:
Homeopathy’s detractors state that, because repeated dilutions leave the homeopathic remedy with no conceivable amount of substance left, the remedies are “just water” with no possible biological effect beyond placebo. They dismiss the possibility of ‘water memory’ on its face.
If the detractors are correct, there should be no differences between high dilutions and water, material or otherwise.
Multiple scientific experiments have shown quantifiable differences between high dilutions and control water.
Theories for how this can be involve the idea of an ‘information imprint’ that involves the organization of water molecules into structured networks that are influenced by the substance dissolved in them.
One of the more controversial aspects, (to understate it dramatically) about homeopathy is the idea that water somehow retains the memory of a substance dissolved in it, despite multiple dilutions, (dilution to the point where there is approaching-zero possibility even one molecule of the original substance remains). As Wikipedia bluntly states, "Water memory contradicts current scientific understanding of physical chemistry and is generally not accepted by the scientific community." But, as is almost always the case, the specter of “scientific consensus” is used as a control mechanism to discourage heterodoxy and has nothing to do with the truth. Luckily there are a number of scientists who stay true to the spirit of science, who couldn’t care less about what their peers agree on, and undergo investigations into controversial topics, despite the very real possibility of getting smeared by the mighty Wikipedia, gatekeeper of acceptable discourse.
But, to be fair, the idea that the more a substance is diluted, the more effective its hormetic medicinal properties become is not exactly easy to take at face value. And yet, at the same time, homeopathy as a medical tradition has survived over two centuries despite the skeptic’s slings and barbs and the incredulity of the layman. In other words, people use it because it works, regardless of not knowing how it works (much like the majority of the Western world uses electricity in their homes continuously over the course of the day, yet few understand how it works).
A friend sent me a paper from 2014 called High-dilution effects revisited. 1. Physicochemical aspects by Bellavite et al. The authors did a review of the scientific literature to find theories for the mechanism behind how serially diluted substances can have biological effects in the interest of developing a “unified explanation.” Just in case you presume to answer, ‘serially diluted substances can’t have biological effects,’ the authors state that, “Currently, we have reached a stage of research where the investigation of HDs [high dilutions] can no longer be presumed to be ‘implausible’, as there exists a solid body of interdisciplinary work in favor of such effects which were initially described by homeopathic tradition,” and that “the results from laboratory models suggest that highly diluted drugs are endowed with authentic pharmacological activity and are not mere ‘placebos’” (emphasis mine).
Trust the science (tongue firmly in cheek).
As an aside, this paper is gold. While I’m using it to illustrate the current point, there’s so much interesting information in it that I won’t be covering here, I’ll probably come back to it in future posts to talk about some of the theories they cover on how homeopathy might work.
The Information Imprint
The authors found many of the theories regarding the mechanism of action of homeopathic remedies centered on the idea of an information imprint on the solvent (water, for example):
Many authors have tried to formulate explanations concerning the physical-chemical nature of homeopathic remedies when used in HDs (beyond the Avogadro limit). Very concisely, the majority of views converge on the idea that there is non-molecular (or rather, ‘meta-molecular’) information imprinted on the structure of the solvent (water, or mixture of water and alcohol) which can interact through resonance with the biophysical regulation systems of the target organism.
(Note: the Avogadro limit is the point at which the continued dilution of a substance gets to a point where it is unlikely to contain any of the original substance; based on Avogadro’s number, roughly 6.02 x 10²³)
To state it more simply, there is something inherent in the properties of water (or other solvents) that allows it to record information from a substance it comes into contact with. If we think about this, in order to test this hypothesis, one would have to demonstrate that there is a quantitative difference between plain old pure water and water which has had a substance dissolved in it beyond Avogadro’s limit. Chemically, the two samples examined would be identical, but there is, by necessity, a difference between the two. We’ll come back to this.
Central to this idea of water being capable of taking on an information imprint is the understanding of the unique and often puzzling properties of water itself. You’d think that by now, after centuries of scientific investigation of the natural world, the understanding of the substance fundamental to all life, water, would be pretty locked down. But, surprising to most, this isn’t the case. In fact, in many scientific fields, the understanding of water is considered “far from complete,” (See Mae-Wan Ho’s The Living Rainbow H₂O for a deep dive into the latest findings in the quantum physics and chemistry of water, for example). The authors of the current study say that “what we do know [about water] allows us to at least not rule out that it can act as a repository and transmitter of biologically significant information.”
To give a short summation (which unfortunately may be wholly lacking due to my 11ᵗʰ grade chemistry interpretation), the nature of the water molecule, while simple in structure, tends to allow for some complex interactions on the molecular level. Because of the polar nature of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and the resulting ‘bend’ in the water molecule’s shape, water molecules can link together to form complex structural networks through their weak intermolecular bonds (hydrogen bonds).
Here’s an image taken from the study that shows some of the structures that can be formed between water molecules (taken from Bellavite et al.) :
Here’s where to wacky stuff comes in: when a molecule of a substance is dissolved in water, the water molecule networks around the substance change their structure depending on that dissolved molecule’s properties. The authors state, “at the interface between the macromolecules and solvent, an enormous structural reorganization of the water takes place, as a result of which the water takes on entirely new configurations even at a considerable distance from the solute molecule.” Scientists refer to this as ‘vicinal water’ - water that surrounds a surface or macromolecule “over a distance from 5 to 200 molecular diameters” which is influenced by that surface or molecule its in contact with. (Readers may be familiar with Gerald Pollack’s work, outlined in his books The Fourth Phase of Water and Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life, where he discusses this phenomenon of a highly organized crystal structure of water molecules in contact with certain surfaces, referring to it as ‘exclusion zone,’ or ‘EZ’ water).
This is the ‘meta-molecular’ information referred to in the above quote. To state it more simply, the water molecules organize themselves around molecules they come into contact with and that organization will be different depending on the properties of the foreign molecule. If the substance is salt, the water molecules will take on one configuration; if it’s mercury, it will take on another.
So we have a model for information transfer. The dissolved substance changes the random bouncing of water molecules into an ordered structure (this shouldn’t be thought of as a rigid structure, however, but more of a consistent pattern the molecules adhere to, despite individual molecules constantly moving and changing within the structure). This information could be theoretically transferred to an organism as a medicine, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The point is, homeopathic remedies likely aren’t just water, they’re water that has been imprinted with information through the ordered organization of its molecules.
Quantitative Differences Between HDs and Water
Importantly, the authors site several studies that have found various measurable differences in HDs versus distilled water. They site one study which found a marked difference in the exothermic heat of mixing dilutions versus the untreated solution with acids and bases. “Despite the extreme dilution of the solutions,” the current paper states, “in approximately 92% of cases these showed an excess exothermic heat of mixing, compared to the corresponding heat of mixing for the untreated solvent.” (As an aside, the authors speculated that “successive dilutions and succussions may permanently alter the physical-chemical properties of the solvent water;” emphasis mine.)
In this experiment, we can see that there is a physical difference between the HDs and distilled water, even though the two are molecularly the same. If the samples were all “just water,” the exothermic heat given off when the substances were mixed would be the same - but in 92% of cases, they weren’t the same.
The authors also talk about another study that used low-temperature thermoluminescence to try to understand the molecular structure of HDs. In the study, the scientists froze HDs solid and then bathed them in radiation. They then warmed the samples up and as the HDs melted, the stored energy was released as light, with the light pattern reflecting the structure of the sample. When compared to pure water put through the same process, there was a “difference in [the HDs] thermoluminescence peaks.” In other words, the light given off in the thawing of HDs was quantitatively different from the pure water, even though both samples were materially only water. “The author noted that his findings were consistent with the HD remedy retaining the physical chemistry ‘fingerprint’ properties of the parent source material substance. Significantly, the phenomenon of thermoluminescence of HDs has been confirmed by an independent laboratory.”
The authors also write about studies using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods (although with the caveat that stricter methodology and standardization are necessary to draw firmer conclusions) and speculate that ultra-violet and Raman spectroscopy, X-ray emission spectroscopy and X-ray Raman scattering could provide further evidence. Rather than get caught up in too many details here (and I’d be lying if I said I understood the methods they’re referring to), I think the important take-away is that there are measurable differences between high-diluted substances and straight-up water and that further research is called for.
What We’ve Learned
To summarize, although one of the loudest objections to homeopathy, and the pathological insistence by its detractors, that homeopathic remedies are just water, we can see that high dilutions are not, in fact, just water. While chemically the same, there is a difference and that difference can be scientifically demonstrated. Wikipedia might want to update its article accordingly.
That isn’t to say that the case is closed, and as mentioned, I’m going to be going into some more stuff about possible mechanisms of action for homeopathy in future posts. Just because water can take on an information imprint doesn’t say anything about how that imprint acts to heal a biological organism that is exposed to it (I went into some of this in my previous post about The Vital Force, but there’s much more to explore). But I think that it is clear that homeopathic remedies do contain information and are not “just water.”