Is Homeopathy Quackery?

That is the conclusion of a team of medical researchers in Britain and Switzerland, who reviewed a mountain of published evidence. They compared 110 trials of homeopathic remedies against a placebo with 110 trials of conventional medicines, which were also tested against placebos. I beg to differ.

The ailments being treated in these trials included respiratory-tract infections, pollen allergies and asthma, gynaecological and obstetric problems, muscle and joint ache and intestinal upsets.

The researchers found that in small, poor-quality trials both homeopathic and conventional medicines appeared to fare better against placebos or dummy medicines.

But in larger, well-designed trials there was no credible evidence that the homeopathic treatment worked any better than the placebo. Conventional medicines (aka Allopathy) clearly outperformed.

Note: Placebo is normally lookalike pills with nothing more interesting than sugar etc. and with no known medicinal properties. They are administered to neutralize the psychological benefits associated with the patient knowing that he is being treated with a (big) pill. In some patients merely giving them a pill, any pill, improves their health condition. Placebo counters these effects.

Personally I have extensively tried Homeopathy and I have found that it does help in certain diseases while being ineffective in others. For example I would never think of Homeopathy for organ related diseases like kidney or liver problem or even infections. However I have found it to work very well in say constipation or certain stomach ailments, chronic pains etc.