Positive Health Online

As we publish this March 2010 Issue 168 edition of Positive Health PH Online, with cover story Molecular Genetic Discoveries: Towards a Better Understanding of Homeopathy by Dr Peter H Kay PhD, there is a prominent ongoing campaign to discredit Homeopathy in the mainstream media in the UK.

For the past few weeks, there have been news bulletins on the main BBC news featuring special reports and parliamentary committee meetings in which it has been broadcast that:

• Homeopathy is virtually a nonsense, useless therapy;
• Homeopathy cannot be effective because there is nothing beyond diluted water;
• If people obtain clinical relief of their symptoms, this is due to a placebo effect;
• Homeopathy taxpayer's funding to the extent of about £3 million for the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital is a waste of taxpayer's money;
• There is no evidence that Homeopathy is clinically effective.

There have also been protests against Homeopathy in which protesters have swallowed whole containers of homeopathic remedies and protests outside of pharmacies such as Boots the Chemists, demanding that Boots stop selling Homeopathic products. What has been lacking has been serious and senior Homeopaths outlining the evidence for Homeopathy and refuting the allegations of worthlessness broadcast by an ever-hungry media.

There is, as PH Online readers are well aware, a substantial body of research and clinical evidence demonstrating the efficacy of Homeopathy, some of which has been published over the past 16 years in Positive Health PH Online most prominently in the Research, Articles and Letters to the Editors sections.

Homeopathy Research Updates on PH Online
www.positivehealth.com/research-list.php?subjectid=134  

Homeopathy Articles on PH Online
www.positivehealth.com/article-list.php?subjectid=134  

Detailed Critique of Lancet Review: Letters to the Editor Issue 116
www.positivehealth.com/article-view.php?articleid=2225  

Attacks on Homeopathy: Letters to the Editor Issue 128
www.positivehealth.com/article-view.php?articleid=2215  

Lancet Review of Homeopathy Seriously Flawed: Letters to the Editor Issue 153
www.positivehealth.com/article-view.php?articleid=2520  

In the Cover Story of this Issue 168, Molecular Genetic Discoveries: Towards a Better Understanding of Homeopathy, Dr Peter Kay PhD discloses and discusses important new molecular biology findings which demonstrate that highly diluted plant extracts and a tumour extract can interact with the genome and initiate expression or apoptosis with several specific, targeted genes, including the cancer protective gene p53. www.positivehealth.com/article-view.php?articleid=2760

Using highly sophisticated molecular biological techniques, Dr Sunili and colleagues  have proven in the laboratory that highly diluted and dynamized (potentized) substances can, in fact, activate beneficial genes such as p53.

The p53 gene plays a critical role in defence against cancer. It controls cancer cell growth and initiates a self-destruct program in cancerous cells. That is why subjects with a defective p53 gene are far more susceptible to development of cancer.

Dr Sunili and co-workers investigated whether highly diluted plant extracts and a tumour extract could interact with the genetic blueprint and activate p53 directly. Results of their work showed that highly diluted herbal extracts are indeed able to induce cancer derived cell lines to self destruct and make them grow more slowly. More importantly, they confirmed that the homeopathic tumour extract carcinosinum, when highly diluted, was able to induce expression of the anti-cancer gene p53 and cause self destruction of various tumour derived cells.

The same scientists also found that different homeopathic plant extracts had optimum anti-cancer cell properties at different dilutions, some of them exerting their anti-cancer cell properties more effectively the more diluted they became. For example, an extract from Conium maculatum caused different types of cancer derived cell lines to self destruct optimally when it was highly diluted.  By contrast, an extract from Lycopodium clavatum only caused cancer cells to self destruct at much lower dilutions. The latter finding is not in keeping with the general view that the potency of homeopathic remedies increases the more dilute they become. 

...Dr Sunili and colleagues  also showed that the ability of highly diluted plant extracts to interact with the genome is dependent on them being subjected to potentization or dynamization. Potentization involves a shaking process that is thought to alter the structure or arrangement of associated solvent molecules. It is not yet known, however, how each of the different constituent molecules in potentized herbal extracts and other homeopathic remedies target specific beneficial regions of the genome...

It is exceedingly sad that a relatively small group of anti-homeopathy activists can command control of the media and attempt to stop the relatively tiny amount of  funding currently available for a therapy which has been and continues to bring such effective relief across a broad cross-section of medical conditions.

There have been a number of petitions posted online. If you wish to support Homeopathy, please go online and sign these. You must be a UK resident or citizen.

Number 10 petition
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Homeopathy1/
Sign and pass on and don't forget to verify in the email to make sure it goes through.

Homeopathy worked for me petition
http://www.hmc21.org/
And follow the 'homeopathy worked for me link'.

Many other outstanding features are published in this issue, including Expert Columns by Beata Bishop, Vicki McKenna and Mike Webster, articles Hidden Dangers within Cosmetics and Personal Care Products, The Ways of Detox, The Primordial Psoas and the Chakra System, NLP and the Future of Healing, DNA Activation for Healing and You Wouldn't be Normal.

No matter how much evidence is amassed, how many articles written and how much clinical work performed, it appears that we must fight to maintain the health-enhancing products we have used for many decades including homeopathic remedies, herbal medicines and nutritional supplements. In this respect, the huge 16-year archive on PH Online can help to contribute to this precious knowledge.