Dilution research

[Charlotte Gilruth]

Dear Friends,
I was forwarded this message by Miranda Castro. (We have been putting
together the newsletter for NASH until an actual editor appears again.)
Does anyone know how to find out more about the original research?

Miranda wrote:
"The following needs checking and following up on - thought it might be
worthy of a report. Next issue??? How old is it REALLY - the original
research taht is.

There's a wonderful site that could go alongside this article
Water/Spirit connection and all that
...
http://www.wellnessgoods.com/art_wat_messages.html

Bill Gray brought this book into the office the other day - it's really
rather lovely."
NEW SCIENTIST WEEKLY NEWSLETTER No. 110, 10 November 2001 Andy Coghlan

Bizarre chemical discovery gives homeopathic hint
It is a chance discovery so unexpected it defies belief and threatens to
reignite debate about whether there is a scientific basis for thinking
homeopathic medicines really work.

A team in South Korea has discovered a whole new dimension to just about the
simplest chemical reaction in the book - what happens when you dissolve a
substance in water and then add more water.

Conventional wisdom says that the dissolved molecules simply spread further
and further apart as a solution is diluted. But two chemists have found that
some do the opposite: they clump to- gether, first as clusters of molecules,
then as bigger aggregates of those clusters. *Far from drifting apart from
their neighbours, they got closer together.*

The discovery has stunned chemists, and could provide the first scientific
insight into how some homeopathic remedies work. Homeopaths repeatedly
dilute medications, believing that the higher the dilution, the more potent
the remedy becomes.

Some dilute to "infinity" until no molecules of the remedy remain. They
believe that water holds a memory, or "imprint" of the active ingredient
which is more potent than the ingredient itself. But others use less dilute
solutions - often diluting a remedy six-fold. The Korean findings might at
last go some way to reconciling the potency of these less dilute solutions
with orthodox science.

*Completely counterintuitive*German chemist Kurt Geckeler and his colleague
Shashadhar Samal stumbled on the effect while investigating fullerenes at
their lab in the Kwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea.
They found that the football-shaped buckyball molecules kept forming untidy
aggregates in solution, and Geckler asked Samal to look for ways to control
how these clumps formed.

What he discovered was a phenomenon *new* to chemistry.

"When he diluted the solution, the size of the fullerene particles
increased," says Geckeler. "It was *completely counterintuitive,"* he says.

Further work showed it was no fluke. To make the otherwise insoluble
buckyball dissolve in water, the chemists had mixed it with a circular
sugar-like molecule called a cyclodextrin. When they did the same
experiments with just cyclodextrin molecules, they found they behaved the
same way. So did the organic molecule sodium guanosine mono- phosphate, DNA,
and plain old sodium chloride.

Dilution typically made the molecules cluster into aggregates five to 10
times as big as those in the original solutions. The growth was not linear,
and it depended on the concentration of the original.

"The history of the solution is important. The more dilute it starts, the
larger the aggregates," says Geckeler. Also, it only worked in polar
solvents like water, in which one end of the molecule has a pronounced
positive charge while the other end is negative.

Biologically active
But the finding may provide a mechanism for how *some* homeopathic medicines
work - something that has defied scientific explanation till now.

Diluting a remedy may increase the size of the particles to the point that
they become biologically active.

It also echoes the controversial claims of French immunologist Jacques
Benveniste. In 1988, Benveniste claimed in a Nature paper that a solution
that had once contained antibodies still activated human white blood cells.

Benveniste claimed the solution still worked because it contained ghostly
"imprints" in the water structure where the antibodies had been.

Other researchers failed to reproduce Benveniste's experiments, but
homeopaths still believe he may have been onto something. Benveniste himself
does not think the new findings explain his results because the solutions
were not dilute enough. "This [phenomenon] cannot apply to high dilution,"
he says.

Fred Pearce of University College London, who tried to repeat Benveniste's
experiments, agrees. But it could offer some clues as to why other less
dilute homeopathic remedies work, he says. Large clusters and aggregates
might interact *more easily* with biological tissue.

Double-check
Chemist Jan Enberts of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands is
more cautious. "It's still a totally open question," he says. "To say the
phenomenon has biological significance is pure speculation." But he has no
doubt Samal and Geckeler have discovered something *new*. "It's
*surprising and worrying*," he says.

The two chemists were at pains to double-check their astonishing results.
Initially they had used the scattering of a laser to reveal the size and
distribution of the dissolved particles. To check, they used a scanning
electron microscope to photograph films of the solutions spread over slides.

This, too, showed that dissolved substances cluster together as dilution
increased.

"It doesn't prove homeopathy, but it's congruent with what we think and is
very encouraging," says Peter Fisher, director of medical research at the
Royal London Homeopathic Hospital.

"The whole idea of high-dilution homeopathy hangs on the idea that water has
properties which are not understood," he says. "The fact that the new effect
happens with a variety of substances suggests it's the solvent that's
responsible. It's in line with what many homeopaths say, that you can only
make homeopathic medicines in polar solvents."

Geckeler and Samal are now anxious that other researchers follow up their
work. "We want people to repeat it," says Geckeler. "If it's confirmed it
will be groundbreaking".

Journal reference: Chemical Communications (2001, p 2224)

[Sheila Parks]

hi dear charlotte, thanks so much for sending this to us. the article i had
read several months ago, was making the rounds from people not even involved
in homeopathy. the article about the reseach on water is so beautiful. the
teacher in my first spiritual group used to have people bring their bottled
water to her and she used to bless it for them. and then there are all the
ancient goddess wells in britain, especially the one in the chalice garden.
thanks, sheila
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