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Wednesday July 5 10:06 AM ET

Homeopathic Medicines Aid Fight Against Acute Diarrhea
By Alan Mozes

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A study from Nepal suggests that using homeopathic medicines alongside more traditional oral rehydration therapies (ORT) can help treat acute diarrhea in young children.

The finding, from a carefully designed study, could reduce the high death rate--five million children are lost to acute diarrhea worldwide each year. The report could also help establish a scientific basis for the use of homeopathy in treating diarrhea.

``We found that we have homeopathic medicines that were very effective in treating childhood diarrhea,'' said Dr. Jennifer Jacobs, a clinical assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington's School of Public Health in Seattle. Her findings are presented in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

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Giving background to the impetus for the study, Jacobs noted that ORT is effective in reducing death from dehydration, but is usually not helpful in shortening the duration of the illness. She noted that acute diarrhea is the leading cause of death in children in the developing world, and that many under the age of 5 suffer 5 to 10 episodes of the illness every year.

With the aim of reducing the severity of these episodes when they occur, Jacobs and her team went to Nepal between April and June of 1994 to conduct multiple 5 day studies with 116 children from the age of 6 months to 5 years. All the children had a history of acute diarrhea, and were given extensive physical examinations to assess thirst, appetite, abdominal pain and bloating, vomiting occurrence, sleep disturbance, fever levels, and overall mood. Stool samples were analyzed for bacterial content. Half the children were given individualized homeopathic remedies while half received a placebo treatment. All the children received ORT at the same time.

Jacobs and her colleagues found that there was an over 18% greater probability that the child receiving the homeopathic medicines--as opposed to the placebo--would no longer have diarrhea by the 5th day of the treatment. As well, she noted that when comparing the Nepal results with a prior study her team conducted in Nicaragua, it seemed that 5 of the most common homeopathic medicines in both regions seemed to benefit most of patients--with 1 of the 5 medicines aiding diarrhea patients in 85% of the cases in Nepal and 73% of the cases in Nicaragua. Jacobs emphasized that this meant there is a potential for the same homeopathic medications to aid in diarrhea treatment in vastly different regions.

In an interview with Reuters Health, Jacobs noted that the apparent effectiveness and generalizability of these particular homeopathic medicines holds great promise in the treatment of acute diarrhea. ``The point is that we found a very small number of homeopathic medicines were indicated for a large majority of cases, which means it'll be much easier to make these available to the hundreds of thousands of children suffering from this illness around the world,'' she said.

Jacobs noted that the next step--already underway--is to blend the 5 homeopathic medicines into a single medicine that can be cheaply and easily distributed around the world. Jacobs indicated that her team has future plans to compare this combined medicine with a placebo to determine its effectiveness. She noted that this type of combining is quite common and has been done on a large scale in the US for many homeopathic medications, such as teething tablets.

Jacobs expressed enthusiasm for the apparent contribution homeopathic medicines can make to the fight against diarrhea, and said that such studies may help to dispel the mainstream perception that homeopathic medical care is an unproven, untested, 'soft science'--rendering it ignored and underutilized.

``There is a great misunderstanding among the public about this,'' she said. ``Homeopathic medicines are different from herbs and supplements--they are highly regulated in the US. The US Homeopathy Pharmacopoeia was established in 1939 by Congress as part of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act that established the Food and Drug Administration. And so homeopathic medicines are regulated and highly standardized.''

SOURCE: The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 2000 6:131-

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