What doesn't kill you

[Sara Klein Ridgley, Ph.D.]

Here is something that examplifies what's Homeopathic: The Law of Similars
in Allopathy...

Sara
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What doesn't kill you

New Scientist vol 180 issue 2418 - 25 October 2003, page 38
Dishing out drugs that make your symptoms worse seems like a rash,
even dangerous way to treat patients. But it's already common
practice for some diseases, and one man argues that doctors should do
it all the time. Diane Martindale reports
MIRACLE workers rarely come back for an encore, but in the world of
heart medicine one little miracle is bucking the trend. Beta blockers
were invented in 1964 and quickly became the most widely used drugs
for controlling high blood pressure, saving countless lives. And now
they're doing it all over again, this time for congestive heart
failure.

A success story for sure, but a deeply mysterious one. For 30 years,
doctors were told never, ever to give the drugs to patients with
congestive heart failure (CHF). Today, though, doctors dish out beta
blockers like smarties and the drugs have proved themselves to be the
best medicine available for CHF. Why the U-turn?

At first sight the directive seemed sensible enough - beta blockers
reduce the heart's pumping power, and weakening an already-weak heart
would seem like the last thing you would want to do. But nearly 30
years ago, quite by accident, a Swedish doctor discovered that giving
beta blockers to CHF patients had miraculous long-term effects on
their health and longevity. The idea took a while to catch on, but
once it had the results were stunning. In clinical trial after
clinical trial, beta blockers have been shown to reduce death rates
in CHF by anything up to 70 per cent.

"This is the first time in the history of pharmacology that a class
of drug has moved from being forbidden to being the best drug for the
disease," says Richard Bond, a pharmacologist at the University of
Houston in Texas. Bond is one of numerous researchers searching for
an explanation for the beta blocker effect, and his work has led him
to a startling conclusion. He is convinced that beta blockers are not
a one-off, but an example of a more general phenomenon he has dubbed
"paradoxical pharmacology".

In short, paradoxical pharmacology means using drugs that make your
symptoms worse to make you better in the long run. Treating like with
like, if you will. The idea is eerily reminiscent of "hair of the
dog" folk wisdom, not to mention homeopathy. Bond, though, believes
there is a rational explanation, and says it could be systematically
exploited to cure many diseases.

Full story

http://archive.newscientist.com/secure/ ... 18024185.7
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