HOMEOPATHIE WERKT WEL!

In oktober 2023 werd een meta-analyse gepubliceerd over de werkzaamheid van homeopathie:

> Efficacy of homoeopathic treatment: Systematic review of meta-analyses of randomised placebo-controlled homoeopathy trials for any indication - Hamre et al. - Systematic Reviews (2023) 12:191 (7)

Hier volgt de abstract:

Background and objective

Since 1997, several meta-analyses (MAs) of placebo-controlled randomised efficacy trials of homoeopathy for any indication (PRETHAIs) have been published with different methods, results and conclusions. To date, a formal assessment of these MAs has not been performed. The main objective of this systematic review of MAs of PRETHAIs was to evaluate the efficacy of homoeopathic treatment.

Methods

The inclusion criteria were as follows: MAs of PRETHAIs in humans; all ages, countries, settings, publication languages; and MAs published from 1 Jan. 1990 to 30 Apr. 2023. The exclusion criteria were as follows: systematic reviews without MAs; MAs restricted to age or gender groups, specific indications, or specific homoeopathic treatments; and MAs that did not assess efficacy. We searched 8 electronic databases up to 14 Dec. 2020, with an update search in 6 databases up to 30 April 2023.

The primary outcome was the effect estimate for all included trials in each MA and after restricting the sample to trials with high methodological quality, according to predefined criteria. The risk of bias for each MA was assessed by the ROBIS (Risk Of Bias In Systematic reviews) tool. The quality of evidence was assessed by the GRADE framework. Statistical analyses were performed to determine the proportion of MAs showing a significant positive effect of homoeopathy vs. no significant difference.

Results

Six MAs were included, covering individualised homoeopathy (I-HOM, n = 2), nonindividualised homoeopathy (NI-HOM, n = 1) and all homoeopathy types (ALL-HOM = I-HOM + NI-HOM, n = 3). The MAs comprised between 16 and 110 trials, and the included trials were published from 1943–2014. The median trial sample size ranged from 45 to 97 patients. The risk of bias (low/unclear/high) was rated as low for three MAs and high for three MAs.

Effect estimates for all trials in each MA showed a significant positive effect of homoeopathy compared to placebo (5 of 5 MAs, no data in 1 MA). Sensitivity analyses with sample restriction to high-quality trials were available from 4 MAs; the effect remained significant in 3 of the MAs (2 MAs assessed ALL-HOM, 1 MA assessed I-HOM) and was no longer significant in 1 MA (which assessed NI-HOM).

Discussion

The quality of evidence for positive effects of homoeopathy beyond placebo (high/moderate/low/very low) was high for I-HOM and moderate for ALL-HOM and NI-HOM. There was no support for the alternative hypothesis of no outcome difference between homoeopathy and placebo.

The available MAs of PRETHAIs reveal significant positive effects of homoeopathy beyond placebo. This is in accordance with laboratory experiments showing partially replicable effects of homoeopathically potentised preparations in physico-chemical, in vitro, plant-based and animal-based test systems.

Systematic review registration

PROSPERO CRD42020209661. The protocol for this SR was finalised and submitted on 25 Nov. 2020 and registered on 26 Dec. 2020.

 

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> De IVAA (Internationaler Verein Anthroposophischer Ärztegesellschaften) zond hierover een persbericht uit:

High-quality evidence for the positive effect of homeopathy in the new state-of-the-art systematic review of meta-analyses

Brussels, 9 October 2023

A newly published report provides evidence that homeopathy has significant positive health effects, well beyond what can be explained by the placebo effect. This finding should encourage further research to evaluate the benefit of homeopathy for different diseases. 

The report, in the scientific journal “Systematic Reviews” is the first systematic review of all six existing meta-analyses of placebo-controlled homeopathy trials that tested homeopathy for any disease indication. This type of review is important as it allows to pinpoint larger trends across different analyses. The methodological quality of the homeopathy trials was similar to that of conventional medicine trials with the same design, from a similar time period, and assessed according to the same criteria. Likewise, the quality of evidence for the efficacy of homeopathy was similar or higher than for 90% of interventions across medicine. This means the evidence for homeopathy’s impact on patient health is as strong as that of conventional treatments. 

“The evidence of efficacy from placebo-controlled trials in this rigorous systematic review is striking”, says Dr. Thomas Breitkreuz, International Federation of Anthroposophic Medical Associations (IVAA) president and head of the Paracelsus Hospital, Germany. “The findings show that the repeated calls to stop support for homeopathy are unfounded and that continued high-quality research into homeopathy is warranted.”

IVAA represents Anthroposophic Medicine, which differs from homeopathy but shares a holistic approach to patient care. Both are part of traditional, complementary and integrative healthcare.

The University of Bern, Switzerland, has recently published evidence summaries of homeopathy research on its website, covering the state of basic research including physico-chemical, in-vitro, plant-based and animal-based studies, and the state of clinical research (prior to the new review). The summaries are made available by the Institute of Complementary and Integrative Medicine, University of Bern.

 

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> EDZARD ERNST, bekend criticus van de homeopathie, reageerde op de meta-analyse met een commentaar dat niet ernstig kan genomen worden, althans niet volgens de auteurs van de review; via onderstaande link leest u eerst de commentaar van Ernst, daaronder de repliek van de auteurs:

https://www.wisshom.de/whwp/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Hamre_et_al_2023-11-13_Comment_on_blog.pdf

Hieruit volgend citaat:

>Citations without credit to the original authors and source. This blog contains only 15 full sentences by the author, the rest are verbatim citations from our SR, only in part marked as such (cf. the CC BY 4.0 license). Thus the reader might think the first five paragraphs summarising the SR to have been written by the blogger, while they were actually copied from our abstract.

>Conclusion: The 15 original sentences of this blog by Edzard Ernst contain a number of statements that are wrong (7 times), misleading (1x) and unsubstantiated (2x).