This page covers two topics. The first is: what is a homeopathic preparation, viewed physically and chemically? That is basic research in the narrower sense. The second is: does the preparation act on living systems such as cells, plants and animals, and how can this effect be explained? That is preclinical research.
Physics and biology are presented together here because the effect cannot be explained without knowing the preparation: how a potentised remedy triggers biological reactions can only be said once it has been deciphered what acts within it.
The overview up to 2024
The page opens with an overview of all major studies up to 2024 and their results: Basic Research in Homeopathy. It presents the measurement methods and test systems, summarises what they have shown so far, and lists research groups, organisations and databases. The continuously updated databases are maintained by the Institute of Complementary and Integrative Medicine at the University of Bern. [Link University of Bern]
Research priorities since about 1995
The most common methods are briefly described and explained in plain language.
Physics and chemistry of potencies
- Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)
- UV spectroscopy
- Solvatochromic dyes
- Droplet evaporation
- Thermoluminescence
- Electron microscopy and nanoparticle measurement
- Composition of starting materials and reconstruction of historical preparation methods
Biological test systems
- Cells and cell-free systems
- Plants: duckweed, wheat, cress, peas
- Animals: models of poisoning, inflammation, behaviour and development; amphibians; parasites
Explanatory models
Several models have emerged from the methods and their results so far; they are briefly presented side by side.
- Water structures and coherence domains
- Weak quantum theory
- Nanoparticles and self-assembly
- Hormesis
- The similarity principle in a cell model
- Gene expression and epigenetics
What we check
For every study we check what exactly was done, and whether:
- the experimental set-up and controls are described precisely,
- independent research groups have replicated the result,
- the controls were demonstrably suitable for confirming the results.
What has been established so far
The overview shows substantial progress:
- Potencies differ measurably in physical terms from controls that were diluted and succussed in the same way. This has been confirmed most often with nuclear magnetic resonance and UV spectroscopy.
- Succussion is required for this. Samples that were only mixed do not show these differences.
- Potencies are not pure water. They contain dissolved gases, silica from the glass and from the water itself, as well as nanoparticles, even beyond the Avogadro limit.
- Stable water clusters that permanently store information have not been found so far.
- Biological effects appear in all test systems – in cells, plants and animals. More than 1,500 experiments have now been evaluated in meta-analyses.
- Reproducibility has increased. In 1999, no experimental model had yet been confirmed by an independent research group; by 2010, there were seven.
- The effect does not increase steadily with the potency level. Effective and ineffective levels alternate, and the sequence differs between laboratories.
- The effect depends on the state of the organism. It is most pronounced when the organism is mildly, but not too severely, damaged.
- Cells recover better from damage when a mild follow-up treatment resembles the preceding damage.
That the effect depends on the potency level, on the state of the organism and on the similarity of the follow-up treatment are recurring observations that still need to be tested systematically; they are currently regarded as working hypotheses.
What remains open
- Which property of the preparation causes the effect.
- How the effect comes about in the organism.
- Why the effective potency levels vary from laboratory to laboratory.
- What role the number and force of succussion strokes, the vessel material, heat and light play.
- In what way the physical measurements and the biological effect are related.
- How findings from the laboratory can be transferred to sick people. If the reaction is attributed to the organism and not to the substance, there is no effect curve that applies to the substance alone.
The results so far point in different directions on which further research can build. Collaboration with the modern life sciences is essential for this. Two young research fields could open up new approaches: quantum biology, which studies quantum effects in living systems, and research on biomolecular condensates – structures that organise themselves within the cell without a membrane. Both could help to develop research models for demonstrating the effects of potentised remedies.
In addition, important studies will be reviewed individually on this page: summarised clearly, checked against the original and placed in context.
Presentation of Individual Research Papers
Studies that pave the way for further research. E.g.: Marcus Zulian Teixeira has shown, using drug safety data, that many conventional medicines trigger a rebound after they are discontinued: the condition becomes worse than before treatment. The rebound reveals the counter-regulation of the organism that the similarity principle also makes use of – seen here from the side of remedies that act against the disease.
Summaries of biological principles and their interfaces with explanatory and differentiating models. E.g.: hormesis – the same substance has a stimulating effect at a low dose and an inhibiting or damaging effect at a high dose. The summary shows which homeopathic observations hormesis can explain and in what respects homeopathic remedies differ from it.
The studies that pave the way and the summaries of biological principles serve the same purpose: they examine the basic understanding on which explanations of homeopathy are built, and they create a common basis for an objective, forward-looking dialogue between research, practice and criticism.