Asthma Healing

Individualized homeopathic remedies provide no additional benefits for children already treated with traditional asthma medicines, such as inhalers and preventive therapies. A new study shows the alternative medicine therapies were no better than a placebo in improving the quality of life in children with mild to moderate asthma.

British researchers say as many as 15% of children with asthma in the U.K. have used homeopathy, but little is known about the effectiveness of the alternative medicine treatments when given in addition to traditional medical treatment.

The study, published in the April issue of Thorax, compared the effects of homeopathic remedies versus conventional treatment alone among 93 children with asthma.

In addition to their standard asthma medicines, half of the children received treatment from classically trained homeopaths who provided custom-made homeopathic remedies for the children during six sessions over the course of a year. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by diluting substances to form a solution that's designed to treat the specific symptoms of the individual. The other half of the children were given dummy remedies.

After a year of follow-up, the study found that the homeopathic remedies had no measurable impact on the children's quality of life. Although the severity of symptoms among the children who received homeopathy was reduced somewhat, researchers say the effect was not significantly stronger than the placebo.

"There were no changes in any of the other measures including the rate of exacerbations, which is believed by homeopaths to be a hallmark of successful treatment," write researcher Adrian White, MD of the department of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter in Devon, England, and colleagues.

Researchers say this is the first study to test the effect of classical homeopathy in asthma, and homeopaths were free to practice in their usual way.