Homeopathy & Rheumatological Disease
a systematic review
October 2024 saw the European Journal of Rheumatology publish Homeopathy for Rheumatological Diseases: A Systematic Review1 in six rheumatic disorders (RDs) -osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, hyperuricemia, ankylosing spondylitis, and tendinopathy.
The authors Jozélio Freire de Carvalho, Aaron Lerner and Carina Benzvi found;
‘this review shows homeopathy is a promising and safe therapy for RD treatment. However, the data needs to be reproduced in future more extensive studies, including other rheumatic conditions.’
Homeopathic medicines are serially agitated dilutions that at just 12C are beyond Avogadro’s constant which is one reason why certain scientists dismiss homeopathy without considering the evidence for its effectiveness (see also RADs.2)
Medico’s and patients are known to be more concerned with the clinical proof supporting homeopathy in specific ailments.3
In 2006, the Hospital General de México rheumatology department found that homeopathy was used by approximately 15% of RD sufferers, more frequently by patients with longer disease duration.4
Homeopathy for Rheumatological Diseases: A Systematic Review
The researchers, who did not receive financial support or declare any conflicts of interest, collated all homeopathy studies in rheumatic patients (1966 - 2023) a total of 15 studies (the majority being double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trials) involving 811 patients aged 31 to 87 years old - with international criteria for RDs from all kinds of study designs excepting reviews, animal, and in vitro studies.
Most studies showed at least one area of benefit of homeopathy in RD, and mild or absent adverse/side effects.
Nine studies demonstrated improvements.
Five studies found no significant improvements.
One study showed the homeopathic consultation was therapeutically beneficial but not the homeopathic medicine5 (see also Brulé et al., 20236 (ADHD7)).
The Case reports and retrospective studies indicated that in ankylosing spondylitis, rheumatoid arthritis, and osteoarthritis homeopathy can result in clinical improvement or recovery (see also Juvenile arthritis8). The self-reported efficacy scores homeopathy scored higher for osteoarthritis, and lower for connective tissue diseases and rheumatoid arthritis.
‘‘Some limitations were observed in this study. For instance, the number of participants was low. Second, a few RDs were evaluated: osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, hyperuricemia, ankylosing spondylitis, and tendinopathy. Therefore, future investigations must involve bigger patient samples and other RDs, enabling a better understanding of the course of homeopathy in rheumatic conditions. No assessment on bias risk and meta-analysis was performed since there are several different RDs included herein in this analysis.
A few articles in the literature evaluate the effects of homeopathy in rheumatological diseases, and 6 RD were assessed. Nevertheless, most reports analyzed studies demonstrated that homeopathy use is efficacious in treating signs and symptoms of RD with no or minimal adverse events. However, more studies are waiting to confirm the present data.’’9
Additional reading:
Homeopathy & knee osteoarthritis
To date, just two trials investigating the use of homeopathy in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis have been conducted.
Homeopathy & Pain
Millions of adults in the United States use complementary health approaches to manage painful conditions such as arthritis, and back pain, chronic musculoskeletal pain is a frequent reason for a medical visit, with US physicians found to be prescribing opioids at double the rates of physical therapy in 2017.
Homeopathy & Fibromyalgia
Globally one in five people suffer moderate or strong chronic pain, which renders one in three incapable of leading an independent life and one in four stating pain interferes with or destroys relations with family & friends. Pain relief is classed as a human right by WHO.
Homeopathy & thousands
This brief post is formed from comments on an earlier post Homeopathy, Cochineal, and Carmine - a case of coughing regarding long term, large cohort, chronic disease outcomes and homeopathy studies (if you have more please drop them in the comments.)
Homeopathy & Arnica montana
Arnica montana L. (Asteraceae) is an herbaceous perennial plant growing wild across the mountains of Europe and included on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature endangered species list with regulated harvesting confined to just several areas in France and Germany.(1)
I’d like to personally thank subscribers who make the effort to support and engage with me personally by liking, commenting, and sharing these articles - and especially to my five paid subscribers whose support of my work encourages me to keep writing.
To let you all know, as of 2025 I am undertaking a Masters of Applied Health Science in an attempt to obtain much needed & critically lacking data of complementary medicine use within the New Zealand population10 prior to the writing of New Zealand’s natural medicine bill beginning 2026.
As the majority of my work is unfunded, I kindly ask subscribers and readers who find value and worth in Evidence Based Homeopathy? to please like, comment or share the articles (I love your emails but they have much more weight when publicly available!) as this helps to expand ‘my reach.’
And, if you are in a position to do so, your financial support is always greatly, greatly received either through a paid subscription (which as a thank you will also get you free access to my upcoming Chiron courses - chronic case cares & considerations) or by purchasing your own copy of my book One Hundred Practice Cases for Homeopaths - solving for humans and animals.11
Aude sapere !
‘‘In contrast to frequent claims, the available MAs of homoeopathy in placebo-controlled randomised trials for any indication show significant positive effects beyond placebo. Compared to other medical interventions, the quality of evidence for efficacy of homoeopathy was similar or higher than for 90% of interventions across medicine.12 Accordingly, the efficacy evidence from placebo-controlled randomised trials provides no justification for regulatory or political actions against homoeopathy in health-care systems.’’13
Freire de Carvalho J, Lerner A, Benzvi C. Homeopathy for Rheumatological Diseases: A Systematic Review. Eur J Rheumatol. 2024 Oct 14;11(3):378-384. doi: 10.5152/eurjrheum.2024.23123. PMID: 39479968; PMCID: PMC11562247.
Bellavite P, Marzotto M, Chirumbolo S, Conforti A. Advances in homeopathy and immunology: a review of clinical research. Front Biosci (Schol Ed). 2011 Jun 1;3(4):1363-89. doi: 10.2741/230. PMID: 21622275.
Alvarez-Hernández E, César Casasola-Vargas J, Lino-Pérez L, Burgos-Vargas R, Vázquez-Mellado J. [Complementary and alternative medicine in patients attending a rheumatology department for the first time. Analysis of 800 patients]. Reumatol Clin. 2006 Jul;2(4):183-9. Spanish. doi: 10.1016/S1699-258X(06)73044-3.
Brien S, Lachance L, Prescott P, McDermott C, Lewith G. Homeopathy has clinical benefits in rheumatoid arthritis patients that are attributable to the consultation process but not the homeopathic remedy: a randomized controlled clinical trial. Rheumatology (Oxford). 2011 Jun;50(6):1070-82. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/keq234.
Brulé D, Landau-Halpern B, Nastase V, Zemans M, Mitsakakis N, Boon H. A Randomized Three-Arm Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Study of Homeopathic Treatment of Children and Youth with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. J Integr Complement Med. 2024 Mar;30(3):279-287. doi: 10.1089/jicm.2023.0043.
Homeopathy & ADHD (2023)
A rehash from Dec 2022 with inclusion of the pre-print results of the highly anticipated A Randomized Three-Arm Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Study of Homeopathic Treatment of Children and Youth with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Chabanov et al., 2018. Levels of Health Theory With the Example of a Case of Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. Journal of Evidenced Based Integrative Medicine. Jan-Dec;23:2515690X18777995. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515690X18777995
Freire de Carvalho J, Lerner A, Benzvi C. Homeopathy for Rheumatological Diseases: A Systematic Review. Eur J Rheumatol. 2024 Oct 14;11(3):378-384. doi: 10.5152/eurjrheum.2024.23123. PMID: 39479968; PMCID: PMC11562247.
Howick et al., 2022. Most healthcare interventions tested in Cochrane Reviews are not effective according to high quality evidence: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Clin Epidemiol. Aug;148:160-169. PMID: 35447356
Hamre et al., 2023. Efficacy of homoeopathic treatment: Systematic review of meta-analyses of randomised placebo-controlled homoeopathy trials for any indication. Systematic Rev. Oct 7;12(1):191. PMID: 37805577
I began using cell salts after years of illness that allopathic care did nothing but make my life more miserable. I came across it synchronistically. I’ve been using them now for 5 years and they have helped. I added homeopathy for allergies, pain, sleep and several other issues which are all mostly gone. Sleep is my biggest issues which became a problem after neck radiation therapy. I usually do well to sleep 3 hours a night. It’s quite amazing how functional I manage to be on such a small amount of sleep.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge.