Homeopathy: Clarifying its relationship to hormesis

Author: Calabrese EJ, Jonas WB.
Affiliation: Environmental Health Sciences Program, School of Public Health, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA. edwardc@schoolph.umass.edu.
Conference/Journal: Hum Exp Toxicol.
Date published: 2010
Other: Volume ID: 29 , Issue ID: 7 , Pages: 531-6 , Word Count: 119


This paper presents the case that certain types of homeopathic medicine may represent a form of hormesis, that is, either pre- or post-conditioning hormesis. An example of a post-conditioning model by van Wijk and colleagues demonstrated successful enhancement of adaptive responses using below-toxic threshold doses (i.e. hormetic doses) of inducing agents when administered subsequent to a highly toxic chemical exposure, thus satisfying a basic experimental biomedical standard. Of note is that this model uses exposures within a measurable predicted hormetic range, unlike most forms of homeopathy. This experimental framework (along with a pre-conditioning model developed by Bellavite) provides a possible vehicle by which certain aspect(s) of homeopathy may be integrated into mainstream biomedical assessment and clinical practice.