New Study Shows Significant Effects from Homeopathic Medicines on Breast Cancer Cells

A new study published in the February issue of International Journal of Oncology reveals that homeopathic remedies have a beneficial effect on breast cancer cells. The study, which was done at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, shows that certain homeopathic remedies have increased cytotoxic (killing) effects on breast cancer cells compared with cells derived from normal breast tissue.

The team of researchers commented that the homeopathic remedies appeared to have similar activity to the activity of paclitaxel (Taxol), the most prescribed form of chemotherapy used for breast cancer, without the toxic side effects common to most conventional treatment.

The experiments were conducted in triplicate and repeated at least twice, using four ultra-diluted remedies in each case. The homeopathic medicines tested included: Carcinosin, 30C; Conium, 3C; Phytolacca, 200C and Thuja, 30C. The strongest effects were found from Carcinosin and Phytolacca.

The researchers concluded, "the ultra-diluted natural homeopathic remedies investigated in this study offer the promise of being effective preventive and/or therapeutic agents for breast cancer and worthy of further study."

Moshe Frenkel, MD, the medical director of the Integrative Medicine Program at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, was the lead researcher for this study. Frenkel said, "We felt that homeopathy needed to be tested in the same way that we test new chemotherapeutic drugs. We were quite impressed to find that homeopathic remedies have similar effects to chemotherapy on breast cancer cells but without affecting normal cells, a very exciting finding. As far as we know, this is the first study that evaluated the effect of homeopathic remedies on breast cancer cells."

Frenkel continued, "These findings probably need further testing in animal studies and in clinical trials to verify the actual clinical effect and its applicability in patients suffering from breast cancer. But it does open a window for interesting additional options in cancer care that are "out of the box" type of options, especially if those options have similar effects to current care with a major advantage of reduced toxicity and reduction of side effects."

This study was funded in full by MD Anderson Cancer Center.