Homeopathy And Cell Culture

Courtesy : Oxford Journal: Although reports on the efficacy of homeopathic medicines in animal models are limited, there are even fewer reports on the in vitro action of these dynamized preparations. In Amla Cancer Research Centre, Kerala , Ellanzhiyil Surendran Sunila, Ramadasan Kuttan, Korengath Chandran Preethi and Girija Kuttan have evaluated the cytotoxic activity of 30C and 200C potencies of ten dynamized medicines against Dalton's Lymphoma Ascites, Ehrlich's Ascites Carcinoma, lung fibroblast (L929) and Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell lines and compared activity with their mother tinctures during short-term and long-term cell culture. The effect of dynamized medicines to induce apoptosis was also evaluated and they have studied how dynamized medicines affected genes expressed during apoptosis. Mother tinctures as well as some dynamized medicines showed significant cytotoxicity to cells during short and long-term incubation. Potentiated alcohol control did not produce any cytotoxicity at concentrations studied. The dynamized medicines were found to inhibit CHO cell colony formation and thymidine uptake in L929 cells and those of Thuja, Hydrastis and Carcinosinum were found to induce apoptosis in DLA cells. Moreover, dynamized Carcinosinum was found to induce the expression of p53 while dynamized Thuja produced characteristic laddering pattern in agarose gel electrophoresis of DNA. These results indicate that dynamized medicines possess cytotoxic as well as apoptosis-inducing properties.
Recently, limited investigations on the efficacy of dynamized medicines in animal models as well as clinical trials have reported that potentiated Lycopodium clavatum has protective action against CCl4-induced liver damage in rats (3) and that chelidonium 30C could ameliorate both p-dimethylaminoazobenzene and azodye-induced hepatocarcinogenesis in mice (4,5). Anti-genotoxic effect of different dynamized medicines has also been reported (6,7): Arsenicum album was found to ameliorate arsenic-induced toxicity in mice as well as in clinical studies and could reduce the elevated antinuclear antibody titer and hematological toxicities (8,9). Homeopathic therapy for asymptomatic HIV carriers has also proven beneficial (10) and recently Rajendran (11) reported homeopathy as a supportive therapy in cancer. Pathak et al. (12) investigated Ruta 6 on regression of human glioma brain cancer cell growth clinically and found that Ruta induces severe telomere erosion in MGRI brain cancer cells but has no effect on B-lymphoid cells and normal lymphocytes. Banerji and Banerji (13) reported that Ruta was effective for intracranial cysticercosis. </p> <p>Very few investigations have explored the action of dynamized medicine in in vitro cell culture systems. Podophyllum has been shown to inhibit adhesion of neutrophils to serum-coated micro plates (14). Traumeen S, a homeopathic formulation used clinically to relieve trauma and inflammation has been shown to inhibit the production of Interleukin-β, TNF-