Wolf, Ursula; Klein, Sabine (2012). Can homeopathic verum and placebo globules be distinguished by UV spectroscopy? (Unpublished). In: International Research Congress on Integrative Medicine and Health. Portland, Oregon, USA. 15.-18.05.2012.
Purpose: Homeopathic preparations are used in homeopathy and anthroposophically
extended medicine. Previous studies described differences in UV transmission
between homeopathic preparations of CuSO4 and controls. The aim of the present
study was to investigate whether statistically significant differences can be found
between homeopathic verum and placebo globules by UV spectroscopy.
Methods: Verum (aconitum 30c, calcium carbonate/quercus e cortice) and placebo globules
used in two previous clinical trials were dissolved in distilled water at 10mg/ml
20-23h prior to the measurements. Absorbance was measured at 190 – 340nm with
a Shimadzu UV-1800 double beam spectrophotometer. Duplicates of each sample
were measured in a randomized order 4 times on each of the 5 measurement days.
To correct for differences between measurement days, average absorbance of all
samples on one day was deduced from absorbance of the individual samples. The
Kruskal-Wallis test was used to determine group differences between the samples,
and finally the coding of the samples was revealed.
Results: First analysis showed significant differences (p≤0.05) in average UV absorbance at 200 – 290nm between the samples and a tendency of a correlation (p≤0.1)
between absorbance and globule weight. More results will be presented at the
conference.
Conclusion: Since the absorbance of the samples at the wavelengths between 200 and 290nm was small, a number of aspects had to be considered and should be corrected for if
they are present when performing UV spectroscopy on homeopathic globules: 1.
Exact weighing of the globules. 2. Measurement error of the spectrophotometer at
small absorbances. 3. Drift of the spectrophotometer during a measurement day. 4.
Differences between measurement days.
The question remains what caused the differences in absorbance found in these
experiments: the use of the original material for the production of the verum
globules, differences in the production of verum and placebo globules, or other
context factors.
Item Type: |
Conference or Workshop Item (Poster) |
|---|---|
Division/Institute: |
04 Faculty of Medicine > Medical Education > Institute of Complementary and Integrative Medicine (IKIM) |
UniBE Contributor: |
Wolf, Ursula, Klein, Sabine |
Subjects: |
600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Sabine Klein |
Date Deposited: |
27 Jun 2014 07:59 |
Last Modified: |
05 Dec 2022 14:34 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/52211 |
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