Hi,

I wonder if anyone knows the effect of consuming 1.6 dropper fulls of ethyl alcohol per day?

A homeopathist prescribed 8 dropper fulls of remedies, each with 20% ethyl alcohol content. That makes 1.6 dropper fulls of pure ethyl alcohol per day.

I believe one dropper full is about 20 drops, or 1 milliter, or 1/5 of a fluid ounce.

So, 1.6 droppers = 1.6 * 1/5 = .32 ounces

If we use the conversion for water of 28 grams per fluid ounce, then 1.6 droppers = .32 * 28 = 9 grams of carbs.

So, here's my questions:

1) Are my assumptions and math right?
2) Would burning off/evaporating the ethyl alcohol eliminate the cabrs?
3) Do we think that these extra 9 grams could be why I'm not losing weight (I'm really doing everything else right)?

Thanks very much,

Joseph

Gee, Ethyl is amazingly carby! Maybe the homeopathist could make your tinctures with rum instead!

Although technically Ethyl Alcohol (Ethanol) is a carbohydrate, it does not affect blood sugar, and hence does not count against our daily carb limits. It will slow weight loss but not undermine it (at least, not directly and not in such small amounts).

IMHO Homeopathic remedies are crap. The only biologically significant component in them is the alcohol.

Here's an article regarding such medicine:

Alternative Medicine and the Laws of Physics

The mechanisms proposed to account for the alleged efficacy of such methods as touch therapy, psychic healing, and homeopathy involve serious misrepresentations of modern physics.

Robert L. Park
link to article

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So-called "alternative" therapies, mostly derived from ancient healing traditions and superstitions, have a strong appeal for people who feel left behind by the explosive growth of scientific knowledge. Paradoxically, however, their nostalgia for a time when things seemed simpler and more natural is mixed with respect for the power of modern science (Toumey 1996). They want to believe that "natural" healing practices can be explained by science. Purveyors of alternative medicine have, therefore, been quick to invoke the language and symbols of science. Not surprisingly, the mechanisms proposed to account for the alleged efficacy of such methods as touch therapy, psychic healing, and homeopathy involve serious misrepresentations of modern physics.

The No-Medicine Medicine
Homeopathy, founded by a German physician, Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), is a relative newcomer. Homeopathy is based on the so-called "law of similars" (similia similibus curantur), which asserts that substances that produce a certain set of symptoms in a healthy person can cure those same symptoms in someone who is sick. Although there are related notions in Chinese medicine, Hahnemann seems to have arrived at the idea independently. Hahnemann spent much of his life testing natural substances to find out what symptoms they produced and prescribing them for people who exhibited the same symptoms. Although the purely anecdotal evidence on which he based his conclusions would not be taken seriously today, homeopathy as currently practiced still relies almost entirely on Hahnemann's listing of substances and their indications for use.

Natural substances, of course, are often acutely toxic. Troubled by the side effects that often accompanied his medications, Hahnemann experimented with diluting them. After each successive dilution, he subjected the solution to vigorous shaking, or "succussion." He made the remarkable discovery that although dilution eliminated the side effects, it did not diminish the effectiveness of the medications. This is rather grandly known as "the law of infinitesimals."

Hahnemann actually made a third "discovery," which his followers no longer mention. "The sole true and fundamental cause that produces all the countless forms of disease," he writes in his Organon, "is psora." Psora is more commonly known as "itch." This principle does not seem to involve any laws of physics and is in any case ignored by modern followers of Hahnemann.

By means of successive dilutions, extremely dilute solutions can be achieved rather easily. The dilution limit is reached when the volume of solvent is unlikely to contain a single molecule of the solute. Hahnemann could not have known that in his preparations he was, in fact, exceeding the dilution limit. Although he was contemporary with the physicist Amadeo Avogadro (1776-1856), Hahnemann's Organon der Rationellen Heilkunde was published in 1810, one year before Avogadro advanced his famous hypothesis, and many years before other physicists actually determined Avogadro's number. (Avogadro showed that there is a large but finite and specific number of atoms or molecules in a mole of substance, specifically 6.022 x 10^23. A mole is the molecular weight of a substance expressed in grams. Thus, a mole of water, H2O, molecular weight 2 + 16 = 18, is 18 grams. So there are 6.022 x 10^23 water molecules in 18 grams of water.)

Modern day followers of Hahnemann, however, are perfectly aware of Avogadro's number. Nevertheless, they regularly exceed the dilution limit -- often to an astonishing extent. I recently examined the dilutions listed on the labels of dozens of standard homeopathic remedies sold over the counter in health stores, and increasingly in drug stores, as remedies for everything from nervousness to flu. These remedies are normally in the form of lactose tablets on which a single drop of the "diluted" medication has been placed. The "solvent" is usually a water/alcohol mixture. The lowest dilution I found listed on any of these bottles was 6X, but most of the dilutions were 30X or even, in the case of oscillococcinum, an astounding 200C. (Oscillococcinum, which is derived from duck liver, is the standard homeopathic remedy for flu. As we will see, however, its widespread use poses little threat to the duck population.)

What do these notations mean? The notation 6X means that the active substance is diluted 1:10 in a water-alcohol mixture and succussed. This procedure (diluting and succussing) is repeated sequentially six times. The concentration of the active substance is then one part in ten raised to the sixth power (106), or one part per million. An analysis of the pills would be expected to find numerous impurities at the parts-per-million level.

The notation 30X means the 1:10 dilution, followed by succussion, is repeated thirty times. That results in one part in 10^30, or 1 followed by thirty zeroes. I don't know what the name for that number is, but let me put it this way: you would need to take some two billion pills, a total of about a thousand tons of lactose, to expect to get even one molecule of the medication. In other words, the pills contain nothing but lactose and the inevitable impurities. This is literally no-medicine medicine.

And what of 200C? That means the active substance is sequentially diluted 1:100 and succussed two hundred times. That would leave you with only one molecule of the active substance to every one hundred to the two hundredth power molecules of solvent, or 1 followed by four hundred zeroes (10^400). But the total number of atoms in the entire universe is estimated to be about one googol, which is 1 followed by a mere one hundred zeroes.

This is the point at which we are all supposed to realize how ridiculous this is and share a good laugh. But homeopaths don't laugh. They've done the same calculation. And while they agree that not a single molecule of the active substance could remain, they contend it doesn't matter, the water/alcohol mixture somehow remembers that the substance was once there. The process of succussion is presumed to charge the entire volume of the liquid with the same memory. Is there any evidence for such a memory?

Smart Water?
Homeopaths have been administering this sort of no-medicine medicine for two centuries. Most scientists, however, first became aware of their extraordinary claims when Nature published a paper by French epidemiologist/homeopathist Jacques Benveniste and several colleagues, in which he reported that an antibody solution continued to evoke a biological response even if it was diluted to 30X -- far beyond the dilution limit (Davenas et al. 1988). Benveniste interpreted this as evidence that the water somehow "remembered" the antibody.

In reaching that conclusion, Benveniste turned conventional scientific logic on its head. A large part of experimental science consists of devising tests to insure that an experimental outcome is not the result of some subtle artifact of the conduct or design of the experiment. "Infinite dilution" is one such procedure used by chemists. The effect of some reagent, for example, is plotted as a function of concentration. If at low concentrations, the plot does not extrapolate through the origin, it is taken as proof that the observed effect is due to something other than the reagent. By Benveniste's logic, it's evidence that the reagent leaves some sort of imprint on the solution that continues to produce the effect.

Attention had been called to Benveniste's article by the editor of Nature, John Maddox, who pointed out in an editorial that Benveniste had to be wrong (Maddox 1988). Because the reviewer could not point to any actual mistake, Nature had agreed to publish the article in the spirit of open scientific exchange. Reviewers, of course, have no way of knowing if the author faithfully reports the results of the measurement, or whether the instruments employed are faulty. Nevertheless, the existence of this one paper published in a respected journal has been widely trumpeted by the homeopathic community as proof that homeopathy has a legitimate scientific basis.

The Maddox editorial encouraged other scientists to repeat the Benveniste experiments. An attempt to replicate the work as precisely as possible was reported by Foreman and colleagues in Nature in 1993 (Foreman et. al. 1993). The authors found that "no aspect of the data is consistent with [Benveniste's] claim." I am aware of no work that replicates Benveniste's findings. Why was Foreman's water dumber than Benveniste's? We will return to that question.

Quite apart from the matter of how the water/alcohol mixture remembers, there are obvious questions that cry out to be asked: 1) Why does the water/alcohol mixture remember the healing powers of an active substance, but forget the side effects? 2) What happens when the drop of solution evaporates, as it must, from the lactose tablet? Is the memory transferred to the lactose? 3) Does the water remember other substances as well? Depending on its history, the water might have been in contact with a staggering number of different substances.

A number of mechanisms have been proposed to account for this miraculous memory. These mechanisms are discussed by Wayne Jonas in his recent book, Healing with Homeopathy, coauthored by Jennifer Jacobs (Jonas and Jacobs 1996). Jonas is the Director of the Office of Alternative Medicine of the National Institutes of Health and is identified on the book jacket as one of "America's leading researchers of homeopathic medicine." Jonas appears, at the very outset, to acknowledge the possibility that the effect of homeopathic medicine may "turn out to be only a placebo effect." But as we will see, in alternative medicine circles the placebo effect can be the weirdest explanation of all.

If it is not a placebo effect, Jonas says, the "information" from the active substance must be stored in some way in the water/alcohol solution, perhaps in the structure of the liquid mixture. There has been an abundance of speculation about what sort of "structure" this might be: clusters of water molecules arranged in specific patterns (Anagnostatos 1994); arrangements of isotopes such as deuterium or oxygen-18 (Berezin 1990); or "coherent vibration" of the water molecules (Rubik 1990). I could not find a single piece of evidence supporting any of these speculations, and there are sound scientific reasons for rejecting each of them. Jonas refers to structural studies showing regions of local order in liquids. A "snapshot" of the structure of a water/alcohol mixture will of course show regions of local order, but these are transient; they cannot persist beyond the briefest of relaxation times depending on the temperature. That not even local order can persist is the definition of a liquid. The problem, of course, is entropy. The second law of thermodynamics is the most firmly established of all natural laws, but even if you could somehow repeal the second law, you would still confront the question of how this stored information can be communicated to the body.

The Illusive Biophoton
One possibility, according to Jonas, is that information is transferred by "bioelectromagnetic energy." Here he cites, as "some of the most carefully executed work in this area," studies of the effect of serially agitated dilutions of frog thyroxine on highland frogs that are in the climbing stage of metamorphosis (Endler et al. 1994). Thyroxine is reported to increase the climbing rate of the frogs -- and the response continues even after the thyroxine dilutions are taken far beyond the dilution limit. In other words, when it is certain that there is no thyroxine.
That would appear to be clear evidence that something other than thyroxine is responsible for the stimulation of the frogs. In this case, for example, it might be the alcohol that is producing the climbing response, or some impurity, or the frogs might be stimulated by the act of administering the medication, or there might be subconscious bias on the part of the experimenter in deciding whether the frogs are stimulated. Once again, however, scientific logic is turned on its head; the results are interpreted as evidence that an imprint of thyroxine has somehow been left in the water.

But even if the water contains information about thyroxine, how is this information communicated to the frogs? Rather than administering the water/alcohol solution directly to the frog, the researchers tried putting the solution in a sealed glass test tube and placing it in the water with the frogs. The frogs still responded. Why am I not surprised?

What conclusion did the researchers come to? They concluded that information that once resided in the molecular structure of the active substance, and which was then somehow transferred to the succussed water, must have been transmitted to the frogs via a "radiant" effect, perhaps an illusive "biophoton." No evidence of such radiation has been reported. Benveniste, however, now claims that a 50Hz magnetic field can erase the memory of his antibody solutions (Benveniste 1993), which might explain why other researchers do not find a memory. This electromagnetic link led Benveniste to the further discovery that he can "potentize" your water over a telephone line.

One possibility, according to Jonas, is that information does not pass from the solution to the frog -- or from a medication to a human patient -- but the other way. The unhealthy state of the patient might be "released through the remedy." "Such speculative theories," Jonas admits, "need further experimental work to confirm or disprove them."

The Case Against Butterflies
Jonas also speculates that chaos theory might offer insight into the effect of homeopathic remedies on the body's self-healing mechanisms: One concept in chaos theory is that very small changes in a variable may cause a system to jump to a very different pattern of activity, such as a small shift in wind direction drastically affecting climatic patterns of temperature and precipitation. Under this way of thinking, the homeopathic remedy can be seen as a small variable that alters the symptom pattern of an illness. (Jonas and Jacobs 1996, 89)

This dreadful shibboleth betrays a total misunderstanding of what chaos is about. "Chaos" refers to complex systems that are so sensitive to initial conditions that it is not possible to predict how they will behave. Thus, while the flapping of a butterfly's wings might conceivably trigger a hurricane, killing butterflies is unlikely to reduce the incidence of hurricanes. As for homeopathic remedies that exceed the dilution limit, a better analogy might be to the flapping of a caterpillar's wings.

Psychic Healing
But if none of these mechanisms work, Jonas says, "highly speculative and imaginary [sic] explanations may be necessary." What he has in mind is the placebo effect. "Belief in a therapy," Jonas explains, "may be an important factor in healing." Who would disagree? If it is a placebo effect at work in homeopathy, all of the pseudoscientific trappings of similia similibus curantur and the law of infinitesimals merely serve as props to deceive people into believing that sugar pills are medicine. But "placebo effect," as used by Jonas and other proponents of alternative medicine, turns out to be the strangest beast of all. It is suffused with the New Age notion of a universal consciousness. The placebo effect becomes psychic healing. Again from Jonas: Some theorists suggest that intentionality and consciousness must be brought to any explanation of how nonlocal, and nonspecific quantum potentials might be "collapsed" into so-called informational coherence patterns (molecules), which then have specific effects. Once these previously unstable and nonlocalizable coherence patterns (such as thoughts and beliefs) nudge potential effects into existence (by an intention to heal in the person or practitioner), they are then seen by the body as locally acting, stable, "molecular" structures that produce specific biological signals and have predictable effects in the person. (Jonas and Jacobs 1996, 90)

This all sounds very much like Deepak Chopra (1989 and 1993), who asserts that: "Beliefs, thoughts, and emotions create the chemical reactions that uphold life in every cell." The notion that by thought alone the medicines needed to cure illness can be created within the body comes from Ayurveda, the traditional religious medicine of India that dates back thousands of years. Chopra has, in any case, created vast personal wealth by simply invoking "quantum healing" in book after book. His books reveal no hint that he has any concept of quantum mechanics.

Nevertheless, there are quantum mystics, including a few physicists, who interpret the wave function as some kind of vibration of a holistic ether that pervades the universe. Wave function collapse, they believe, happens throughout the universe instantaneously as a result of some cosmic consciousness. That, of course, would violate causality in the relativistic sense, and it would also violate quantum field theory (Eberhard and Ross 1989).

Biofield Therapeutics (Touch Therapy)
Alternative medicine consists of a wide spectrum of unrelated treatments ranging from the barely plausible to the totally preposterous. At the preposterous end, I place those therapies that have no direct physical consequences of any sort, such as homeopathy and psychic healing. One must also include "biofield therapeutics" or "touch therapy," though in fact it would be more accurate to call it "no-touch therapy," since the practitioner's hands do not actually make contact with the patient. Instead, it is claimed that the patient's "energy field," "qi," or "aura," is "smoothed" by the hands of the therapist or shifted from one place to another to achieve balance. The energy field is said to extend several inches outside the body, and the patient's field interacts with the field of the practitioner.

The nature of this supposed energy field is obscure, but proponents often link it in some way with relativity and the equivalence of matter and energy. It has also been suggested that the body's energy field is electromagnetic. Quantum mechanics, despite its popularity in many alternative medicine circles, rarely seems to be invoked in touch therapy. Indeed, B. Brennan, author of Hands of Light (1987), writes: "I am unable to explain these experiences without using the old classical physics framework." I confess that classical physics does not make it any easier for me to explain. Practitioners claim to be able to "feel" the energy field and often employ hand-held pendulums to locate the "chakras," or vortices, in the field that must be smoothed out to promote healing. It would seem to be a simple matter to examine a field that can be felt tactually, or that affects the motion of a pendulum, but so far no one has claimed to detect the energy field with any instrument that is not hand-held. This is quite remarkable since there are said to be tens of thousands in the United States who have been trained in some form of this therapy. In the United Kingdom there are 8,500 registered touch therapists (Benor 1993).

The public is spending billions of dollars annually on sugar pills to cure their sniffles, hand waving to speed recovery from operations, and good thoughts to ward off illness, all with assurances that it's based on science. Society has been set up for this fleecing in part by the media's sensationalized coverage of modern science. Popular discussions of relativity, quantum mechanics, and chaos often leave people with the impression that common sense cannot be relied on -- anything is possible. Scientists themselves often feed the public's appetite for the "weirdness" of modern science in an effort to stimulate interest -- or simply because scientists, too, can be beguiled by the mysterious.


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References
Anagnostatos, G. S. 1994. In Ultra High Dilution: Physiology and Physics, edited by J. Schulte and P. C. Endler. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Benor, D. J. Frontier Perspectives 3: 33.
Benveniste, J. 1993. Frontier Perspectives 3: 13.
Berezin, A. A. 1990. Medical Hypothesis 31: 43.
Brennan, B. 1987. Hands of Light. New York: Bantam.
Chopra, D. 1989. Quantum Healing. New York: Bantam.
-- -- -- . 1993. Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old. New York: Random House.
Davenas, E., et al. 1988. Nature 333: 816. The "Benveniste" paper.
Eberhard, P. H., and R. R. Ross. 1989. Foundations of Physics Letters 2: 127.
Endler, P. C., et al. 1994. FASEB Journal 8: 2313.
Foreman, J. C., et al. 1993. Nature 336: 525.
Jonas, W. B., and J. Jacobs. 1996. Healing with Homeopathy. Warner.
Maddox J. 1988. Nature 333: 287.
Rubik, B. 1990. Berlin Journal of Research in Homeopathy 1: 27.
Toumey, C. P. 1996. Conjuring Science. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers.
About the Author
Robert L. Park is in the Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742.

Thanks very much for the info.

I do indeed have my doubts about homeopathy.

I've got a problem with my liver, however, that MD's can't seem to fix -- or even ID, for that matter, so I've got little to lose except some time and money.

But, it's important to me to lose weight -- in great part because there's a good chance my liver will get better solely from that.

There's much talk, however, on these forums that sugar alcohol, which is what I believe you're referring to when you write that ethyl alcohol has carbs, but not the kind that affect blood sugar levels, does indeed stall weight loss.

If that's the case, then that's enough reason for me to stop.

Unless I can simmer/evaporate these carbs away.

Possible?

Thanks very much,

Joseph

PS -- rum might help in other ways (;-)

Ethyl Alcohol is regular drinking alcohol. It doesn't count against your carb allowance. But, your body will burn alacohol before it burns fat. So, if you are in induction...it is a no-no. In OWL, and especially Pre-Maintance, Maintnance...alcohol is fine in moderation. 9g of Alcohol is a little less than a lite beer. Your body will burn it off in an hour or two and you will be right back to burning fat.

Not all "stalls" are created equal.

Despite the anecdotal evidence, I have my doubts about what some folks attribute their stalls (real or imagined) to. The normal daily ups and downs and the jagged nature of our body weight and loss over time creates countless opportunities for false blame of innocent dietary options.

I'd prefer to see controlled studies of stall-causing items before passing judgment.

Personally, I consume alcohol and caffeine, and I often eat beyond satisfaction, and yet my weight loss has continued (though at a slower rate than it would if I made more righteous choices).

Thank you all again for the insights.

I'm in my 10th week on Atkins, and consider my stage a slow transition from induction to OWL. I range between 20 and 33 grams/carbs/day.

But, the past several hasn't produced any weight loss -- in fact, I've gained 1 lb in the past week.

I was eating 1 to 2 cups of whipped cream (measured pre-whipping), but cut that out to try to jump start the loss again.

Sounds like the alcohol is not nearly as bad as other forms of carbs, but that it's not easily knowable exactly what the effect of 9 or so grams of alcohol carbs/day is.

That, combined with my general skepticism of homeopathy, is enough to eliminate them from my diet -- and focus instead on weight loss and good exercise as a means of achieving health.

If, however, boiling the alcohol out of the remedies would eliminate the carbs, I would continue -- it's only hope, time and money I've got to lose....

I'm sure we'd all like to see good studies and definitive answers on stalls. I'm curious what your thoughts are on the subject? Do you simply ascribe them to the changing/adapting metabolism and leave them as unpredictable and uncontrollable?

To boil or not...

If there were any efficacious element in homeopathic meds ("water memory", "energy patterns" or whatever), then I'd think boiling would randomize and destroy it.

HOWEVER, since homeopathic medicine is junk science anyway, I'd say, What the Hell! - boil that sucker!

To stall or not...

I think plateaus and sudden wooshes are a normal part of our physiology, and that an excessive focus on scale details can be discouraging, especially if one is exercising and hence, adding muscle mass. Trust the science, hope for patience, and let this WOE work: that is the best understanding I can convey.

Don't sip the gin
If you wanna be thin

Speak with them about the mixture to see if it can be changed. I don't necessarily agree with this type of treatment BUT I very much believe in herbs and acupuncture without a doubt in my mind.

The homeopath says it it completely fine to simmer the alcohol out and replace the lost volume with water.

The only question I can't get answered is whether the evaporation of the alcohol will get rid of the carbs.

Just to be clear. Boiling away alcohol has the effect of......boiling away alcohol.

There is not any residual substance that is somehow concentrated. Ethyl Alcohol is the chemical name for "drinkable" alcohol and is completely miscable(mixable) with water.

Alcohol is made by a distillation process which seperates the alcohol (ethyl alcohol) from water and other raw ingredients such as grain (whisky) rye (bourbon) and hops (beer).

There is no carbohydrate in pure ethyl alcohol so your question is almost academic.

Other replies have already pointed out that alcohol, nevertheless does have an impact on weightloss. Because it is so readily absorbed into the blood stream it will take that as a form of energy before it will bother to go through the more laborious route of converting fat from the stored fat cells.

It is unlikely that 0.32 of an ounce of ethyl alcohol will have any noticeable effect on anything. Then again it depends how many you have

There are carbs in beer but not from the alcohol but from the residual ingredients. Distilled spirits such as whisky, gin and vodka do not rate as having any carbs.

The confusion may have arisen by the talk of "sugar alcohols"

The sugar alcohols commonly found in foods are sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol, isomalt and hydrogenated starch hydrolysates. Sugar alcohols come from plant products such as fruits and berries. The carbohydrate in these plant products is altered through a chemical process. These sugar substitutes provide somewhat fewer calories than table sugar (sucrose), mainly because they are not well absorbed and may even have a small laxative effect.

Many foods that are labeled "sugar free" or "no sugar added" in fact contain sugar alcohols. This is unfortunate because many people with diabetes MISTAKENLY think that foods labeled as "sugar free" or "no sugar added" will have no effect on their blood sugars. Foods containing these sugar alcohols need to have their carbohydrate contents accounted for in any LC diet, as it is carbohydrate that raises blood sugar levels.

FYI - although the modern practice of homeopathy may have been codified in the past two centuries, similar practices date back to at least classical antiquity. I agree that efforts to explain or justify homeopathic principles using the scientific method we've all been conditioned to believe is the only means of arriving at the truth are ridiculous, because the whole point of homeopathy is that it isn't traditional western medicine. On the other hand, I doubt that the practitioners are any more or less off base than traditional doctors, who, I suspect, are guessing far more often than they will ever admit. Common sense and improving your overall health will probably yield the best results in the long run.

Put it in your car, instead.

If there is a real, true, functional benefit to therapies of "Alternative Medicine", then controlled scientific methods will eventually tease it it out, and sweep away the magical, non-scientific beliefs that are unnecessary to it, resulting in a medical advance that surpasses the mythology in veracity and effectiveness. There is no "alternate" way of Knowing - there are just areas of knowledge that science hasn't fully explored yet.

One example - acupuncture - is discussed in the article below.

Acupuncture, Magic, and Make-Believe

Traditional Chinese acupuncture is an archaic procedure of inserting needles through the skin over imaginary channels in accord with rules developed from pre-scientific superstition and numerological beliefs. New research has replaced this mystical sham medical procedure with a simple evidence-based no-needle treatment that stimulates motor points and nerve junctures and induces gene-expression of neurochemicals and activates brain areas important for healing. This is a scientifically based alternative to the previous metaphysical theories and magical rituals.

George A. Ulett

link to article

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In all early cultures around the world, people observed the magic of nature with great awe. They formulated explanations in the form of myths such as the God of Thunder and the Goddess of Lightning. Behavior, including rituals of sacrifice and prayer, was governed by interpretations of such myths formed from the primitive knowledge of the time. Later, as knowledge of the world expanded, myths became scientific theories. But even these theories resemble myths in that they may be only temporary explanations that direct behavior until the theories change, augmented or supplanted by yet more scientific evidence. Persons who, in the face of contradictory scientific facts, continue to base their actions on disproved ancient myths are behaving in a "make-believe" fashion. Today scientific evidence makes the metaphysical explanations that are the basis of traditional Chinese acupuncture obsolete. The estimated 20,000 acupuncturists in America are therefore practicing a "make believe" kind of medicine. This was the opinion of the American Medical Association quoted in newspapers on August 4, 1974, stating "The AMA Calls Acupuncture Quackery."

In the late 1960s, before acupuncture was introduced in the U.S., I had learned of it on a trip to Japan. Dr. Kodo Senshu, a retired physician, was translating one of my psychiatric texts into Japanese. When I informed him that we in America knew nothing about acupuncture he set about to rectify my ignorance. He demonstrated the technique on my teenage daughter and I returned home with a textbook and a box of needles. In the following months I tried the method on a number of my patients. I discovered what the Chinese had known for centuries, that acupuncture could be of benefit to patients suffering from chronic pain. I was, however, greatly bothered by the pre-scientific explanations of the mystical needle ritual I was using. As a seventy-year member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, I had long ago learned that behind every event that appears magical there is a string or a mirror.

Early Chinese Acupuncture
My special hobby is Chinese magic and I was eager to look for a scientific explanation of acupuncture. In tracing magic's early roots in China I found a copy of an engraving showing the sorcerer Yu the Great in the pre-Shang court of the Emperor Shun, around 2,400 b.c. I learned that magicians like Yu were shamans. China's first physicians mixed their healing with magic rituals and whatever herbal remedies nature offered. These early shamans were also alchemists and practiced astrology. Yu was an expert in divination, and is depicted predicting the future by scapulomancy (reading the cracks produced by heating an animal's scapula or the carapace of a turtle). He could also prophesy from patterns formed by casting a mixture of long and short yarrow sticks. In later centuries the patterns formed by these sticks were ultimately organized into eight trigram designs of long and short lines. These in turn were doubled and created the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching, the "Book of Changes," one of the most famous fortune-telling books of all times.

Although it is before recorded history, some believe that Yu the Great was a minister in the court of Huang Ti, the legendary Yellow Emperor, reputedly the father of Chinese medicine. The book bearing his name, the Huang Ti Nei Ching, commonly translated as The Yellow Emperor's Manual of Corporeal Medicine, has been referred to as "China's Hippocratic Corpus." Its two main sections, the Su Wen (questions and answers about living matter) and the Ling Shu (the vital axis) were not compiled until the early Han Dynasty (200 b.c.). They are in the form of conversations between the emperor and his ministers. While some credit the Yellow Emperor with being the inventor of writing and author of the text, the work appears to be a compilation of ancient superstitions and concepts from numerology gathered by many authors over preceding centuries.

The Yellow Emperor's Classic is a fascinating volume containing the metaphysical theories that serve as the foundation for all of the world's several hundred varieties of acupuncture. Traditional Chinese acupuncture is based on the belief that disease is caused by blockages of qi, a mysterious body energy said to travel in imaginary channels known as meridians. The concept of such a body of energy is common to many cultures throughout the world. It goes by different names, including prana, spiritus, and pneuma. The Chinese ideogram for qi was developed from the pictogram of a pot of boiling rice with the top blown off by rising steam. When I learned of this I thought back to boyhood days of sandlot baseball when our fatigued pitcher was described as "running out of steam." Today it is known that body energy results from inner- and intra-cellular metabolism manifesting in measurable nervous energy.

There are many hypothetical meridians in which qi is thought to travel. The major ones are bilaterally paired and twelve in number, corresponding to the twelve months and animals of the Chinese zodiac. They also represent twelve body systems, including a vaguely defined mythical organ called the "triple heater." A minister is said to have told the Yellow Emperor, "On these channels there are 365 acupoints, one for each day of the year." These points are thought to be hollow areas, hsueh, where qi is believed to come to the surface for manipulation to balance the yin/yang dualism. Traditionally such manipulation is by needles (acupuncture), finger pressure (acupressure), or heat (moxibustion). The manner of application differs with the need to weaken (sedate) or strengthen (tonify) the body energy.

The early Chinese were primarily agrarian and dependent upon the vagaries of nature. Medicine was a part of religion and philosophy, both of which centered on the theme of oneness with nature. Man is but a microcosm of the major cosmos; what happens in nature happens in man. To understand these older conceptions of Chinese medicine is to recognize this cosmogony of the world. There was no supreme creator; instead the world arose from chaos having been formed by the forces of yin and yang, darkness and light. This ancient belief was ultimately given form chiefly in Taoism where the number of paired opposites is seemingly endless with examples such as man/woman, black/white, heaven/earth, cold/warm, etc. The need for the physicians to give prime consideration to balancing yin/yang forces in all the body's organs permeates medical thinking. Actions, thoughts, food, and medicines all have their ying/yang attributes.

Among the superstitions of ancient China, numerology plays a major role. Here numbers, in addition to any quantitative or ordinal characteristics, have a special magic meaning. Of all numbers, five is by far the most mystical.

An important theory underlying the principles forming the ritual practice of traditional acupuncture is commonly known as wu hing, or "five element theory." Actually hing is better translated as movement, so the five elements--earth, fire, wood, metal and water--are usually taught using the term "essences." According to the "rule of correspondences," derived from ancient numerology, the number five is a governing magical number. Each of the five elements corresponds to classifications of body parts: five odors, five tastes, five orifices, five tissues, etc. As man's relation to nature renders him susceptible to diseases according to the weather, seasons of the year must also fall under the rule of five.

To solve this dilemma, summer is divided into two parts, "early summer" and "late summer." In this manner numerology strongly determines the ritual application of acupuncture needles.

The Placebo Factor
Traditional acupuncture is done with needles. Needles have a powerful advantage as it is commonly believed that a "shot" is more powerful than a pill. Treatment is effected by a man in a white coat calling himself a "doctor of acupuncture." He inserts needles without pain. His office is adorned with posters of human bodies replete with strange lines and Chinese hieroglyphics. Here, then, are all the ingredients for a strong placebo cure. Many of the treatments of alternative medicine depend upon such placebo action for their healing reputation.

Placebo comes from the Greek, meaning "I shall please" and is created by the patient's belief in the treatment's efficacy. The response is strengthened when the doctor demonstrates his own faith by an air of confidence. Thus placebo is a mind/body phenomenon.

Research reports suggest that the placebo response is actuated by neurochemicals in the brain. It is estimated that 30 to 50 percent of all healing is due to placebo action. Even the drama of sham surgery has, in double-blind studies, been shown to have a powerful pain-modulating action. During the Middle Ages when medicine consisted mainly of witch's brew, civilization survived by placebo action combined with the fact that an estimated eighty percent of all illnesses are self healing.

In 1997 the practice of Chinese needle acupuncture was given strong support from a National Institutes of Health/Office of Alternative Medicine consensus meeting. The studies reviewed were done in the traditional manner, and the committee stressed the need for better controlled investigations. The committee was also aware of the placebo factor, as its report mentions that ". . . so called `non-specific' effects account for a substantial proportion of its effectiveness and thus should not be casually discounted."

Professor Song Keel Kang of Kung Hee Medical School in Seoul, South Korea, wrote that, "The psychological factor becomes important in methods that rely upon endogenous modulation. But whatever placebo effect acupuncture has must be by means of an underlying physiological mechanism." It is therefore of great importance to examine the scientific evidence for a biological basis of acupuncture.

Acupuncture in America
Early Chinese science was advanced. The Chinese were the first to invent the compass, printing, and gunpowder. But China's isolation impeded incorporation of knowledge from the Industrial Revolution in the West that spawned the roots of scientific medicine. Opium wars with Britain and dissension over port treaties with foreign powers enhanced a xenophobia and stifled advances of modern medicine. Missionaries brought some knowledge of Western medicine to China, and in the late 1800s a modern hospital and medical school were established in Shanghai. In 1882, when the emperor saw the superiority of Western medical techniques, he banned the teaching of acupuncture in the Imperial Medical College. But the triumph of science over sorcery was short lived. China's isolation was intensified by the xenophobic Boxer rebellion, war with Japan, and the Communist revolution. Thus the acupuncture "meridian theory" continued unchanged and a "bamboo curtain" impeded the flow of knowledge between China and the United States (figure 1).

[Picture omitted]
Figure 1. Developing concepts of biological acupuncture and perception of the myths of ancient pre-scientific metaphysical explanations.

In the 1940s, Chairman Mao faced millions in need of medical care with only a very limited number of Western-trained physicians. He solved the problem by re-establishing traditional Chinese medicine. With the stroke of a pen he set back Chinese medical progress by two thousand years. Teenagers were taken into the Red Guard and given three months of training in herbs, acupuncture, and First Aid. Armed with The Barefoot Doctor's Manual, they spread ancient Chinese medicine throughout the country, giving new credence to ancient beliefs that were solidly established in rural areas. Chinese medical schools now taught both modern and traditional medicine.

When President Nixon's delegation returned from their visit to China in 1972, they introduced traditional acupuncture to a U.S. enamored of New Age thinking and alternative medicine. These beliefs from the mysterious Orient came as yet another miracle cure-all. In view of the AMA's negative pronouncement, physicians were reluctant to adopt or study acupuncture. So it was mainly those without medical training who became "acupuncturists." They thus could play at being doctor without the necessity of going to medical school. Dozens of acupuncture seminars offered expensive courses, and most states soon established certification requirements of up to 1,700 hours of training in pre-scientific Chinese metaphysics. Third-party insurers are increasingly paying for needle acupuncture despite its unscientific basis.

Acupuncture Becomes Scientific
In 1972 the University of Missouri received the first National Institutes of Health acupuncture grant. Colleagues and I designed a study to compare acupuncture and hypnosis for modulation of experimental pain. We were able to report that acupuncture was not hypnosis. Most important was our finding that when the needles were stimulated by electricity it significantly increased acupuncture's ability to control pain. Although aware of its placebo effect, we were convinced that acupuncture worked by some neuro-physiological mechanism (Ulett and Han 2002). On a trip to China I met Professor JiSheng Han of Beijing Medical University. He showed me that, by transfusion of spinal fluid, he had transferred acupuncture analgesia from a treated to an untreated animal. This proved the neurochemical basis of acupuncture. He then spent thirty years unveiling the biological mechanisms of acupuncture by mapping the anatomical pathways and biochemistry of this ancient practice (Han 1998). He found that with proper electrical stimulation of the nervous system, specific frequencies could effect the gene expression of specific neuropeptides in the central nervous system. Thus he showed that acupuncture could significantly increase the spinal fluid content of substances such as endorphins and dynorphins. These had specific healing actions in the brain and spinal cord. Endorphins, for example, can activate an opioid receptor that is now known to have an important anti-anxiety effect. He also showed that there was a cross-tolerance between acupuncture and morphine in the treatment of drug addiction. Han demonstrated that stimulation could be done with polymer conducting EKG-type pads placed on the surface of the skin over motor points. No "magic needles" were necessary.

By 2001 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, especially those of Professor Z.H. Cho of the University of California Medical School at Irvine, demonstrated significant supporting evidence of a biological basis for acupuncture. Cho showed that electro-acupuncture stimulation can affect the diencephalic area of the brain, a region that promotes the body's own healing responses. Here sensory stimulation of the hypothalamus enhances homeostasis through activating the autonomic nervous system, balancing hormonal regulation by action of the pituitary gland and effecting anti-pain and limbic system responses (Cho, Wong, and Fallon 2001).

Conclusion
Traditional Chinese acupuncture is an archaic procedure in which needles are inserted through the skin over imaginary channels in accord with rules developed from pre-scientific superstition and numerological beliefs. The needles are manipulated to supposedly influence an imaginary body energy whose blockage is presumed to create diseases that are diagnosed and defined in a manner antithetical to modern medical knowledge. New information from research by Chinese scientists has replaced this mystical sham medical procedure with a simple, evidence-based, no-needle treatment. This method stimulates motor points and nerve junctures. Specific electrical currents induce the gene expression of neurochemicals and activate brain areas important for healing. Here then is a scientifically based alternative to the metaphysical theories and magical rituals of traditional Chinese acupuncture.

Western medicine prides itself on being evidence-based. Schools of medicine, nursing, chiropractic, and naturopathy should therefore avoid teaching pre-scientific traditional needle acupuncture to their students. The integration of unproven mystical methods will serve only to contaminate a scientific curriculum with make-believe medicine. Evidence-based neuro-electric stimulation is an effective, simple, no-needle, drug-free method of treatment that can be taught in an hour's time (Ulett and Han 2002). Our own experience and reports from clinics abroad have shown this to be a potent technique giving lasting relief from chronic pain with a reduced dependency upon medication. It has also been found useful for a variety of neurological, psychiatric, and psychosomatic illnesses.