In a remarkable interview published in Science magazine of December 24, 2010, (1) Professor Luc Montagnier, has expressed support for the often maligned and misunderstood medical specialty of homeopathic medicine. Especially, principle of Dynamisation or serial dilution to achieve potency of medicine.
Although homeopathy has persisted for 200+ years throughout the world and has been the leading alternative treatment method used by physicians in Europe and India, (2) most conventional physicians and scientists have expressed skepticism about its efficacy due to the extremely small doses of medicines used.
Dr. Luc Montagnier, the French virologist who won the Nobel Prize in 2008 for discovering the AIDS virus, has surprised the scientific community with his strong support for homeopathic medicine. Montagnier’s research (and other of many of his colleagues) has verified that electromagnetic signals of the original medicine remains in the water and has dramatic biological effects.
Montagnier’s new research is investigating the electromagnetic waves that he says emanate from the highly diluted DNA of various pathogens. Montagnier asserts, “What we have found is that DNA produces structural changes in water, which persist at very high dilutions, and which lead to resonant electromagnetic signals that we can measure. Not all DNA produces signals that we can detect with our device. The high-intensity signals come from bacterial and viral DNA.”
Montagnier’s new research evokes memories one of the most sensational stories in French science, often referred to as the ‘Benveniste affair’ A highly respected immunologist Dr. Jacques Benveniste., who died in 2004, conducted a study which was replicated in three other university laboratories and that was published in Nature(19). Benveniste and other researchers used extremely diluted doses of substances that created an effect on a type of white blood cell called basophils.
Although Benveniste’s work was supposedly debunked, (20) Montagnier considers Benveniste a “modern Galileo” who was far ahead of his day and time and who was attacked for investigating a medical and scientific subject that orthodoxy had mistakenly overlooked and even demonized. A related topic is the phenomenon, claimed by Jacques Benveniste’s colleague Yolène Thomas and by others to be well established experimentally, known as “memory of water.”
If valid (high dilution nano structure memory), this would be of greater significance than homeopathy itself, and it attests to the limited vision of the modern scientific community that, far from hastening to test such claims, the only response has been to dismiss them out of hand. (21) comments Brian David Josephson (Nobel Prize in 1973), who is an emeritus professor of Cambridge University in England, he was also asked by New Scientist editors how he became an advocate of unconventional ideas. He responded: I went to a conference where the French immunologist Jacques Benveniste was talking for the first time about his discovery that water has a ‘memory’ of compounds that were once dissolved in it — which might explain how homeopathy works. His findings provoked irrationally strong reactions from scientists, and I was struck by how badly he was treated. (22) Josephson went on to describe how many scientists today suffer from “pathological disbelief;” that is, they maintain an unscientific attitude that is embodied by the statement “even if it were true I wouldn’t believe it.“
Montagnier: “I can’t say that homeopathy is right in everything. What I can say now is that the high dilutions are right. High dilutions of something are not nothing. They are water structures which mimic the original molecules. I am told that some people have reproduced Benveniste’s results, but they are afraid to publish it because of the intellectual terror from people who don’t understand it.”
REFERENCES: (1) Enserink M, Newsmaker Interview: Luc Montagnier, French Nobelist Escapes “Intellectual Terror” to Pursue Radical Ideas in China. Science 24 December 2010: Vol. 330 no. 6012 p. 1732. DOI: 10.1126/science.330.6012.1732 (2) Ullman D. Homeopathic Medicine: Europe’s #1 Alternative for Doctors. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/homeopathic-medicine-euro_b_402490.html (3) Linde L, Clausius N, Ramirez G, et al., “Are the Clinical Effects of Homoeopathy Placebo Effects? A Meta-analysis of Placebo-Controlled Trials,” Lancet, September 20, 1997, 350:834-843. (4) Lüdtke R, Rutten ALB. The conclusions on the effectiveness of homeopathy highly depend on the set of analyzed trials. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. October 2008. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2008.06/015. (5) Taylor, MA, Reilly, D, Llewellyn-Jones, RH, et al., Randomised controlled trial of homoeopathy versus placebo in perennial allergic rhinitis with overview of four trial Series, BMJ, August 19, 2000, 321:471-476. (6) Ullman, D, Frass, M. A Review of Homeopathic Research in the Treatment of Respiratory Allergies. Alternative Medicine Review. 2010:15,1:48-58. http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/.fulltext/15/1/48.pdf (7) Vickers AJ. Homoeopathic Oscillococcinum for preventing and treating influenza and influenza-like syndromes. Cochrane Reviews. 2009. (8) Bell IR, Lewis II DA, Brooks AJ, et al. Improved clinical status in fibromyalgia patients treated with individualized homeopathic remedies versus placebo, Rheumatology. 2004:1111-5. (9) Fisher P, Greenwood A, Huskisson EC, et al., “Effect of Homoeopathic Treatment on Fibrositis (Primary Fibromyalgia),” BMJ, 299(August 5, 1989):365-6. (10) Jonas, WB, Linde, Klaus, and Ramirez, Gilbert, “Homeopathy and Rheumatic Disease,” Rheumatic Disease Clinics of North America, February 2000,1:117-123. (11) Jacobs J, Jonas WB, Jimenez-Perez M, Crothers D, Homeopathy for Childhood Diarrhea: Combined Results and Metaanalysis from Three Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trials, Pediatr Infect Dis J, 2003;22:229-34. (12) Barnes, J, Resch, KL, Ernst, E, “Homeopathy for Post-Operative Ileus: A Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, 1997, 25: 628-633. (13) M, Thurneysen A. Homeopathic treatment of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a randomised, double blind, placebo controlled crossover trial. Eur J Pediatr. 2005 Dec;164(12):758-67. Epub 2005 Jul 27. (14) Kassab S, Cummings M, Berkovitz S, van Haselen R, Fisher P. Homeopathic medicines for adverse effects of cancer treatments. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 2. (15) Witt CM, Bluth M, Albrecht H, Weisshuhn TE, Baumgartner S, Willich SN. The in vitro evidence for an effect of high homeopathic potencies–a systematic review of the literature. Complement Ther Med. 2007 Jun;15(2):128-38. Epub 2007 Mar 28. (16) Endler PC, Thieves K, Reich C, Matthiessen P, Bonamin L, Scherr C, Baumgartner S. Repetitions of fundamental research models for homeopathically prepared dilutions beyond 10-23: a bibliometric study. Homeopathy, 2010; 99: 25-36. (17) Luc Montagnier, Jamal Aissa, Stéphane Ferris, Jean-Luc Montagnier, Claude Lavallee, Electromagnetic Signals Are Produced by Aqueous Nanostructures Derived from Bacterial DNA Sequences. Interdiscip Sci Comput Life Sci (2009) 1: 81-90. http://www.springerlink.com/content/0557v31188m3766x/fulltext.pdf (18) Nobel laureate gives homeopathy a boost. The Australian. July 5, 2010. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/nobel-laureate-gives-homeopathy-a-boost/story-e6frg8y6-1225887772305 (19) Davenas E, Beauvais F, Amara J, et al. (June 1988). “Human basophil degranulation triggered by very dilute antiserum against IgE”. Nature 333 (6176): 816-8. (20) Maddox J (June 1988). “Can a Greek tragedy be avoided?”. Nature 333 (6176): 795-7. (21) Josephson, B. D., Letter, New Scientist, November 1, 1997. (22) George A. Lone Voices special: Take nobody’s word for it. New Scientist. December 9, 2006. (23) Personal communication. Brian Josephson to Dana Ullman. January 5, 2011. (24) Chikramane PS, Suresh AK, Bellare JR, and Govind S. Extreme homeopathic dilutions retain starting materials: A nanoparticulate perspective. Homeopathy. Volume 99, Issue 4, October 2010, 231-242. (25) Human and Experimental Toxicology, July 2010: http://het.sagepub.com/content/vol29/issue7/ To access free copies of these articles, see: http://www.siomi.it/siomifile/siomi_pdf/BELLE_newsletter.pdf (26) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/luc-montagnier-homeopathy-taken-seriously_b_814619.html?ir=India (27) http://www.homeopathyeurope.org/media/news/nobel-laureate-montagnier-takes-homeopathy-seriously
More Nobel Laureates speak on Homeopathy: drnancymalik’s website
Homeopathy never fails….but lacking of knowledge, Poor understandinG about its principles….are the reasons to get failures……
Very slow in getting cure. But completely get cure WITHOUT ANY SIDE EFFECTS
Luc Montagnier’s Works On ‘Ultra-Dilutions’ – Right Observations, Wrong Interpretations
http://dialecticalhomeopathy.com/2011/09/27/luc-montagniers-observations/
Luc Montagnier’s observation that ‘high dilutions’ contain “water structures which mimic the original molecules.” is very important for homeopathy. But, he never explained the exact molecular mechanism by which this ‘mimicking’ happens, and more important, did not take up the task of explaining the dynamics of homeopathic therapeutics involved in ‘simila similibus curentur’. The result was, people interested in ‘ultra-scientific’ and ‘dynamic’ interpretation of homeopathy actually hijacked his theory. Only because he said he could detect ‘electromagnetic signals’ showing the presence of ‘molecular memory of dugs’ in high dilutions, these theoreticians used it to rationalize their pseudoscientific concepts of ‘resonance’, ‘vibrations’, frequencies’, ‘drug transmissions’, ‘radionics’, ‘drug teleportation’ and the like they use in explaining homeopathy. Luc Montagnier’s limitation lies in the fact that he could not understand the concept of ‘molecular imprinting’.
If he could have explained the phenomenon he observed in terms of ‘molecular imprinting’, instead of ‘mimicking’ and ‘vibrations’, the situation would have been entirely different. If he could have gone a bit forward and explained the source of ‘electromagnetic signals’ as ‘molecular imprints’, he could have avoided the ‘occult’ homeopaths and ‘spiritual homeopaths hijacking and misusing his statements for their ulterior motives.
To be more exact, Montagnier should have said: “high dilutions of something are not nothing- hey are water structures which are ‘three-dimensional negative molecular imprints’ of original molecules.” NOT MIMICS. That could have made a big difference for homeopathy.
Instead of this vague theorizing about “water nanostructures and their electromagnetic resonance can faithfully perpetuate DNA information”, he could have explained this phenomenon in a more rational way, if he could understand the concept of ‘molecular imprinting’ involved in high dilutions.
According to my view, it is not the ‘electro magnetic resonance’ or ‘mimicking’ that induced dna synthesis in his experiments. Actually, the high dilutions of dna solutions he preapared contained ‘molecular imprints’ of specific dna fragments. When he added nucleotide primers and polymerase enzymes into this molecular imprinted water medium, molecular imprints could have held the nucleotide primers in the correct sequence and position similar to that of original dna fragment. Then, the polymeraze enzyme could have connected these primers to form dna molecules exactly similar to original one. Here, ‘molecular imprints’ acted as ‘templates’, and helped in arranging nucleotide primers in correct sequence by binding to them, due to the specific configurational affinity.
Only ‘three-dimensional negative molecular imprints’ can explain the molecular mechanism of homeopathic therapeutics, where potentized drugs are not acting similar to original drug molecules, but just as exact ‘opposites’. That is ‘similia similibus curentur’.
According to Luc Montaigner, the ‘nanostructures’ formed in high dilutions are ‘mimics’ of original molecules. But in terms of modern molecular imprinting technology, ‘molecular imprints’ are 3d structures with configurations just complementary to original molecules. If we consider original molecules as ‘keys’, montaigner consider ‘nanostructures’ as duplicate keys. According to my concept, ‘molecular imprints’ are ‘artificial key holes’ that could act as ‘artificial binding sites’ for original keys or keys similar to them. Molecular imprints bind to the pathogenic molecules due to complementary configuration, exactly like a key hole binds to a key. MOLECULAR IMPRINTING PRODUCES ARTIFICIAL KEY-HOLES, NOT DUPLICATE KEYS. Once we understand this difference in perceptions, it would be easy for us to understand ‘similia similibus curentur’ scientifically.
Since Montaigner had no any idea of molecular imprinting, he tried to explain this phenomenon in terms of ‘electromagnetic resonance’, which led to ultra-scientific interpretations. This limitations helped the ‘energy medicine’ theorists to hijack and misuse the works of luc montaigner.
Proponents of all those ‘modern’ ENERGY MEDICINE models and practices of homeopathy and CAM, amounting to sheer occults such as ‘vibrations’, ‘resonance’, ‘wave theory’, ‘frequencies’, ‘EM signals’, ‘bio-photons’, ‘bio-magnetism’, ‘distance healing’, ‘hair transmission’, ‘photo transmission’, ‘PC resonance remedies’, ‘paper remedies’, ‘water remedies’, ‘mp3 remedies’, ‘radionics’, ‘reflexology’, ‘meditation proving’, ‘dream proving’, ‘trituration proving’, etc etc seek their solace of ‘scientific’ foundation in the ‘DIGITAL BIOLOGY’ of BENVENISTE. It is almost like a BIBLE to them. In my opinion, the REDUCTIONIST and PSEUDOSCIENTIFIC speculations of benveniste, which he called ‘Digital Biology’, is actually the ‘MOTHER OF QUACKERY’ in homeopathy as well as everything known as CAM practices.
If we carefully examine the story of Benevenite’s failure, we would understand that it was not his basic observations that failed, but his interpretations of those observations. It led to submitting himself to experiments which were doomed to fail. Firstly, his argument that the drugs so diluted to the extent of making it impossible to contain a single molecule, can interfere in biological processes exactly mimicking the basic drug substance was a wrong and exaggerated interpretation of results of his original experiments. This inaccurate interpretation of the phenomena he observed, led him to agree to subject himself to inappropriate experiments, obviously designed to defeat him. He failed to understand that the molecular memory of the drug substances is imprinted into water in a negative direction, in complementary configuration. Put in another way, drug molecules will be imprinted in water not as exact configurational duplicates, but as negative complements, and hence, they cannot mimic the original drug molecules in biological processes.
Failure to understand the exact process of MOLECULAR IMPRINTING involved in the observed phenomenon of WATER MEMORY was a great mistake, that cost heavy to him. His conclusion that the ‘imprinted water’ interferes in biochemical processes exactly SIMILAR to the original molecules used for imprinting proved to be immature. He failed to comprehend the exact mechanism of molecular imprinting in water, and design his experiments accordingly. Had he understood the real mechanism of molecular imprinting, he would have been conscious about the UNSTABLE behavior of hydration shells in water, and would have taken necessary precautions, before subjecting himself to a controlled experiment. He could have devised some techniques to ensure the stability of hydration shells, such as using alcohol-water mixture instead of pure water, as done in homeopathic potentization.
He tried to explain it as ‘water memory’ that can mimic the original molecules. Actually, molecular imprints never can ‘mimic’ original molecules. They can only ‘complement’ and bind to original molecules and deactivate them by configurational affinity. If drug molecules are considered ‘keys’, ‘mimics’ should act as ‘duplicate keys’. But ‘molecular imprints’ act as ‘artificial keyholes’ for those ‘keys’ and ‘similar ‘keys. This point is very important. If we forget this point, we cannot logically explain ‘molecular imprints’ or ‘similia similibus curentur’.
If beneviste could have perceived the concept of ‘molecular imprints’ acting not as ‘duplicate keys’ but as ‘artificial keyholes’, he would have designed his experiments accordingly, so that he can prove that ‘molecular imprints’ can ‘antidote’ or ‘deactivate’ original molecules, thereby preventing them from interacting with biological molecules. Since ‘anti- IgE antiserum’ contains natural ligands of enzymes involved in human basophil de-granulation, ‘molecular imprints’ of anti- IgE antiserum cannot be prevent their natural interaction. We should not forget that ‘molecular imprints’ cannot interfere in the interaction between biological targets and their natural ligands. In the absence of this understanding, the experiments of beneveniste were wrongly designed, and were inevitably bound to fail.
‘Molecular imprints’ can prevent only ‘off-target’ actions of biological ligands. For example, we use potentized thyroid extract, which contain molecular imprints of various thyroid hormones having specific roles in metabolism. Potentized thyroid extract never interferes in the natural biological actions of thyroid hormones. But those molecular imprints can rectify the pathological conditions caused by ‘off-target’ bindings of thyroid hormones, especially in situations of hyperthyroidism. This is applicable to all potentized hormone remedies. They never interfere in normal biological actions of those hormones. Reason behind this phenomenon is related with the dynamics of molecular interactions. Interactions between natural targets and their ligands involves two factors: configurational affinity and charge affinity. But interactions of ‘molecular imprints’ and their ‘ligands’ involves ‘configurational affinity’ only, without any charge affinity.
BENVENISTE’s failure to understand ‘water memory’ in its right MOLECULAR IMPRINTING perspective gradually led him to speculating more and more absurd theories, which finally led to DIGITAL BIOLOGY, and then into setting up a business of preparing and marketing of what he called DIGIBIO ‘digital signature’ products.