IN HAMPSTEAD, Highgate and many other places where alternative cultures, including those embracing medicine, are more readily accepted, people will celebrate Homoeopathy Week from June 14 to 21.

The theories underlying homoeopathy were first propounded by Samuel Hahnemann in 1796. A German, he was convinced that the way to treat a condition was to find a substance that brought on similar symptoms to those the disease was causing. He recommended diluting the substance to a very high degree and then prescribed the resulting dilute solution, or suspension, as the patient’s medicine.

Homoeopathy is much more alternative than is often supposed and, contrary to popular belief, is a comparatively new discipline. Its links to Ancient Greek medicine are tenuous. Nor does it stem from the teachings of the herbalists such as Culpepper in the 17th century.

Though homoeopathy dates from an age that was becoming increasingly enlightened and scientific, Dr Hahnemann didn’t even make a nod towards the scientific principles and techniques already becoming established in the great medical centres of the world.

Many patients are helped by a visit to a homoeopathic physician. Most other doctors find it difficult to believe that preparations so dilute that they are to all intents and purposes only water, or beautifully rolled inert pills, make any difference.

The standard belief is that a homoeopath has time to listen to the patient’s account of their emotional and physical symptoms. Nature cures most people and homoeopaths, like GPs when they had time for long consultations, often cured by providing a listening ear while the patient’s natural resistance and resilience triumphed. The truth is that there are fortunate millions who owe their supremacy over potentially death-dealing diseases to modern drugs. Unfortunately, they are now having the faith they had placed in their medication progressively undermined. Over the past few months the antidepressants that have emptied the mental hospitals, the Cox-2 inhibitors that have relieved the pain of many arthritic conditions without producing quite such a risk of gut problems, the statins that have revolutionised the likelihood of having a heart attack or stroke and the HRT drugs that relieve crippling menopausal symptoms have all been subject to adverse reports. However frequently patients are told that every effective drug is likely to have adverse effects as well as benefits, and that prescribing them should therefore always be a matter of doctor and patient comparing possible risk against potential benefit, many find it hard to accept this. Now pharmaceutical companies are becoming so fearful of being sued that they are afraid to develop and launch new drugs as quickly as they might do.

Another scare has happened this week. “Safe” ibuprofen may carry a raised breast cancer risk. It was estimated that of the 114,000 Californian women who took part in a trial, in a “few dozen cases” ibuprofen might have contributed to the development of breast cancer. The report, the first to find this, did not mention that it has also been reported that regular uses of aspirin or other NSAIDs (the group of drugs to which ibuprofen belongs) may protect against cancer of the oesophagus, stomach, colon and rectum. Some other environmental factor that interacted in the Californian women may also have contributed to the risk.

Likewise, ibuprofen could have been a marker for a particular group or social class. For example, it is known that overweight women are more at risk of cancer and are more likely because of secondary arthritis to take pain-relievers. Further research is needed.

NSAIDs, the anti-inflammatory drugs, have a record, especially in the over-65s, of causing gastrointestinal complications including haemorrhage and perforation. They may increase blood pressure and hence precipitate heart failure, and they can cause ocular problems including the one associated in rare cases with the Viagra-type drugs and, if taken regularly, they can alter kidney function. But they also make life, including sleep, possible for millions of people with chronic joint pains.

Benefits and risks have to be weighed and risks minimalised. While the authorities are considering the future of the Cox-2 inhibitors it would perhaps be wise to take something for the guts with the NSAIDs. That is why I preferred to prescribe Arthrotec, which contains misoprostol. It lessens the risk of the NSAID causing gastrointestinal troubles.