Today in Weird patient, a 53-year-old German went to the emergency room for an overdose of homeopathy, an unconventional medicine practice with no curative effectiveness. How is it possible ?
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Homeopathy is an unconventional medical practice whose effectiveness is questioned by the entire scientific community. The small white granules surrounded by sugar have not been able to demonstrate their ability to treat illnesses beyond the effect placeboplacebo.
If homeopathic preparations, obtained by diluting a very large number of times a active substanceactive substance so much so that it becomes undetectable, are nothing more than sugar balls, how can we explain that a 53-year-old German presented himself to the emergency room of a Munich hospital for an overdose of homeopathy?
An overdose treatment
The study published in February 2021 in Clinical Toxicology presents a confused, anxious 53-year-old man who has lost control of his movementsmovements and his word. Before these symptoms appeared, he had no particular health problems. Doctors diagnosed him with atropinic syndrome, also called anticholinergic syndrome, which appears following intoxication by plants or medications containing atropine. Atropine is a neurotransmitterneurotransmitter which binds to and blocks muscarinic receptors present in the brainbrainbut also in the organs innervated by the neuronsneurons parasympathetic (the heart, blood vessels, glandsglands secretors, eyeseyes…). It is present in certain plants such as belladonna or daturadatura and in so-called “anticholinergic” medications.
The patient was following a homeopathic treatment based on belladonnabelladonna 4D, or diluted 10,000 times. A priori, this should not have made him sick, but doctors analyzed the composition of the pellets and concluded that they contained 600 times the advertised dose! THE serumserum of the patient contained 5.7 nanograms of atropine per milliliter, an amount sufficient to disrupt the parasympathetic nervous systemparasympathetic nervous system of the patient and cause symptoms. Fortunately, the patient returned home without after-effectsafter-effects after a few days of observation.
This case shows that homeopathy, often presented as useless and ineffective, can prove dangerous if there is an error in preparation. The FDA had issued an alert regarding a homeopathic treatment based on belladonna intended to relieve teething in children. Among the concentrations of atropine and scopolamine, another alkaloidalkaloid from belladonna varied enormously depending on the batches tested. Some easily exceeded the concentration displayed on the box, making their consumption potentially dangerous, especially for children.
