Prevalence and Likelihood Ratio of Six Common Objective Homeopathic Signs in Patients Responding to Muriatic medicines – Multicentre Prospective Observational Study

Assessment of prevalence and likelihood ratio (LR) of symptoms in responders to specific homeopathic medicines appears currently to be the best scientific method to confirm or rule out guiding indicators for such medicines.

The aim of the present study is to assess these parameters for 6 common objective homeopathic signs, believed to be indicators of muriatic medicines. Each of these signs was defined in advance. Their presence was assessed in every new consecutive patient by 8 homeopathic physicians in 3 different countries. This patient group was considered as the control population.

The target population consisted of patients responding to a muriatic homeopathic medicine. Patients were considered as responders when fulfilling all the following criteria: more than 3 months of treatment with only one homeopathic muriatic medicine; no other intervention during this period; ORIDL score +2 or higher (as assessed by the patients themselves); and the physician’s impression that clinical improvement was attributable to the medicine. The same signs were assessed in this population.

Up to the time of writing, 52 responders to a muriatic medicine, 39 of whom received Natrum-mur, were compared to 846 controls. LR significantly higher than 1 was found in 3 of the signs (LR; 95% confidence interval): cracked lips (1.79; 1.14 to 2.82); recurrent herpes (1.96; 1.08 to 3.55); and skin eruptions on the frontal hairline (2.44; 1.42 to 4.18). In the Natrum-mur sub-group, which exhibited similar results to those overall, a fourth sign showed LR>1: dry palms (1.89; 1.08 to 3.30). The remaining 2 signs, accentuated substernal fossa and geographic tongue, could not be associated to the responding population.

Conclusions: 3 of the 6 assessed homeopathic signs could be associated to muriatic homeopathic medicines, and a fourth one specifically to Natrum muriaticum, by using a relatively simple, fast and conservative protocol.

Keywords: Likelihood ratio, objective signs, muriatic medicines