An overlooked jewel: abstract of the results of a Polish study on high dilutions

“The activity of enzymes can be modified by homeopathic dilutions of their effectors”

Introduction: The fungal and bacterial materials are very useful for testing the influence of low and very low doses of molecular phenolic effectors on the enzymatic system of phenoloxidases when they are incubated together in the reaction space.

Aim: To search for a useful model of biological systems in order to study the action of diluted low molecular substances on living organisms, which is based on common physical and biochemical analytical procedures.

Method: The fungal and actinomyecetal bacterial materials from laboratory cultures, as a source of common phenoloxidases, laccase, perioxidase and O-demethylase, as well as the pure plant peroxidise, were used in experiments described earlier (1-5). Subsequent dilutions of low molecular phenolic metabolites, appropriate for the study of enzymatic systems, prepared in 75 % ethanol in the proportion of 1:100 (centesimal) and dynamized by shaking, in accordance with homeopathic procedures, were prepared in our laboratory. During experiments with bacterial and fungal materials and a pure plant peroxidise, which were incubated together with subsequent dilutions of proper phenolic effector, different analytic methods were used, including a gel (PAGE) (4) and capillary (MEKCE) electrophoresis (5), spectral and coloricmetric methods (1,2,3) as well as electron microscopy (5).

Results: According to the presented data (1-5), the incubation of biological material with diluted phenolic effectors induces various effects on tested enzyme activity. The activity changed in a sinusoidal manner with a gradual growth of dilution rate of tested effectors, which was distinctly visible on the diagram when the number of dilutions was localised on abacissa and biological activity on the ordinate.

Exemplary results of the chosen experiments will be presented. For tested enzymes: laccase, peroxidise and O-demethylase, the distance between maximal points of enzymatic activity, shown on a sine curve, repeats more often every 10 subsequent centesimal dilutions. Along with the extension of the incubation period, the displacement of maximal and minimal points on the curve were noticed, which revealed a dynamic aspect of the studied phenomenon.

Conclusions: Fungal and bacterial cells seem to be a very convenient material for studying the action of diluted metabolites on enzymatic systems due to their popular presence in the environment. Results of all the experiments confirmed the same nature of aforementioned observations. Since other authors had similar conclusions concerning human (6,7) and plant materials (8,9), the described relations seem to be common in the  natural world. It could also be stressed that the therapeutic effect of homeopathic remedies could be based on the mechanism described above, and it is highly probably that it leads to a normalisation of disturbed enzyme systems in living organisms.

For the full articles, click on the following links: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2655704/ ; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2651610/

* International Journal of High Dilution Research 2012 (11(40): 185-186
* Proceedings of the XXVI GIRI Symposium; September 20-22, 2012, Florence, Italy (poster section)
* M. Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland

Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Petri dish; Public domain