Background:
In modern pharmaceutical practice, it is common to use purified ethanol and purified
water for the preparation of homeopathic dilutions. Hahnemann in 1827 recommended
good brandy as a diluent. Brandy contains a lot of accompanying substances in addition
to ethanol.
Purpose of the study:
The research question was whether different diluents influence the effectiveness
of high dilutions, especially above Avogadro's number. We compared two dilution media
to investigate the diluent's influence. Within the limitations of the test-system,
the dilution media were as similar to good brandy as possible and like purified ethanol.
Dilutions of histamine were prepared with both media. As test-system, we used modified
basophil activation in an in vitro cell system. Basophils are activated by anti-immunoglobulin E (anti-IgE). The activation
of basophils is inhibited by prior incubation with histamine. The reduction in activation
was measured with different dilutions of histamine. The test system used a 3-colour
flow cytometric method. The interleukin-3 (IL-3) receptor CD123 was used to identify
basophils in the leukocyte mixture. The CD63 surface marker was used for quantification
of activated basophils.
Results:
With higher concentrations of histamine, we observed inhibition on optimally anti-IgE-stimulated
basophil activation with a clear concentration dependency. With low concentrations
of histamine (up to 10-31), we also observed inhibition of IgE-mediated basophil activation. Differences were
observed between the dilution media.
Conclusion:
The preliminary results support the hypothesis that the dilution medium may influence
the effects of high dilutions. This could be of importance for homeopathic pharmaceutical
practice as well as for ultra-high dilution experiments. The refined basophil test
system proved to be highly sensitive and reliable. Further studies are needed.
Keywords
basophil activation - anti-IgE - highly diluted histamine - diluent - ultra-high dilution
effects
