Experts say the benefits of homeopathy have been “significantly overestimated” by weak scientific trials:

Researchers today insisted that the benefits of homeopathy may be “significantly overstated.”

The 200-year-old “treatment” has been proven several times to be no more effective than a placebo.

But now a new analysis has further tarnished its reputation by drilling further holes in the available evidence surrounding the controversial practice.

Austrian experts have suggested that dozens of clinical studies testing homeopathic remedies have yet to be published, and the results may not match the authors’ beliefs and have not been published.

Also, a quarter of officially registered people changed their “main results” before it was announced, the scientific equivalent of movable goalposts.

Basically, it allows a homeopathic researcher to choose their questions to match the data they have.

The Tuna University team said their findings show that the field of homeopathy “lacks scientific and ethical standards” and has “biased signals.”

Signal bias is where a treatment works because only studies that show a positive outcome are published, creating a scientific echo chamber.

The team concluded that the poor research practice they found “is likely to affect the validity of the evidence in the homeopathic literature and may significantly overstate the true effect of homeopathic medicine treatment.”

Homeopathy works on the premise that it “heals like”, so a substance that causes certain symptoms can be used to treat like conditions.

For example, a homeopath may recommend that a hay fever sufferer whose eyes are itchy and watery be treated with onion compounds, which cause the same reaction in humans when cut.

But these so-called “cures” are diluted with so much water that often little or nothing of the original substance remains.

Some treatments may include the saliva of rabid dogs and even the urethral discharge of men with sexually transmitted gonorrhea.

In the UK, the 2010 House of Commons Science and Technology Commission report on homeopathy found that it was no better than a placebo.

And NHS heads told family doctors and other prescribers to stop providing it in 2017 because there was “no clear or solid evidence” to support its use.

Yet homeopathy privately is still widely available and counselors can charge £125 for a consultation.

Diehard advocates cite published studies that claim to be beneficial for patients.

Dr. Gerald Gartlehner and his team reviewed international clinical trial records and found that only 193 clinical trials were conducted. However, only 90 registered.

Meanwhile, about 38% of studies are unpublished.

They also found that homeopathy studies were more likely to be registered after they started, with a quarter of published studies having different primary outcomes.

The primary findings are essentially what the researchers wanted to show in a study, how to investigate whether a treatment lowers blood pressure.

The analysis was published in the BMJ journal Evidence-Based Medicine †