Homeopathy could become medical students' first choice, Indian minister says

NEW DELHI -- Homeopathy could become Indian medical students' preferred choice of study in medical schools, an Indian health minister says.

"Homeopathy is not only the first choice of AYUSH treatment; it can also be the first choice for medical students," AYUSH Cabinet Minister Sarbananda Sonowal told a weekend medical conference in New Delhi. AYUSH is shorthand for Ayurveda, yoga, Unani, Siddha and homoeopathy.

They are all alternative medicine types.

Ayurveda is an ancient Hindu health and medicine science. Unani is a Perso-Arabic traditional medicine customarily practiced in Muslim cultures in South and Central Asia. Siddha is a traditional medicine originating in South India.

Homeopathy, or homeopathic medicine, involves giving minute, highly diluted doses of natural substances in pill or liquid form to stimulate the body's immune system to fight illnesses.

It is somewhat like a vaccine, whose purpose is to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease.

But homeopathy, developed by German physician Dr. Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, is different from a vaccine and should not be considered a vaccination alternative, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

Homeopathic remedies are also individualized for each patient and, as such, have not had the same reproducible biomedical research as conventional pharmaceuticals, which are intended to produce essentially the same result in virtually any patient.

Dr. Mahendra Munjapara, an Indian physician and politician, told the New Delhi conference homeopathic medicines had been shown to treat many diseases and conditions at a fraction of the cost of conventional Western medicine.

He said the Ministry of AYUSH supported advanced homeopathic medical education and research.

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This release was published on openPR.