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Research
Read more about research in homeopathy and ultra-high dilutions
Articles
To read about some of the different types of homeopathic medicines, search our archive of articles.
How are homeopathic medicines made?
Homeopathic medicines are manufactured by repeatedly diluting and succussing (shaking) a preparation of the original substance, mainly plants and minerals, in water and alcohol. After dilution the medicine is added to lactose tablets or pillules.
The strength of the medicines
Over-the-counter homeopathic medicines that you can buy in high street shops tend to be in either the 6c or 30c potency. 6c means that the substance has undergone 6 steps in a series of dilutions, where each step involves diluting 1 part medicine to 99 parts alcohol/water.
The more stages of dilution and succussion the preparation has gone through, the more potent the medicine is - so a 30c medicine is more potent than a 6c medicine.
Although this is opposite to the way most conventional medicines manifest their effects, where a greater dose has a greater physiological impact, there are some conventional drugs that have paradoxical, or inverse, effects at lower doses. An example of an inverse dose-response relationship is the net vasodilator effect of adrenaline which, toward the lower range of the dose-response curve, increases with more dilute doses of the drug.