Man gets poisoned by homeopathic remedy

There are practically no active substances in homeopathic remedies, therefore, at first glance, it is impossible to get poisoned with them. But sometimes such cases do happen. And one of them was described by German doctors in the journal Clinical Toxicology.

According to Medportal.ru, a 53-year-old man went to the admission department of a Munich hospital, complaining of confusion, anxiety, imbalance, and speech. Doctors diagnosed him with the anticholinergic syndrome. This condition develops when the neurotransmitter acetylcholine is overly suppressed in the body. It usually appears after taking medications that have a similar effect to atropine.

The patient was free of chronic diseases and did not take medication. However, it turned out that shortly before hospitalization, he drank a homeopathic preparation of belladonna with a dilution of D4. The extract from this plant does contain atropine and is capable of causing the anticholinergic syndrome. However, the situation was unusual, because the content of active ingredients in homeopathic preparations is extremely low: they are practically absent there. There is no conclusive evidence that such remedies help with even one disease. At the same time, experience shows that sometimes they can be dangerous.

On a blood test, doctors found the patient had high levels of atropine, a natural component of belladonna. When they examined the homeopathic medicine that the patient was taking, it turned out that the content of the active ingredient in it was 600 times higher than indicated on the label.