"Active" Ingredients
The list of ingredients seen on remedies may confuse consumers into believing the product actually contains those ingredients. According to normal homeopathic practice, remedies are prepared starting with active ingredients that are often serially diluted to the point where the finished product no longer contains any biologically "active ingredients" as that term is normally defined.
James Randi and the 10:23 campaign groups have demonstrated the lack of active ingredients in homeopathic products by taking large overdoses. None of the hundreds of demonstrators in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US were injured and "no one was cured of anything, either".
While the lack of active compounds is noted in most homeopathic products, there are some exceptions such as Zicam Cold Remedy, which is marketed as an "unapproved homeopathic" product. It contains a number of highly diluted ingredients that are listed as "inactive ingredients" on the label. Some of the homeopathic ingredients used in the preparation of Zicam are galphimia glauca, histamine dihydrochloride (homeopathic name, histaminum hydrochloricum), luffa operculata, and sulfur. Although the product is marked "homeopathic", it does contain two ingredients that are only "slightly" diluted: zinc acetate (2X = 1/100 dilution) and zinc gluconate (1X = 1/10 dilution), which means both are present in a concentration that contains biologically active ingredients. In fact, they are strong enough to have caused some people to lose their sense of smell, a condition termed anosmia. This illustrates why taking a product marked "homeopathic", especially an overdose, can still be dangerous because it may contain biologically active ingredients, though as discussed previously, most homeopathic preparations contain no active ingredients. Because the manufacturers of Zicam label it as a homeopathic product (despite the relatively high concentrations of active ingredients), it is exempted from FDA regulation by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA).
Famous quotes containing the words active and/or ingredients:
“This teaching is not practical in the sense in which the New Testament is. It is not always sound sense in practice. The Brahman never proposes courageously to assault evil, but patiently to starve it out. His active faculties are paralyzed by the idea of caste, of impassable limits of destiny and the tyranny of time.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Reading any collection of a man’s quotations is like eating the ingredients that go into a stew instead of cooking them together in the pot. You eat all the carrots, then all the potatoes, then the meat. You won’t go away hungry, but it’s not quite satisfying. Only a biography, or autobiography, gives you the hot meal.”
—Christopher Buckley, U.S. author. A review of three books of quotations from Newt Gingrich. “Newtie’s Greatest Hits,” The New York Times Book Review (March 12, 1995)