It is not easy to get poisoned by a homeopathic remedy, since the content of active substances in it is negligible. However, there are such cases. German doctors described one of them in the journal Clinical Toxicology.
A 53-year-old man came to the emergency department of a hospital in Munich because of a confused consciousness, anxiety, balance and speech disorders. Doctors diagnosed him with anticholinergic syndrome. This condition develops when the neurotransmitter acetylcholine is excessively suppressed in the body. It usually appears after taking drugs, the effect of which is similar to that of atropine.
The patient had no chronic diseases and was not taking medication. Doctors found out that before hospitalization, he drank the homeopathic preparation of belladonna (Atropa belladonna) with a dilution of D4 (1:10,000). The extract from this plant does contain atropine and can cause anticholinergic syndrome. However, the situation was really unusual, because the content of active substances in homeopathic preparations is extremely low, they are practically absent there. There is no conclusive evidence that such remedies help at least one disease. At the same time, as experience shows, sometimes they can be dangerous.
During a blood test, doctors found that the patient had a high content of atropine, a natural component of belladonna. When they examined the homeopathic remedy that the patient was taking, it turned out that the content of the active substance in it was 600 times higher than indicated on the label.
“You need to be aware of the possibility of rare cases of potentially dangerous manufacturing errors if you encounter symptoms that have developed after using homeopathic medicines,” the authors of the study advise physicians.
Previously, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned parents against using homeopathic remedies with belladonna in the composition, which are offered to relieve teething. They were associated with 10 deaths in 2010.