Disperse and Dissipative Nature of Aqueous Systems – a Possible Foundation of Homeopathy?

One of the major claims against homeopathy is that ultra-high dilutions (UHDs) of biologically active substances are identical to a pure solvent and therefore cannot possess biological activity. Thus, it is necessary to find out if UHDs differ from the solvent in their physical-chemical properties. Recently revolutionary discoveries concerning the properties of aqueous systems with “normal” concentrations of solutes, as well as of UHDs prepared from them, were made.

Contrary to the current opinion that solutions are homogenous systems, it turned out that sub-micrometer “domains”, consisting of both solute and solvent molecules, emerge after dissolution of solutes in water. Upon dilution, even to ultra-high degrees, sub-micrometer structures do not disappear; on the contrary, their size usually increases.

These structures in UHDs – called "nano-associates" (NAs) by Konovalov – are negatively charged; their charge and sizes change non-monotonically with serial dilutions. Patterns of NA parameters correlate with biological effects produced by UHDs. Shielding of UHDs from ambient electromagnetic fields (EMF) prevents NA emergence in UHDs; paradoxical properties differentiating them from pure water, including biological activity, also disappear. Therefore, aqueous systems containing domains and NAs (in UHDs non-shielded from EMF) should be considered disperse systems rather than classical solutions.

Emergence of domains and NAs in them represents the process of self-organization, turning them into dissipative non-equilibrium entities. Dynamic structuring of aqueous disperse systems with charge separation in them is provided by energy supplied by environmental EMF and redox reactions, with the participation of reactive oxygen species permanently proceeding in aqueous systems.

We propose that newly discovered properties of UHDs, representing disperse systems of a “water in water” type, prove that they are basically different from a pure solvent, affirming that homeopathy has scientific foundations.

Keywords: Ultra-high dilutions, nano-associates, electromagnetic field