Despite all difficulties, homeopathy continues to gain popularity in India

The rising inclination towards non-invasive medical treatments and better understanding about alternative medicines during the Covid-19 period resulted in an upsurge in demand for homeopathic medicine across the globe. The global homeopathic medicine market is poised to grow at a CAGR of seven per cent during 2022-2028, from $854.4 million in 2021 to $1,377.9 million by 2028. India being the fastest growing economies is expected to contribute significantly to the growth of homeopathy product market in the coming years, Dr Sudheer Reddy, founder of Hyderabad-based health startup, Wishealth, tells Bizz Buzz in an interview. Following 21 years of clinical experience in the field of Homeopathy, Dr Reddy recently founded Wishealth by opening its first branch at Ameerpet in Hyderabad. Currently Wishealth offers online services for patients residing abroad and intends to soon introduce tele-medicine service within India. He plans to add 50 new branches across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh by 2030.

How is alternative medicine catching pace with modern medicine?

The business surrounding the medical field in India is growing day by day with new corporate hospitals setting up their network hospitals across India. Foreign players are adding up to the list. Pharma companies from India are the global leaders of exports with largest market share worldwide. India with a population of over 140 crores is the largest market to consume pharma products. Out of the total Indian pharma market, homeopathic pharma has got an approximate share of over 25 per cent. It has grown from a mere single digit in 2010 to over 25 per cent in 2022. This has happened due to growing popularity of homeopathy in India and wide acceptance in urban population as well as in tier-II and tier-III cities of India.

And, the reason behind alternative medicine such as homeopathic to gain momentum…

Decade by decade two to three antibiotics are turning useless because of anti-microbial resistance. Homeopathic medicine is useful in addressing such diseases, along with psychosomatic diseases, allergies, mental health, lifestyle diseases and many other chronic ailments. Moreover, these medicines are easily available at a cost-effective price. Many suffer from disorders than diseases, wherein diseases can be treated while disorders most of the times lead to syndrome diseases which means group of diseases appearing together. As they are disorders but not diseases, they cannot be cured with medicine alone. All these disorders are preventable and reversible, if identified and treated wholistically at an early stage. Preventing disorders and reversing diseases to the stage of living a healthy life in absence of any medicine is what Wishealth works on. And, that is the reason drawing patients to treat ailments through alternative medicine such as homeopathic.

In the medical education stream, students opting homeopathy as a line of practice is outweighed by conventional medicine…

Homeopathy as a science is recognised as the second largest system of medicine as per World Health Organisation. Homeopathy is practiced in almost all European countries and in France about 80-90 per cent of General Practitioners use homeopathy medicine in their practice. In our country the number of people using homeopathy is more than 10 crores, using it as their primary medical care. There are about over 200 homeopathic undergraduate medical colleges and more than 50 post graduate medical colleges in India producing approximately 15,000 homeopathic doctors every year. Some of the homeopathic colleges are even in government sector. In India, the number of medical colleges for conventional system of medicine are almost five to 10 times more than homeopathy. Obviously, the number of students opting them is higher. At present there are over two lakh registered homeopathic doctors in India. These homeopaths work in more than 230 homeopathic hospitals and 6,000 clinics.

During pandemic, in allopathy vs alternative medicines, who made their mark among Indians?

In beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was said that there is no medicine as such in allopathy. And later, doctors started using one medicine after the other. They said X medicine is effective in controlling Covid and within few days, they declared it as no more useful and this saga continued till at least 10-12 medicines were declared to be ineffective, which they felt were useful in the beginning. Homeopathy, on the other hand, witnessed slow acceptance in the beginning days but within few days, homeopathic medicine too picked up popularity as many patients have recovered from Covid without much suffering. Homeopathy prevented many patients from hospital admission as well as post Covid complications that have been faced by the most who had used conventional treatments. Once the patient recovers from effects of Covid, they regained strength and energy within no time as against who suffered for weeks of general weakness though they were technically relieved from Covid. That's the advantage of homeopathic medicine.

In a larger context, has the pandemic led to prioritisation of healthy lifestyle?

Covid has brought an awareness about health and eating habits. People started eating more healthy food and inclined towards Indian medicine. But their focus on health has not lasted long. Once Covid started fading off, their habits and focus on health reduced and moved back to older habits. The focus of larger population should be on preventing chronic illnesses and lifestyle diseases. They have to focus on eating the right food, some physical exercise and avoid stressful situations that will help them in the long run to keep them healthy.

Is there any connection between mental and physical health?

Our body has got a self defence mechanism called immunity that protects us from invading infections. The immunity in majority of the instances is directly related to our emotions be it happy occasion or sad occasions. These emotions trigger many good hormones or bad hormones. Most of the chronic diseases are related to our emotions and these stress hormones are the root cause behind them. Unfortunately, most of us are worried about the end effect shown on the organs alone leaving the root cause of the problem - emotions and stress hormones. But in my clinical experience, I have noticed most of the chronic diseases like thyroid problems, auto immune thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, SLEs, psoriasis, chronic eczema, Irritable Bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease, some cancers and the endless diseases like these can be traced back to an emotional disturbance in a person's life. According to World Health Organisation, health is defined as, "A state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." Hence, mental health is equally important and can lead to various physical diseases.

What is wholistic treatment that Wishealth stresses on?

Wholistic living was the way of living in 50s to 70-80s. In those days, the cases of lifestyle diseases were not that prevalent as it is today. The reason for an increase in lifestyle diseases is the deviation from the basics of holistic way of living and lack of exercise. The adaptation of western food habits by the youth of India has led to obesity which is the mother of all lifestyle diseases in India. As the eating habits of western food increased, the incidence of obesity and the lifestyle diseases became multi folded and India is heading towards becoming the world's capital of diabetes with largest number of diabetic patients in the world. The solution to this problem is moving back to basics. However, the dependency on lifestyle homeopathic medicine is not for lifetime. Once the lifestyle disease is reversed, lifestyle homeopathic medicine can be withdrawn. And thereafter maintaining a healthy wholistic lifestyle and food habits, can forever keep them away from lifestyle diseases and also complications can be prevented. This is not only holistic but also scientific.