Essential Oils And Other Holistic Bullshit

Everything else
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Incorrect. Breast cancer is very treatable.

No, you didn’t simply post evidence. That would have been a relatively graceful approach. Instead, you’ve misrepresented various studies, berated people who took you to task for it, and crowed about how you won and everybody else sucks. You’re the worst of the internet showing up here for no good reason. But to your credit, at least you’re not fucking up our conversations about the new Ghost Recon game, the Nintendo Switch, the latest episode of Walking Dead, and how awesome Sean Spicer is at press secretarying. So you’re my favorite kind of internet troll: one who’s easy to ignore.

And, yeah, I’m lumping you in with that guru. Junk science is all good and well if you want to use it to talk about UFOs or Sasquatch. Once you start endangering people’s lives and well being, it’s a whole other thing.

-Tom

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Yet treatment doesn’t always work and people die regardless of who they go to for treatment.

I started out by explaining my back story and sharply calling people out for their blatant dishonesty. I shared some evidence and called people to the task of acknowledging where they were wrong. The mud had been ferociously slung far before I had arrived and I haven’t stooped to the depths of some of you as far as being insulting (“eat a giant bag of dicks”). As people have insulted me I’ve enjoyed reveling a little bit in my ability to dismantle any of the poor arguments put forth attempting to discredit my claims.

“Misrepresented various studies”? Please. I’ve done no such thing and you know it. You didn’t even elaborate because you know that’s ridiculous. “The worst of the internet”? I’m the best of the internet seeing as I’m bringing what is so often tough to find online these days: truth. You can lump me with that guru all you want but the fact that he attempts to treat cancer patients and I don’t remains. I shared irrefutable facts and they will remain that way because clearly even after more than 100 posts no one has even come close to showing otherwise. People are trying to overcome facts with word games–shoddy ones at that.

Oh and by the way, you’re welcome.

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And if you can’t read through those studies and know that you now have an alternative treatment athlete’s foot, ear infections, herpes outbreaks, etc. then you aren’t an advocate for science–plain and simple.

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The quoted abstract described an in vitro effect of frankincense on urothelial carcinoma cells. That’s way less impressive than what you think it is.

There’s a light year’s difference between that and saying that frankincense can suppress cancer in humans.

Hundreds of thousands of compounds will suppress a cancer cell in a petri dish or in a lab. But does it suppress cancer in humans and without causing unacceptable toxicity? Getting therapeutic levels of frankincense to the bladder isn’t as easy as applying it as a perfume if we can even figure out what a therapeutic level of frankincense would be. That is, you can’t just assume that because frankincense can be applied as an incense or perfume that the same dose would have therapeutic effect on bladder cancer cells.

The authors of that abstract certainly have no idea because it wasn’t a study involving humans.

Until that question is answered frankincense can join the list along with hundreds of thousands of other compounds that probably have some measurable effect on cancer cells. The challenge is in delivering it safely to human tissue at a therapeutic dose (N.B.: you have to know what a therapeutic dose for the compound in question is first and that’s a huge step in itself).

The burden of proof rests on the folks who say frankincense has therapeutic benefit. That’s a very steep barrier because historically about 95% of everything that is examined ends up either being too toxic or not working when we’re talking about cancer biology.

So, yes, based on the current evidence recommending frankincense for treatment of bladder cancer is quackery.

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@My_Username. Because you’re insanely dense he was making fun of you, not supporting you. Because guess what? There’s a bunch of us here who are award wining research scientists, medical doctors, nurses, neurosurgeons and genetic engineers. Furthermore some of us teach medical students and doctors as well. Some people here are combing new plants and organics for new cancer and bacterial treatments.

So, what do you do again @My_Username. Do you have the combined experience of the entire medical establishment in your pocket, or are you just some real estate agent with way too much time on her hands?

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I never made a big deal about the frankincense study. Since frankincense made the lump on my dad’s forehead go away and since there are claims about its effect on cancer I figured I’d look for studies that might support the claims and this was the first thing that came up. I never claimed it was a cure for cancer or that it was necessarily all that promising. I will however say that the thing that was promising in that study was that while suppressing cancer cells it didn’t damage normal cells. So of course the study didn’t prove frankincense to be an effective treatment for cancer but the aforementioned fact made it worthy of further research.

“So yes, based on the current evidence recommending frankincense for treatment of bladder cancer is quackery.” Annnnd I never recommended such a thing

Lol, I was aware that he wasn’t supporting me. “…award wining research scientists, medical doctors, nurses, neurosurgeons and genetic engineers”? That would surprise me but even if it were the case it would make no difference if the person was claiming that the in vivo studies weren’t strong evidence for medicinal uses for essential oils then I wouldn’t care what their background was because they clearly would be being dense themselves. “Some of us”? Are you referring to yourself at all or are you trying to make yourself appear qualified? I find you very unremarkable and have yet to see you say anything relevant to this discussion. You can keep trying but your track record is zero out of some number.

My profession isn’t relevant for my ability to post scholarly sources attesting to the medicinal effects of essential oils. “…the combined experience of the entire medical establishment”? Who the fuck has that? And that’s not necessary for anyone to post relevant scientific research. Go back to school and learn how to put your thoughts together.

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So why didn’t you come in here and say “a couple of essential oils might have medical qualities but most are unfounded, and worse the industry as a whole preys on people who don’t know the difference”. That is something we could all get behind. Instead your assertion was “we” were bad because we called out the holistic industries for being generally evil, because they are. They take money from sick people, give it to themselves and millionaires and they don’t usually get anything to treat their ailments.

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Because for one, it’s more than a few oils. I listed the amount that were useful based on the studies I provided, and that amount of oils would be more accurately described as several. Secondly, I did say that there are shady people in the business in my original post and several times throughout this discussion. Once again, nice try @jpinard

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Look, I’m sorry I told you to eat all the dicks. But I’m gonna give you a little bit of free advice here.

See that last sentence there? The one I bolded?

That is the part which kind of ruined your post. Leave that off, and it’s kind of a reasonable post. It’s still kind of vague and meaningless, but it’s at least a normal conversation. But that last sentence? It’s just pure dickery. It makes you out to be an asshole. And on some level, that’s going to cause others to disregard everything else you say.

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I can’t believe that you guys are still here arguing. He/she still feels vindicated since no one here wants to waste the time to debunk anything. I think this person is just trolling, but whatevs. I can do this one more thing. Since you are still here, I’ll come back to the thread and talk about doing actual research vs this:
http://i.imgur.com/l3QCK5n.jpg

Let me start by saying, I’ve done real literature reviews for graduate level research. What you’ve done is not even close. Not even in the same ballpark. What you’ve done is gone on the internet and found a thing and told yourself you’re smarter than everyone who hasn’t gone on the internet and found a thing. And you’d be wrong. Anyone can find a thing on the internet and tell themselves they are smart. You can go find that a particular race of people is inferior to your race. You can find that all eye doctors are wrong: https://www.iblindness.org/ http://www.myopia.org/ You can find a correlation between unrelated events:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CHkMid2UcAAQTzI.png

Let’s use a paper as an example. This little nugget of abstract is enough for generic_user_001 to argue that there is real scientific evidence for essential oils having an impact on the human body:

Rosemary oil vs minoxidil 2% for the treatment of androgenetic alopecia: a randomized comparative trial.

Ok, so what’s up with this paper. That’s a pretty strong claim in the abstract:

No significant change was observed in the mean hair count at the 3-month endpoint, neither in the rosemary nor in the minoxidil group (P > .05). In contrast, both groups experienced a significant increase in hair count at the 6-month endpoint compared with the baseline and 3-month endpoint (P < .05). No significant difference was found between the study groups regarding hair count either at month 3 or month 6 (> .05).

Essentially, throw out your Rogaine and buy rosemary oil. Wow, that’s pretty cool stuff. What journal was that again? Skin Med? Huh, never heard of it. I wonder what’s up with that. There are a lot of shitty pseudoscience journals, let’s look this one up. OK, what is it and what is it’s impact?
https://www.researchgate.net/journal/1540-9740_SKINmed

Journal description

A peer-reviewed bimonthly publication circulated to more than 28,000 dermatologists, allergists, internists, pediatricians, and family practitioners with an interest in dermatology and allergy. SKINmed features articles, original papers, and case studies concerning clinical aspects of dermatology, including dermatopathology, diagnostics, occupational dermatology, malignancy/tumors, cosmetic dermatology, endocrine diseases, infestations, infections, and pharmacotherapy.

Journal Impact: 0.45*

Huh, 0.45? How does that compare to a major clinical dermatology journal? Let’s say American Journal of Clinical Dermatology?

https://www.researchgate.net/journal/1175-0561_American_Journal_of_Clinical_Dermatology

Journal description

By providing a regular program of independent review articles covering important issues in the management of dermatological conditions, particularly the place in therapy of newer and established agents and procedures, the American Journal of Clinical Dermatology provides you with objective and safe information on the most up to date, effective and safe treatment techniques. The American Journal of Clinical Dermatology also publishes original research focusing on the clinical applications of pharmaceutical, cosmeceutical or laser treatments. The American Journal of Clinical Dermatology promotes rational therapy and disease management within the disciplines of dermatology and appearance medicine. It provides a regular program of independent review articles covering important issues in the management of dermatological conditions, particularly the place in therapy of newer and established agents and procedures.

Journal Impact: 4.22*

Oh, so that’s a bum journal. But that’s OK, maybe someone has verified these claims? Let’s check citations on scholar.google
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=5776444419551792964&hl=en&as_sdt=0,10

Oh my. Not a SINGLE citation. So no one has ever verified the claim from this paper, or done any additive research… huh…

I can go on, but for now I’ll wait until I have a bit more time for the next post.

271

Will you marry me?

272

Meh, maybe? I’ll ask my wife. How do you feel about my 3 kids?

273

I appreciate the apology and I agree that it could do without that part. This environment has been hostile from the start and I made the mistake of playing into it.

274

Questioning the journal and lack of citations doesn’t mean the study didn’t show a similar result between minoxidil and rosemary. Also you’re trying to downplay what I did with rhetoric: “you found a thing on the Internet…anyone can find a thing on the Internet.” That doesn’t mean anything and is just a weak attempt to undermine the fact that I found a scientific study that lends credibility to rosemary as a means of regrowing hair. I don’t think finding these studies makes me smart. What makes me smart is my ability to reason out this debate in a logical way. People keep coming at me with these fraudulent attempts at undermining my premise and I continuously and effectively hold my ground with logic and reason. Thank you for bringing some experience to the table but I don’t think you’re any closer to discrediting these studies as anyone else here has been.

275

Btw, I would be a troll if my sole purpose for being here was to actively attempt to create discord. But I’m here genuinely attempting to show people that “essential oils are bunk” is a false statement. Sure, sometimes people get annoyed and get feisty, but that’s not what defines a troll. I came here with a genuine interest to bring evidence to a place where there wasn’t any.

276

You should get that ego examined. It seems excessively swollen.

277

I’m sure there’s an oil for that.

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It didn’t damage normal cells in a lab. What about bone marrow toxicity? What about renal toxicity? What about hepatic toxicity? Just to name three of more common types of side effects for anti-cancer treatment.

If that qualifies as “promising,” then there are about a hundred thousand other compounds that would also be equally promising. Calling that abstract promising dilutes the term to the point of being meaningless. I don’t know how much time you’ve ever spent in a biologic lab – but let me tell you something about cancer cells – they aren’t that tough to kill in a lab and frighteningly difficult to kill in a human being. One of the toughest rate limiting steps in drug discovery isn’t discovering an agent that is active against cancer cells – that step is important but what is usually the show stoppper is figuring out how to prevent the toxicity or prevent the patient’s liver from shredding your compound before it has a chance to work on the cancer. The liver is a world class destroyer of hope when it comes to medicinal chemistry.

Don’t get me wrong, you have to start somewhere when trying to find a new safe, effective medication. But as far as oncologic medicinal chemistry – that abstract is about step 27 on a 1,000 step process. It’s not even an animal model (which is about step 300 in this metaphor).

I’m also being charitable. That abstract talks about a range of doses and the abstract doesn’t describe what the doses actually are. I’ve seen tons of abstracts and posters at conferences where the dose in the lab or in an animal model would be physiologically unachievable in a human being.

A little ways upthread you wrote that the success rate of chemotherapy is 2.1%. I responded to that claim. Care to elaborate on what you mean by “success rate” or respond to the counter-examples of curative chemotherapy that I listed?