@Telefrog Yet it’s a bad analogy and poor addition to the discussion, imo. I get that your only ammunition appears to be insults but can you put together an intelligent and supported point?
Well, I can’t defend it as an “analogy” since I didn’t frame it as one when I posted it. I specifically said @jpinard’s post reminded me of Twain’s letter.
As for it being a “poor addition to the discussion”… For shame! Mark Twain is eminently quotable for almost every occasion, and his letter to a patent medicine salesman seems entirely appropriate to a thread titled “Essential Oils And Other Holistic Bullshit.”
@Telefrog No, you said, “Your post reminded me…” Nowhere did Jpinard come up. Perhaps you replied to him and I still don’t know what indicates that? But anyway, in referencing jpinard your comment does make more sense to me.
There’s a ‘reply’ icon and a username/photo in the top right of the post, but they only show up when replying to a post which isn’t the most recent post in the thread (which makes it less useful, but there you have it).
You are making a common error that many advocates of these snake oil remedies fall for.
In those studies, what they are showing is specific impacts of certain substances in a controlled in vitro situation. This can highlight the POSSIBILITY that such substances could have therapeutic effects, but this is nowhere near enough evidence to establish such a fact.
An in vitro experiment does not equate to an in vivo experiment. In order to determine whether a substance can actually have a therapeutic effect, you need to perform a complex series of tests, eventually moving to human clinical testing. The reason is because an in vivo environment is infinitely more complex than isolated cells in a petri dish.
To explain this with a simple experiment, take the notion of chlorine bleach. If I dump a quantity of high concentration bleach onto a dish of cancer cells, what will happen? They will die. With 100% certainty, they will die. Well shit! I Just cured cancer, everyone!
But no, of course I did not.
Because what happens if you consume a bunch of concentrated chlorine bleach? Oh, that’s right. YOU will die too. Oh, well, then what if we just dillute the bleach really low, so you don’t die? Nope, that doesn’t work either, because now it isn’t delivered with the appropriate concentration to where it needs to go to actually achieve any desirable outcome.
That’s the thing… saying things like “Cinamon oil kills ebola!” is nonsensical, because while you may be able to observe some effect at high concentrations in vitro, that doesn’t mean that such effects will manifest themselves in a living human being.
Drug development is hard.
Again, no one is suggesting that natural things like plants don’t contain chemical compounds that may have beneficial impacts. Of course they do. Much of modern pharmaceuticals is based upon compounds originally found in nature.
The problem arises from application of pseudo science, where early in vitro experimentation is then used as a justification for unsubstantiated claims, like, “Frankensense oil kills cancer cells in a petri dish, so rubbing it on your face will cure cancer!”
There’s a Robot Chicken bit where Voltron gets into a dance battle with a galactic menace. After a few exchanges of moderately fresh moves, the bad guy utterly destroys Voltron and a crowd of minor bad guys gathers round, chanting, “SERVED! SERVED! SERVED! SERVED!” while Voltron hangs his mighty lion head in shame.
I have never found or made a GIF of the bit, much to my chagrin.
Just an anecdote I thought I’d share.
Yes, my Twain quote was a reply to @jpinard’s post.
But now I’m curious. Why did you assume my posting of Twain’s letter to a patent medicine salesman was directed at you when your first post was so clearly and rigorously constructed by a person of great scientific import? What possible reason would I, someone of “unscientific, ego-stroking, self-aggrandizing ignorance,” have in calling into question your intelligence and ancestral line?
Man, I love a good peppermint oil rub!
I don’t necessarily mean to take his side, but three of the abstracts I read (rosemary oil, lavender oil, and basil oil) show the purported effects in humans (rosemary oil) or rats (the other two).
100% verified cancer free!
Summary
But it also leads to obsessive behavior in the use of coins
Sorry, I only looked at some of them. I also was speaking in the general sense, as I can’t really offer any kind of real opinion based only on an abstract.
The main point remains though… When you’re buying essential oils in the consumer market, they are essentially completely unregulated. You have no idea what you’re getting. You certainly aren’t getting a specific dosage designed for human consumption to treat anything.
The sale is based upon the vaguely scientific notion that these substances contained chemicals that had some impact in some particular test… and thus, if you rub them on your face you’ll get some of those benefits. And it’s silly.
Again, no one is disputing that plants contain chemicals, and some chemicals do beneficial things.
Well, all I can tell you is that a an offshoot of it known as microcurrent point stimulation (formerly ETPS), which is application of a specialized TENS unit to acupuncture points, has been a huge help to me in multiple situations where conventional western medicine failed me utterly. The devices have been approved for sale OTC for a couple of years now.
But my point was that there is some relativity to what is considered alternative. How about chiropractic care? Psychoanalysis?
It’s good to keep an open mind. I find that when something has persisted for hundreds or thousands of years, there tends to be a grain of truth lurking there, waiting to be more fully understood.
Sorry but…
@Timex What he said. Did you actually read the information provided?
And snake oil remedies? That would be a fair reference if the oils I mentioned are fraudulent for the purpose put forth. But no, like…the scientific evidence, man…
Yes, already replied. My post stands.
Post after post of yours reads like someone trying to win an argument without any real substance. I really wish you would offer something real to this conversation.
No, the harvesting and production of the oils isn’t standardized, which shouldn’t be the expectation. Food is produced in a number of ways and to various standards and people buy what they like or what’s affordable. When it comes to the oils, there’s one brand I know that I can trust (not that there aren’t other good brands) and what to expect from it. I’ve used them for specific things and they’ve consistently produced results in cases where someone else would have spent extra money and time seeing a doctor.
Once I went to the doctor and he concluded that a rash I had was fungal. He said he was going to prescribe an antifungal cream. Instead I diluted some tea tree oil and applied it topically and it went away. Somehow there’s a growing mindset where people are terrified and ridiculing of being one’s own doctor. Clearly there are cases where it’s important to trust what we know and take control of our own health. People want to take our current understanding and practices as gospel, forgetting that in all times, including our own, contemporary practices will sometimes be wrong (except at some sort of hypothetical medical utopia that we might reach if we fully reverse engineer the body and fully understand how it works).
Btw, not all of the studies require that a medicine is used inside the body. If you are using tea tree oil to cure athlete’s foot you aren’t going to use it inside the body, obviously. Tea tree oil has worked for my dad 100% of the time for athlete’s foot and it’s not based on a “vaguely scientific notion.” It’s based on his personal experience and peer reviewed science. But that’s “silly,” right? I suppose you think he should immediately stop doing this because it’s not what the doctor would tell him to do…
You are not an impressive individual. I am no longer inclined to bother pretending that you are worthy of talking to.
Feel free to eat an entire bag of dicks.
Figures–nothing to say so, “eat an entire bag of dicks.”
Btw, aren’t we supposed to be “kind” to other members, per the rules?
<3
@My_Username - you’ve basically made the argument that because of a couple studies where essential oils can help, it redeems the entire essential oil market. As @Timex said it’s an entirely unregulated market and there’s a reason it continues to be unregulated. Money, dedication, and the BULK of the essential oils sold would be bunk. This was at a time when she could barely afford rent. Thankfully we’re together and put a stop to him preying on her. But it’s stuff like this that makes the entire homeopathy market scream for the need for regulation… again a point point you refuse to address. The homeopathy market, so-called medicine is now over $10 billion dollars. That doesn’t even include the “services” part" of the homeopath market, just the sales of alternative medicine. It’s a juggernaut of scamming and is making a lot of people rich for selling stuff where 99% of what is sold has no proof that it works and at much of it is just water. There are a lot of people suffering because of this market.
The point of this thread was to talk about every holistic medicine. Not to say every single one is without merit. The actual physical function of chiropractic medicine helps ie. the physical manipulation of the spine. But then way too many of the chiropractor practices try to upsell on loads of stuff with no science to back up their claims. My wife’s chiro did this when we met and she’d been spending a thousand dollars a year for pills that did nothing. She kept buying them because the chiro said, “give it more time”.
If you came in here and said, “Most of the essential oil market is full of snake oil salesman, and most of the essential oils have no science to back up their claims, and most do nothing, but… here are a few that do help”. Well, we’d be having an entirely different discussion. Instead you came in here with the “insinuation” that the essential oil market deserves the same respect as medicine. It doesn’t, and you kill people with unsubstantiated claims. Also love the fact you have no heart whatsoever for other people’s suffering. Let’s not address the fact people lose their lives when they’re tricked into using essential oils for cancer instead of traditional medicine. Or the woman who abused her kids because she refused vaccinations. Right, because according to you that discussions isn’t fair.
Once I had athletes foot and the doctor gave me the choice to either use a medicine or give it time to go away on it’s own. I used diluted soap solution and it went away after a few days. Somehow there’s a growing mindset that anecdotes are as powerful as double blind studies, and the application of homeopathic medicine may not have anything to do with said cure as the immune system may have done the exact same thing they relate to the substance used.
@My_Username just in case you were unfamiliar with the story we are alluding to, here it is from when it first came up.
Now understand my position is one of ambivalence towards essential oils. Like I said before, if someone is using them in conjunction with medicine, or as an option to remediate minor things (joint pains, regular colds, stiffness) I really don’t care. Whether there be any valid effect beyond the placebo is irrelevant to me. If smearing some mint infuse oil on a knee makes your knee feel better? Go for it. At worst it’ll smell really good.
But there is a firm and definitive line. This woman should be in jail for child endangerment. And this is where I think you are missing the point of the strong reaction. There are things which modern medicine can treat that would have been death sentences 100 years ago. I also firmly believe (which is why I am not a libertarian a la @Timex) that the freedom of people to choose not to vaccinate children should be completely curtailed. Were it up to me not vaccinating children for non medical reason should be a criminal offence.
So when you extol the virtues of oils and stuff understand that this is the part we strenuously object to. It’s the woman who forgoes chemo instead to use essential oils. Jeff, man, that is a heartbreaking story by the way. It is the woman who damn near kills her own children hinging on this unscientific bunk.
And whether or not acupuncture works? Don’t care. If it makes @Misguided feel better? That’s cool. Whether there is any scientific basis for the efficacy doesn’t matter to me, as it is something that has minor effects that are confined to the single individual. And certainly I do not mean to imply it has no effect on you! It may be the placebo effect, it may be something more substantive. Either way it is ‘working’ for him.
But there is a vast gulf between treating minor, transient, and non life threatening maladies with unregulated and unproven remedies, and using those same for pathogens, epidemics, and life ending issues. People who push these instead of medicines for cancer, vaccines, ebola, or whatever else should be held criminally liable. The key word being instead of. Using them in addition? That’s cool. It probably does nothing, but if it makes you happy, fine. You can smell pleasant things while the medicine does the real work.
But please understand that for some of us these quacks are not some abstract abberation @My_Username. These people are a real and persistent health crisis. Jenny McCarthy is one of the few people I can legitimately say I loathe, maybe even hate. And there is a damn good reason for that, her stupidity has literally killed kids. So when you get such strong and visceral pushback, understand that it is because I see people like her as a literal and serious threat to my children’s life. That people who use these remedies instead of vaccines or medicine could, literally, cause my child to die from preventable diseases. Or theirs. Or some newborn too young to get vaccinated.