How do you deal with people that are heavily into this whole "naturalistic" pseudo-scientific movement, spearheaded by snake-oil salesmen?
I have a co-worker that constantly goes on about "essential oils" and other such nonsense, and refuses to listen to reason, believing that they and other such supplements are "all-natural" and thus good for them, despite lacking any evidence that actually shows it. They frequently go on about juice cleanses and "detoxification" and other such pseudo-science garbage. Even heard her blabbing on about this guy named "Dr. Axe," whom I proceeded to look up, and is (not shockingly) not an actual doctor, but labels himself as one, and sells the typical snake-oil supplement products and "cure-alls" for autism and whatnot. How do you convince someone that this guy is a scam-artist, selling his products to incredibly dumb / gullible people without offending said person, is it even possible? Apparently this tool tells people to eat bentonite clay as well, claiming that it "detoxifies" heavy metals in the body, despite the clay itself containing many heavy metals. Tried telling her how I looked the guy up, how he's not an actual doctor, but they don't care, because the "products work!" based on her own experience of course, oh and doctors are also wrong sometimes and big pharma is evil, therefore these snake-oil salesmen definitely deserve her money.
pic related, It never ceases to amaze me how people can actually fall for this garbage.
There is no cure for brainletism that one can force on a brainlet. You can help them along but brainlets have to find their own way, or remain as they are till death. Usually the latter is the path taken.
Caleb Phillips
Like many things, some of it is true and some is false.
The government has been placing strict regulation on how these types of things can be marketed. While this is a good thing, I do think that (like all lies) much of what is being said about naturalistic treatment is true to some degree. There are antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral plants that can greatly speed up recovery time from disease, and the oils of said plants can help with sanitation and recovery. There is some merit to the claims (these same sorts of things did start medicine after all) but they have not been extensively researched. I think that thorough research will greatly improve our knowledge of the limits and appropriate use of these natural medicines. Penicillin is a naturally occurring medicine after all.
Easton Lopez
Placebo effect is pretty powerful. Hopefully your coworker doesn't take anything which is actually harmful.
Aaron White
the only thing which has remedied an underarm fungal growth was an essential oil of Oregano.
also an extract from coconut ; monolaurin is effective in stopping bacterial infection
an extract from Milk Thistle can save your Liver from acetaminophen or toxic mushroom poisoning .
megadoses of IV Ascorbic Acid can stop serious infections .
Sounds to me like you're involved with "Big Pharma" and should certainly fuck right off./
Carter Price
Generally, these people have not come to their decisions from a position of thorough logic, so you can't combat it with >muh studies >muh evidence basis. Moreover, it's a spectrum from magic crystals through to flavour-of-the-month fad diets.
Some of it is merely placebo, but others have indirect consequences. People following fad diets do generally make better food choices, even if there's some meme superfood or style of eating, so they're doing the right thing for the wrong reasons e.g. people who go on cleanses and cut out a lot of unhealthy food. Is it ethical for me to stop them?
Moreover, if someone's magical quantum light crystals are working via the placebo effect, then is it ethical to stop them?
Every argument goes like this: >I'm into X because of such and such book/internet page/celebrity >That's absurd; there's no evidence >But it works (muh personal experience/muh anecdotes) Repeat ad infinitum
You can't win every battle. You can't reason with people who have fallen for memes. As long as you don't have to suffer for their idiocy, then you shouldn't care that they pay $39.95 a month for a placebo, especially if it works!
Yes, we have to combat ignorance. And I'm certainly open to people trying new things and questioning accepted wisdom. But you have to pick your battles. Mostly I just shrug and lose all respect for them.
Liam Jackson
Essential oils are nothing "essential," it's literally just taking some plants and using steam distillation to extract the oils. You do realize you're on Veeky Forums too right?
Your shitty placebo testimonials don't count as scientific evidence either, link me some articles from legitimate, peer-reviewed scientific journals showing the health benefits of using essential oils and THEN we can start talking, but until then you have no evidence on your side. Provide citations from scientific medical journals for every single claim you make by the way.
Please also defend organizations like "Young living," or "Doterra" which are MLM pyramid schemes selling essential oils that defraud thousands of people each year, and are also, unsurprisingly run by mormon religious nutjobs. Essential oils are snake-oil designed and targeted towards dumb stay at home moms with a lot of their husband's money to foolishly spend, much like almost all other quack cure-alls.
Tyler Reed
>link me go find them yourself you arrogant douche
Juan Barnes
Yep, I'm an arrogant douche for asking you to provide citations for claims you yourself are making on Veeky Forums. Sounds like you're posting on the wrong board buddy, perhaps will suit your cognitive dissonance better.
Jace Watson
She probably eats fucking trash and due to giving in to other scams she probably needs things like "essential oils", so all of that detox stuff probably actually works for her because it's better than whatever she's eating.
I used to have a co-worker who was into essential oils, but he had said he was mainly in on it as a replacement for deodorant (he would apply the oils as such) since he claimed the extracts that used ingredients such as oranges or mint usually didn't smell as insultingly powerful and had a more natural scent than your run-of-the-mill Old Spice or Axe. Although I take it you are looking at a different situation.
>a few years of research in an under-financed is better than hundreds of millions of years of evolution Really makes yah think han
Ayden Adams
Just spread a roumer that clean living, exercise and eating healthily can improve health and essential oils are just perfume.
Jason Myers
I always liked the TED talk where the speaker downs a whole bottle of homeopathic sleeping pills at the start of the talk.
But anyway, best method is to supply actual effective treatments for specific ailments.
Nathan Jenkins
It is pointless to talk to them I met a lot of people that just want to believe in it. They don't care if it actually works. Last time I tried to talk to someone who blieved in homeopathy the response was just ridiulous >It has to work because water has a memory. I read it in a book and the guy sounded smart and something with quantum theory. It worked for me and my children so it must be true. When I asked her why there are no peer-review papers that show that homeopathy worked better than a placebo she replied: > That is your opinion. FOr me it works. Of course you have to believe in it.
Those people are not interested in the truth. They just want to believe in it
John Walker
We could probably make a lot of money selling essential oil of snake.
Bentley Long
How is this different from regular medicine?
Eli Peterson
>despite lacking any evidence that actually shows it. Just because you can't think of any evidence does not imply that something does not work. You are about as unreasonable if not even worse than your coworker.
Colton Powell
So reading through all these abstracts, they are mostly, if not entirely about anti-bacterial properties / anti-viral properties. Your last two links are about Vitamin-C, which no one questions as an essential nutrient that is known to prevent many diseases.
When I speak of essential oils, I'm not talking about Vitamin fucking C, nor am I talking about anti-bacterial properties that they contain, because that's NOT why people buy essential oils. They are marketed, much like snake-oils as "cure-alls" for diseases which they have no effect on, such as cancers or autism. Yes, these scumbags that peddle essential oils tell people that they can cure their child's autism, or is a "natural remedy" to many other diseases or cancers. People buy them for "aromatherapy" and other such nonsense.
Coconut oil is not considered a healthy supplement by almost all major health organizations, it has high levels of saturated fats, and can raise your blood cholesterol, increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease. If you're just using it as a skin moisturizer it's probably perfectly fine to use, which is what the study you linked was discussing (monolaurin as a anti-fungal agent).
Again, the essential oil industry is built up on scamming people of their money by providing false information that is not evidence based in order to sucker dumb idiots into buying a product. That does not mean that essential oils don't smell nice, or some might be effective in an anti-bacterial role, but they are far from solutions to many of the claims that pseudo-scientific scam artists make about them.
This industry has been around for decades, and nothing has ever changed. Dumb idiots are always suckered into buying dumb shit on false claims by snake-oil salesmen.
it's been recently shown that those who partake in "alternative medicine" for cancer treatments die at a ridiculously higher/faster rate
Ayden Rodriguez
>doctors are also wrong sometimes and big pharma is evil this is 100% true though. have you tried ignoring her retardation and moving on with your life?
Asher Wright
>Just because you can't think of any evidence does not imply that something does not work. Just because you can't think of any reason it implies that it doesn't work doesn't mean it doesn't imply it. You are just as unreasonable as a Donald Trump.
Julian Lee
>Just because you can't think of any reason it implies that it doesn't work doesn't mean it doesn't imply it. Did you forget to take you medication?
Bentley Brown
Just because you can't think of a retort doesn't mean I take medicine.
Jonathan Hall
I find it funny that you guys are arguing so much over this. There simply isn't enough research to validate or invalidate all of the claims of homeopathic medicine. While research is being done, it will take time. Although plants have been used in medicine for thousands of years, no real, thorough research has been done on how they are effective, why they are effective, or even if they are effective. If you want to prove or disprove homeopathic medicines, then find a group of people who are capable of helping that happen. This is Veeky Forums surely someone here has a degree that involves how to conduct research properly.
(Side note, the term "Essential" in "Essential Oils" is not referring to your need of them, but rather referring to the fact that the oil is the "essence" of the plant from which it was taken. In other words, the oil is the part of the plant that gives it medicinal properties, so they extracted the "essence" of what makes the plant medicinal and put it into a bottle.)
Liam Smith
There's nonsense and then there's alternative medicine. For example, eastern medicine is a giant thorn in the side of western medicine - it works but western medicine just ignores it because it's not set up to make massive amounts of money.
I think a large reason people seek alternative medicine is because of cost and safety. For whatever reason, western medicines can be very expensive and come with a host of horrible side effects. There are safe, alternative remedies out there that aren't FDA approved. Please don't make the mistake that something has to be FDA approved to be effective. Try to remember that in the health care system we live in, the number one goal is profits. Everything is secondary to that including healing patients.
Lucas Foster
>cnn
Carson Parker
They have some kind of desire to be ripped off and misled. Look how easy it is to sell shit to people now, they're desperate to believe mental illness isn't real and that Super Male Vitality will fix them instead of taking meds the doctor gives them.
Logan Howard
>There simply isn't enough research to validate or invalidate all of the claims of homeopathic medicine It's invalidated a priori. There is less than one molecule of active ingredient per bottle of homeopathic remedy. Water holds "memory" of past compounds mixed into it for less than a second before reorganizing it. The claims are ridiculous.
>essential oils how would this be better than taking specific alkaloids if the plant wasn't just placebo
Tyler Davis
Use a gentle maieutic approach to get them to argue themselves out of their own erroneous beliefs
