"alternative" medicine and health

sanpaku*

oh shit probiotics are on there! i would have them toward the middle, in the "promising" section

are there any forms of probiotics that are worth taking? my husband has some kind of IBD and i did some research (but i'm not exactly great at finding good reliable info) and made him start taking two different kinds of probiotics a day, switching them up every month or so. they didn't do any harm, but he stopped taking them a while ago when he got lazy and it hasn't made any difference.

If you like yoghurt you could try switching to a variety that has live cultures rather than it being pasteurized after the culturing. Most of those live acidophilus flora won't make it to your gut, but the ones that do are benign. I'm not sure how much difference it would make, but at least it would be a cheap and harmless experiment.

Glucosamine isn't so interesting to me as a joint-health supplement, but as one of very few supplements that possibly reduces mortality (functioning as an AMPK inducer/calorie restriction memetic): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Probiotics have shown benefit in reducing antibiotic-associated diarrhea 6. The problems include 1) they don't seem to compete with established cultures in the gut lining, little change in bacterial populations is seen after a course of probiotics; 2) Lactobaccili and Bifidobacilli are used primarily because they're relatively easy to culture and produce viable shelf-stable supplements with, but the most important strains for health may be difficult to culture strains like F. prausnitzii, Akkermansia and Roseburia; and 3) quality control in the probiotics industry is dismal, the contents of supplements are unlikely to be what's on the label.

I've seen more promising work of late with prebiotics (7, 8, 9, 10)): mostly fermentable oligosaccharides, but also resistant starch, and polyphenols that beneficially shift existing flora. One can take chicory-derived inulin, but I just steer my diet towards whole wheat (& bran), Allium vegetables (onions, garlic, leeks), high polyphenol foods (berries, wine, cocoa, tea), and beans.

Is there any reason why probiotics (both supplements and various foods fortified with probiotics, but not regular old yogurt) would make me wildly nauseated? Because they do.

(I don't really want to take probiotics, but the few times I've tried has been miserable and I've always wondered why that happens.)

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/new-york-attorney-general-targets-supplements-at-major-retailers

The authorities said they had conducted tests on top-selling store brands of herbal supplements at four national retailers — GNC, Target, Walgreens and Walmart — and found that four out of five of the products did not contain any of the herbs on their labels. The tests showed that pills labeled medicinal herbs often contained little more than cheap fillers like powdered rice, asparagus and houseplants, and in some cases substances that could be dangerous to those with allergies.

Houseplants!!!

My daughter's (former - we switched for this and other reasons) pediatrician always recommended some kind of herbal supplements for whatever ailed her, and knowing all of this, I was always reluctant to get them. But why would the doctor recommend them if there wasn't something to it? So I usually would although I always felt conflicted about it. Ugh.

The last time I tried to take a simple multi-vitamin it made me horribly cramped/bloated and miserable for days. Afraid to try again, no idea what's in that stuff.

vitamins iirc

Article says a lot of supplements, even ones labeled as gluten free, contain wheat. So who freaking knows.

four out of five of the products did not contain any of the herbs on their labels

overregulation is killing american business

i don't see any specific mention of multivitamins in there but that article is freaking me out.

i guess there's no reason expect the multis to be totally a-ok after reading that. but maybe a general A/B/C/etc pill is cheaper to put together than gingko or fucking saw palmetto or w/e

lesson i take is that the people selling us "supplements" would put cat shit in there if they thought they could get away with it

anybody making more than $100k a year needs to be treated with maximum suspicion

i have an irrational hatred of walgreens for some reason. and CVS and all big drug chains, i guess. their stores suck and all they sell is junk food and also the diabetes and heart medicine you will need after a life of junk. blah. they did get rid of the cigarettes though. which made sense. big gross convenience stores + pain pills. what a racket.

My daughter's (former - we switched for this and other reasons) pediatrician always recommended some kind of herbal supplements for whatever ailed her, and knowing all of this, I was always reluctant to get them. But why would the doctor recommend them if there wasn't something to it? So I usually would although I always felt conflicted about it. Ugh.

feel like carl is highlighting the other side of things, in that actual licensed doctors aren't quackery-free, either. see: Dr. Oz and his ilk who might feel they're doing no harm or being helpful when really all they're doing is using their title to funnel money from people directly to their wallets. obviously your neighborhood doctor isn't getting kickbacks like that, but they're not immune to the influence of that side of the business

until the system rewards its component parts for working well together and for treating patients and not treating symptoms/issues, we're going to keep seeing people returning to whoever gives them personal care

all they sell is junk food
junk food, cigarettes (walgreens still sells cigs here), booze, makeup, and prescription meds

(but they do have pretty great $5 fleece-lined leggings! i still have a hard time feeling 100% good about those in spite of their monumental comfort and nice price)

and band-aids, school supplies, ointments, etc

until the system rewards its component parts for working well together and for treating patients and not treating symptoms/issues, we're going to keep seeing people returning to whoever gives them personal care
otm
i have never felt better about my lesson plan revolving around the concept of snake oil
i recently learned of a weight loss method called "waist training" and when it was described, i was like "you mean like corsets?" and was told "yeah corsets are like an extreme version of Waist Training TM"

;_;

LL I have some of those too! I got them for christmas

Yesss waist training please get it out of my facebook feed jfc

I have never heard of it! It amounts to "wear a belt and constrict your midsection so you don't want to eat"?

yeah well i still buy stuff there. there is a walgreens at the end of our street. and i usually get a flu shot there too. hope there aren't house plants in my flu shot...

i just always get bugged when i go in there...one of those places that takes forever to get out of.

Had never heard of it, that is
Who is touting this revolution in weight loss?

you'll know there are harmful houseplants in your flu shot if you start aggressively pointing at people with your mouth hanging open

Iirc it's mostly "buy one of these wrap-around girdles made of neoprene (see also: fajas) and take pics of yourself on ig wearing it over your gym clothes while working out!"

How does waist training work?

Waist training involves wearing a belt (made from thick latex and cotton lining) around your waist that looks just like an old-fashioned corset — you know, the kinds that used to break women’s ribs, crush their internal organs, and make them faint all the time. The belt works by putting pressure on the waist in order to change its shape over time. You can also wear the belt while working out in order to “speed up” the weight loss process and “strengthen your core.”

What are the benefits?

Waist training advocates claim that with waist training you can lose up to seven inches from your waist line, which sounds more terrifying than anything else. The waist training belt is supposed to put pressure on your waist — which generates heat while you’re physically active to help your body burn fat quicker — and expel toxins. It also doubles as a breast lift, pushing your boobies up to put them in “the right place.”

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

so many red flags there
wow

Can I also, tentatively?, put oil pulling in this category? That needs to get out of all my feeds too.

And it's not that I'm in love with medical science or that it's never been wrong or certainly not that it's never been ethically bankrupt in testing methods, patient care, experimenting on the least powerful all through history, etc. But yeah I can't see anything else past the forest of red flags.

wasn't sure what that was, read about it online on the NIH website, appears to be less than or just equal to brushing your teeth and/or using mouthwash, with brushing and mouthwash being a bit better

seems like a good way to think you're doing something cool while attempting to dodge the drudgery of flossing

Yeah, you can be forceful about oil pulling. That's straight bullshit.

i don't see any specific mention of multivitamins in there but that article is freaking me out.

i guess there's no reason expect the multis to be totally a-ok after reading that. but maybe a general A/B/C/etc pill is cheaper to put together than gingko or fucking saw palmetto or w/e

― goole, Tuesday, February 17, 2015 3:25 PM (1 hour ago)

the first thing i will say is that the vast majority of healthy people do not need a multivitamin, unless you're on a weird diet. that said multivitamins are generally more reliable than "supplements", as you allude to. many of them are made by the same companies that make OTC products that are FDA-regulated

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/05/multivitamins/index.htm

i have an irrational hatred of walgreens for some reason. and CVS and all big drug chains, i guess. their stores suck and all they sell is junk food and also the diabetes and heart medicine you will need after a life of junk. blah. they did get rid of the cigarettes though. which made sense. big gross convenience stores + pain pills. what a racket.

― scott seward, Tuesday, February 17, 2015 3:40 PM (1 hour ago)

yeah i mean, you're not wrong. i am not especially popular with my bosses because i constantly give them a hard time about our selling cigarettes, as well as homeopathic medicine and supplements. obviously at the end of the day it's a business decision. i can't say i'm too upset to be leaving the field

i've never heard of oil pulling! that is weird to me because i LOVE flossing, getting food out of your teeth that's been stuck there for hours is like the best feeling

Whereas swishing oil around in your mouth for what like 20 minutes? is fucking disgusting.

I guess before modern toothbrushes, fillings, decent dentures, etc, whatever various cultures came up with in terms of dental hygiene is great. If it came close to modern results in cleanliness & protection, that's pretty surprisingly great! But it's 2015 now and my teeth break when I even think about chewing.

Nah.

Well and modern oil pulling enthusiasts aren't talking it up for dental health. It's about TOXINS.

lol

Sometimes I see both oil pulling and waist training paired with the rhetoric of reclaiming non-Western practices of one's ancestors, having faith in women's wisdom that worked for centuries before it was erased by colonialism, and so on.

My ancestors probably had Scottish teeth and appallingly bad vision just like I do. I'll take all the medical advances I can get.

modern dentistry is awesome, dental insurance that pays for it doubly so

well fuck, i've been taking a complex b vitamin since i don't eat meat much and i'm mental, plus vitamin d supplement bc my levels were low. so these are probably bullshit and not doing anything??

doctors have recommended B12 supplements to me & I'm pretty certain they weren't getting any kickbacks for it

if you look at the washington post article amateurist linked upthread, there are strong indicators via study that both B and D vitamins have some level of therapeutic efficacy. if they're manufactured by a reputable company, I'd imagine they're useful.

plus, having your levels tested as being low by an actual doctor and taking a supplement is a lot different from people who have no particular reason to take vitamins

i start taking astragalus every day in the fall and thru the winter and i've been doing that for the last three years and i don't know if the astragalus pills i've been taking have actually been ground up old apple cores and chinese newspapers but i haven't been sick in three years. so...something's working. i recommend it! that and a flu shot.

I would like to point out that multiple of the things shown to have therapeutic effect are all readily available in a can of Red Bull and I will continue on my niacin/caffeine regimen as indicated

I take strong B supplements cos I drink. I can tell you they help - when I dont take them I become an exhausted miserable mess. But theyre addressing a genuine lack - most people who eat well likely dont need vitamins (except maybe D now tha we all avoid the sun)

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/09/teen-battled-cancer-chemo-treament-remission

you've probably read about this: teen girl wanted to refuse chemo for her non-hodgkin's lymphoma, her parents wanted to respect her wishes, but the state intervened and held her in custody and forced her to received the treatments. she said she thought the chemo was unhealthy, but with this form of cancer -- which friends of mine have had -- it has a very high success rate. without chemo, the mortality rate is very high. anyway she is in remission now, thanks to the forced treatment.

commenters on multiple platforms think the state overstepped its bounds and that they should have respected the kid's and the parents' (???????) wishes. i understand the idea of respecting the girl's wishes -- it's her body -- but i do think it's possible she was under the influence of her parents, which made this case problematic. in these cases, i feel that the parents should definitely NOT have the final say, especially if their perspective is "don't get chemo." if the parents aren't medical professionals, what the fuck do they know about anything?

https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemlee/inside-the-internets-war-on-science

Welcome to the vast universe of self-built social media empires devoted to spreading false, misleading, and polarizing science and health news — sometimes further and wider than the real information. Here, climate change is a government-sponsored hoax, fluoridated water is poisonous, cannabis can cure cancer, and airplanes are constantly spraying pesticides and biological waste into the air. Genetically modified food is destroying humanity and the planet. Vaccines are experimental, autism-causing injections forced on innocent babies. We can’t trust anything that we eat, drink, breathe, or medicate with, nor rely on physicians and public health agencies to act in our best interests. Between the organic recipes and menacing stock images of syringes and pills, a clear theme emerges: Everything is rigged — by doctors, Big Pharma, Monsanto, the FDA — and the mainstream media isn’t telling us. (Also, there’s usually a link to buy vitamins.) This messaging reflects a new, uniquely conspiratorial strain of libertarianism that hijacks deeply intimate issues — your body, your health, your children’s health. It shares magnificently.

whine pairings

just here to lol at Dr Oz

lol dr oz more like dr lOZt, because he lost, like a fkin loser

part of an old nyer profile of him stuck with me tho, where the writer pointed out that since lots of americans have basically no health care, they're left vulnerable to grifters like him. 💛i hope he fucking dies 💛

dr oz, that is, of course. not the nyer writer.

there was an early seinfeld episode where george has some kind of health scare, but he doesn't want to see a real doctor because $$$, so kramer convinces him to go to a $40 naturopath who messes george up so bad he has to go to the hospital anyway. #thisisamerica