Hacker News Reader

Comment by kwertyoowiyop | Hacker News Reader

Sure this article is spammy self-promotion, but their prototype is exciting. I’d use it. It’s frustrating to go to a drugstore and see medicines for a cough, let’s say, each with a different active ingredient, and be unable to find concrete information comparing the effectiveness of each ingredient.

And wow, the WebMD article they mentioned on essential oils was terrible. It really lowers my opinion of WebMD. At this point I get more helpful information about medicines from Reddit.

View on HN

I just read the essential oils article and it doesn’t seem that bad? They recommend lavender for sleep, aromatherapy for stress reduction and tea tree oils for foot fungus. It’s not great, but as far as trying to be objective goes, it’s not like they’re arguing it cures cancer. They could, as I think is covered more generally provide more data, but while I don’t think we should swallow “alternative therapies” whole hog, I don’t think we should be biased against them just because they sound woo-ey. The evidence should speak for itself. what was your specific beef with the essential oils article(as compared to other WebMD articles)

Also interesting he contrasted it with Aspirin, because ironically, I don’t think pain killers have all that much power when studied against placebo.(heart benefits notwithstanding)

For example: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19673707/

They actually do dance around a claim regarding cancer:

> Many essential oils have antioxidant properties. Antioxidants help prevent damage to cells caused by free radicals. This damage can lead to serious diseases such as cancer.

For comparison, Wikipedia:

> Aromatherapy may be useful to induce relaxation, but there is not sufficient evidence that essential oils can effectively treat any condition.

Is the wikipedia article actually more accurate though?

https://www.healthline.com/health/tea-tree-oil-for-nail-fung...

"Results of a 1994 studyTrusted Source found pure tea tree oil was equally as effective as the antifungal clotrimazole (Desenex) in treating fungal toenail infections. Clotrimazole is available both over the counter (OTC) and by prescription."

Reading through the wikipedia article it seems they're conflating all use of essential oils and specifically the use of essential oils in aromatherapy treatment, which is what the linked article is about.

Also fair point on the cancer line but:

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/d...

"In laboratory and animal studies, the presence of increased levels of exogenous antioxidants has been shown to prevent the types of free radical damage that have been associated with cancer development" -- which seems close to what they were saying. A bit overstated for something published to the public, but technically accurate.

Overall it seems like the dismissal is a bias of the idea of essential oils, not necessarily a comprehensive review of the literature.

Honestly I'm WAY out of my lane here. I have no medical training and can't even call myself an interested amateur. So me trying to argue via random snippets of internet text would just waste everyone's time! :-)

The only thing I can really say is, there's a lot of medical-related material out there that seems vague and hopeful, that I don't think is doing much good for anyone but its creators. I'm with you - let's see what the research says and what the studies show, while keeping the placebo effect in mind. If crabgrass cures cancer, I'm down for some grazing.

Isn't that what the pharmacist is for? Pharmacies sell some dumb stuff, but if you actually ask for advice from the person with a license they'd like to keep, you should get some straight talk I'd think.

I'd say over 50% of the time at my pharmacy, this would involve waiting in line for 20 min and talking to a harried, overworked pharmacist who may or may not be up on the latest research... not a great UX.

As an experiment, I will try that next time I’m buying an OTC remedy. It sounds like we share an opinion: Given that drugstores unironically place homeopathic nostrums and essential oils right next to actual medicines, I treat them as hostile environments out to scam unwary consumers rather than honest sources of information. But, as I said, I will give that a fair test.

the pharmacist at a chain store has zero control of what's out there on the shelf. Just talk to them and see what they say. I suspect they'll give you an active ingredient suggestion first and then a handful of options of stuff they have on the shelf with that active ingredient.

What exactly is wrong with the WebMD article? There wasn't really anything inaccurate there... Is it just about tone?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com