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Comment by LarsAlereon | Hacker News Reader

Ugh, I got bit by this at Walgreens I think it was. Went to buy some zinc lozenges for a cold, didn't notice the tiny "homeopathic" text on the label, got lozenges made with ingredients that might have touched a zinc molecule once.

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There's an extra level of misdirection here - those zinc lozenges say "homeopathic" on them, but are not homeopathic in any traditional sense. Homeopathic generally means that whatever 'active' ingredient has been diluted to the point that not a single molecule remains and the supposed therapeutic value comes from some sort of BS 'resonance' or whatever that the molecules have supposedly left on the remaining water.

However, if you look at the fine print, it's something like a '1x' homeopathic dilution, and it in fact contains the correct amount of zinc gluconate, which is the active ingredient that has been tested and found to probably reduce the duration of the common cold.

Edit: That said, zinc acetate has been found to probably be the more effective substance for reducing the duration of the common cold, and the main brand of those don't pretend to be homeopathic so are probably a better bet.

Zinc is homeopathic though?

Homeopathy is a specific term that means “doesn’t actually have the substance in it”. I’m making no claims to the curative power of zinc but a lozenge with zinc in it is totally different from a “homeopathic zinc lozenge” which contains materials that were once mixed with zinc then diluted until no zinc remains.

I’d be pretty mad if I bought “homeopathic gasoline” where someone puts a drop of gasoline into a million gallons of water then sells it to me as gasoline.

This is interesting because people will buy supplements that have no scientific basis for efficacy (biotin, mega-doses of Vit-C, St John's Wort) but they will deride homeopathy, which also has no scientific basis for efficacy. I'm not bashing zinc, because I don't know the science, but I am bashing homeopathy. Openly. Show me some double-blind studies. Unless the placebo effect is what you are selling, in which case, say that.

EDIT: Thanks for the info on St John's Wort! I should have picked a better example.

St John's Wort has a scientific basis though

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=St+John%27s+Wort+double...

Interestingly enough there’s significant clinical evidence of St. Johns Wart acting as an SSRI and most serotonin-based medications warn about taking St. J’s Wart. See the indications for this other antidepressant for serotonin syndrome (St. John’s is listed as a potential cause): https://www.rxlist.com/effexor-drug.htm

Not if there is actually Zinc in it. If you dilute it in water until there is no detectable amount of Zinc, then it is homeopathic.

Zinc is a mineral that's often good to take as a supplement. Zicam is a popular "remedy" that's homeopathic, and is almost certainly what they are referring to.

My friend bought some once and when I pointed out that it said "homeopatic" in very, very tiny text he was super upset that he'd been duped.

What makes you say that? Most homeopathic formulations are explicitly diluted to the point that no measurable amount is left. That is not how Zinc lozenges work.

> Most homeopathic formulations are explicitly diluted to the point that no measurable amount is left.

Is that the case in the US? Because here in Germany, lower potencies are very common.

That's just how homeopathy is supposed to work. I don't think there is any standard about what you can call homeopathic or not, but it's supposed to be the more diluted the stronger it is.

Yes, I know how they say it works. But D2 (1 part in 100) is still called homeopathy and commonly available. As I posted in another comment [0], my parents only use the weak mixtures.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33082142

Zinc is not homeopathic, it's a supplement.

Homeopathy refers, specifically, to substances diluted down so much there's basically none of the original substance left in the resulting dilution. It's based on the premise that water has "memory."

I think you're getting homeopathy confused with "CAM," which stands for "complementary and alternate medicine." You might consider Zinc CAM (I haven't read the literature on it).

It is the case that something advertised as a "medicine" can include both homeopathic ingredients and other CAM ingredients as well.

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