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Comment by Zaheer | Hacker News Reader

I stopped taking over-the-counter drugs years ago unless its vitally necessary. Common colds, allergies etc are not too difficult to bear in most circumstances and with the all the side-effects of pharma drugs I prefer to go with alternative medicines ex. local honey, lemons, etc.

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> I prefer to go with alternative medicines ex. local honey, lemons, etc.

These alternatives clearly have the advantage of being side-effect free for most people, but I have always been very skeptical about their effectiveness. Are there actually any reliable studies on the efficacy of local honey in treating allergies? And I thought that the role of vitamin C in warding off colds had been pretty well debunked. (I assume that's what the lemons are for.)

Don't get me wrong, I really wish all this nice stuff worked. Show me firm evidence that it does, and I'm sold. (And some of it I'm happy to do even if it's not effective in the pharmacological sense, just because it feels/tastes nice.) But as I said, I'm skeptical.

I agree with the parent when it comes to things like the cold. I seriously don't understand people who take paracetamol and tons of other over the counter stuff for that. When it comes to allergies though (hay fever in my case) I can barely function without antihistamines (and with them I'm still a wreck). I haven't found any of the home remedies to be effective for it whereas in the case of the cold plenty of water and some lemon and ginger tea seems to improve things a bit. In fact I've noticed I feel better with that than over the counter stuff for the cold.

> I seriously don't understand people who take paracetamol and tons of other over the counter stuff for that. When it comes to allergies though...

Isn't that exactly like the grandparent comment's "allergies etc are not too difficult to bear in most circumstances"? I, like you, have bad allergies and I can't live without Singulair+Zyrtec. But...

I've had three colds and one bout of bronchitis this season, and I took OTC meds including painkillers because I had unbearable sinus congestion/pain and headaches each time. I also ended up doubling down on my usual meds for allergies+asthma since that got worse too. Colds aren't all mild with no complications. I don't begrudge people seeking symptom relief.

Taking medications that alleviate the symptoms of upper respiratory congestion also aid in preventing sinus infections down the road. Diminishing the effects of a cold has more benefit than just providing comfort, you are also helping to eliminate a breeding ground for nasty bacteria.

My wife will reliably get acute sinus infections following a cold if she doesn't take decongestants. She is generally aversive to taking any medication, but after 8 sinus infections in one year, she now always takes decongestants when a cold starts.

I'm thinking I might have that same issue. Can you share what works for her?

I'm not the parent, and I haven't had 8 in one year, but I've had a few, and my colds always come with congestion...

I use the hell out of neti pots/sinus rinses, steam inhalation (like a cup of tea - which, drinking lots of fluids also helps), and pseudoephedrine.

just like the other person who replied to you, a neti-pot and pseudoephedrine (which you have to go to the pharmacy counter to get in the US, but does not require a prescription).

I'm sure that happens to some people but I doubt it happens to a majority and everyone I knows pops whatever they can get their hands on for the cold.

I haven't found any hard evidence to support the local honey for allergies thing, but honey really does have some remarkable medicinal properties, especially as a natural antibacterial:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3609166/

One thing I've found is that honey is an amazing sore-throat cure.

For coughs, check out olive leaf extract. I very rarely recommend things, but it's amazing how suddenly and completely it makes you stop coughing!

That sounds amazing. Can you recommend a brand, dosage? Are you saying it cures the cough or just suppresses it?

Two tablets (recommended daily max) suppresses for me the actual coughing within 15 minutes absolutely and completely for about 6 hours. Brand here in Australia is 'Living Healthy'. Each capsule: (1) 2.92mg dry olive leaf (Olea europaea) (2) 35mg equiv. to Oleuropein (3) 100mg Arographis paniculata leaf dry (4) 2.5mg equiv. to Andrographolide (5) 5mg zinc gluconate.

Image @ http://www.terrywhitechemists.com.au/living-healthy-olive-le... ... manufacturer 'Orion Laboratories' recently acquired by http://www.perrigo.com.au/

replying as breadcrumbs so I can reference this remedy later.

That Placebo Effect is so strong I don't even bother to debunk natural remedies. Plus, I might be throwing the baby out with the bath water, but right now I'm very skeptical of a lot of pharmacuticals studies. They just lied to us so many times when it comes to the efficacy of their newest drug.

I get your skepticism, but does it not help that pharmaceutical studies are closely reviewed by the FDA before a drug can be marketed? Getting a new drug approved is far from easy.

Not nearly as much as you might think. Check out "Bad Pharma" by Ben Goldacre. It's a treatment of the statistical and legal tricks used by drug companies to overstate the efficacy of new drugs, without breaking any actual FDA regulations.

Even after using all the known tricks for cherry-picking results, p-hacking, and the like, there exist much-abused FDA 'fast track' options for getting a 'needed' drug out before the science is confirmed, and quite often the science never gets around to being confirmed. Even big-name drugs like Tamiflu have been shown later to be no better than generics at best and completely useless at worst.

It's also not that hard---perform your own research, under conditions you specify, using analysis methods you dictate, with the ability to retry over and over and over until a favorable result arises by chance, THEN the FDA scrutinizes it.

The same FDA that is staffed by ex-pharmaceutical executives, and the same pharmaceutical companies that are staffed by ex-FDA staff? The FDA is really not something you can reasonably, or should, trust.

There's quite a lot of anecdotal evidence in support of both. Lemons for colds are more a relief than a cure according to [1]. The way I tend to look at, people have survived/healed themselves for thousands of years prior to the advent of modern medicine. Some methods are not that effective while many others are even if due to a placebo effect.

A large part of staying healthy I believe is being preventative. Many 'normal' activities can actually be coined as cures to common ailments. Staying active, sleep, eating healthy, not over-eating etc.

[1] http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/common-cold/in...

Prior to the advent of modern medicine people didn't heal themselves. They died at record rates from things that are minor inconveniences now.

I'm mostly referring to symptoms and lesser illnesses such as colds, headaches, sores and such

An open wound was almost certainly a recipe for gangrene prior to antiseptics and antibiotics.

I think this straying from my main point. All I was trying to say is when possible stick to natural stuff in all other circumstances I'm all for modern medicines.

In this study[0], honey compares favorably to silver sulfadiazine dressing for healing burn wounds.

[0] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2845359/

Antiseptics have been in use for at least two thousand years now.

That's true of some illnesses and stages of history, and not of others.

The advances of modern medicine shouldn't blind us to the fact that humans and other animals/organisms have always had immune systems that fight off disease naturally, and that practices like good nutrition, sleep and physical fitness, and yes, some folk remedies, all assist the immune system to function optimally - even if by placebo effect.

Sure, modern medicine can take over where the body's natural defenses and traditional health practices are inadequate.

But bacteria and viruses have existed for longer than humans have, and as a species we've survived a pretty long time without modern medicine.

Try it for yourself, and don't be so dependent on third parties to tell you how to live your life. There's nothing to lose and a whole world of independence to gain. Honey and lemon is awesome if you have a cold - if you're not trying it yourself because there isn't a study to prove its efficacy, then you're missing out on one of the true great values in life: experiencing things for yourself.

I feel obligated to say that "alternative medicine" means treatment attempts that are not based on science or evidence.

They are based on evidence, but that evidence has not been scientifically evaluated.

And given how that worked for cultures before the modern age, I'll stick to those who choose to study medicine. Not those who simply prescribe whatever they felt worked once, for a reason unknown to them.

Why do you need a straw man to justify your point?

Which, to me, is equivalent to saying it's not based on evidence.

Which means that you are also saying that the court system is not based on evidence.

Honest question: what convinces you that over-the-counter drugs have a negative effect rather than a neutral or even positive effect?

It's pretty well documented that over the counter pain killers such as acetaminophen, aspirin, and ibuprofen can have long term negative consequences with long term use. Allergy meds appear to be joining this group. In many cases the threshold for harm is fairly low in terms of lifetime cumulative dose. In some cases there are long-term benefits to these drugs(aspirin for instance) but there are definitely downsides. That isn't to say that pursuing alternative treatments to colds and allergies makes sense.

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