The rise and fall of snake oil • Hacker News Board

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#11

Post by dabbz » Mon, May 11, 2026, 11:03 PM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #5

I think they will soon be re-writing this article with the addition of "and rise again". I work in neurotech/sleeptech and one of the biggest challenges I see in our industry is, if not pure snake-oil, the over-hype of "backed by research". People have accused us of being snake-oil as well, and I get why they might think that if you haven't read or don't understand the science. I've seen products that claim to be Vag…

Most of that site reads as a "trust us, sound makes you heal!" I don't see a single thing there that tries to explain the correlation between bumping your brain with sound and "restoration". It doesn't explain what it restores, why it works better than nothing.

Honestly this website doesn't seem to even be trying to sell anything. "Help your sleep" how? "doesn't make you sleep longer" but what does it do instead? Do I feel more restored when I wake up even with a shorter sleep time? It's not even trying to sell me on a specific outcome that I John Everyman is facing.

Snake oil things are typically very light on details and this site is also light on details. Maybe it's a victim of form over function? The site's design looks nice but has very low information density.

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#12

Post by bluGill » Mon, May 11, 2026, 11:05 PM UTC

I prefer Professor Savage's swamp elixir https://www.lhf.org/event/medicine-shows-2/ they haven't announced the schedule for this coming summer, but it's well worth a visit up to Des Moines if you can work one out just to see it.

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#13

Post by pedalpete » Mon, May 11, 2026, 11:27 PM UTC

dabbz wrote: post #11

pedalpete wrote: post #5

I think they will soon be re-writing this article with the addition of "and rise again". I work in neurotech/sleeptech and one of the biggest challenges I see in our industry is, if not pure snake-oil, the over-hype of "backed by research". People have accused us of being snake-oil as well, and I get why they might think that if you haven't read or don't understand the science. I've seen products that claim to be Vag…

Most of that site reads as a "trust us, sound makes you heal!" I don't see a single thing there that tries to explain the correlation between bumping your brain with sound and "restoration". It doesn't explain what it restores, why it works better than nothing. Honestly this website doesn't seem to even be trying to sell anything. "Help your sleep" how? "doesn't make you sleep longer" but what does it do instead? Do…

Fair criticisms. However, there are FDA limitations on what you can say regarding devices that both measure and affect biomarkers and neuromarkers while the user is unconscious.

This is why we describe the neural function of sleep, but can't specifically get into details regarding increases in slow-wave activity, 15% decrease in early night cortisol, 14.5% increase in HRV, etc etc. We can link to the research, but can't say "this is what we do".

We are relying on user testimonials, which we are gathering through our beta testing and beyond.

At the same time, we do describe the "clearer thinking", "immune function", "stress" etc about half way down the page.

It's something we will continue to get better at.

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#14

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Tue, May 12, 2026, 12:41 AM UTC

Fall? The new US surgeon general nominee is a supplement hawker.

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#15

Post by joenot443 » Tue, May 12, 2026, 12:47 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #14

Fall? The new US surgeon general nominee is a supplement hawker.

The article’s about the product itself, not the idiom you’re referencing

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#16

Post by sqircles » Tue, May 12, 2026, 1:23 AM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #5

I think they will soon be re-writing this article with the addition of "and rise again". I work in neurotech/sleeptech and one of the biggest challenges I see in our industry is, if not pure snake-oil, the over-hype of "backed by research". People have accused us of being snake-oil as well, and I get why they might think that if you haven't read or don't understand the science. I've seen products that claim to be Vag…

Does the idea of submitting one's self to using something like this not terrify anyone else? The more true the effectiveness of these products become, the more they have the possibility to do the inverse on accident (or potentially on purpose), no?

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#17

Post by CobrastanJorji » Tue, May 12, 2026, 1:23 AM UTC

It's a shame that the article is so interesting in telling us about snake oil salesmen and the shenanigans and questionable claims involved in the trade, but it neglects to explain the direct origin of the phrase "snake oil salesman."

The phrase comes not from the ineffectiveness of snake oil, but rather from the common practice of selling counterfeit snake oil, that is to say selling some other liquid falsely labeled as snake. There was a famous Federal bust of a snake oil salesman, and after testing it was revealed that he was selling a liquid with beef fat instead of honest-to-God snake fat.

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#18

Post by skeeter2020 » Tue, May 12, 2026, 2:03 AM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #5

I think they will soon be re-writing this article with the addition of "and rise again". I work in neurotech/sleeptech and one of the biggest challenges I see in our industry is, if not pure snake-oil, the over-hype of "backed by research". People have accused us of being snake-oil as well, and I get why they might think that if you haven't read or don't understand the science. I've seen products that claim to be Vag…

[flagged]

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#19

Post by roysting » Tue, May 12, 2026, 2:06 AM UTC

Snake oil may have died, but the snake oil salesmen sure did not die out. If anything they’ve only proliferated.

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#20

Post by pedalpete » Tue, May 12, 2026, 2:15 AM UTC

sqircles wrote: post #16

pedalpete wrote: post #5

I think they will soon be re-writing this article with the addition of "and rise again". I work in neurotech/sleeptech and one of the biggest challenges I see in our industry is, if not pure snake-oil, the over-hype of "backed by research". People have accused us of being snake-oil as well, and I get why they might think that if you haven't read or don't understand the science. I've seen products that claim to be Vag…

Does the idea of submitting one's self to using something like this not terrify anyone else? The more true the effectiveness of these products become, the more they have the possibility to do the inverse on accident (or potentially on purpose), no?

I think it should. Our system is closed-loop and we monitor the real-time change in brain-wave activity. The process is very precise, and must be (80ms window for a 50ms pulse).

When we first started, many in the sleep community were against using these techniques. A significant number of the studies look specifically at safety, and often people report to these as "null results" when in fact what was being examined was the potential negative impact.

One example is the study on metabolic function [1], which showed no result in healthy men. It did not harm their metabolic function, though it also didn't improve it (though I'm not sure how you would measure improvement in healthy metabolic function).

For our company, there are many modalities and capabilities we are building for the future, we began with auditory stimulation and this one in particular due to the low-risk and volume of research.

[1] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.08.028