101–110 of 322 posts
Dextromethorphan is definitely not a placebo. Take enough and you'll go to space and meet God. Smaller doses produce euphoria and dissociation, which, even if they don't make the cough go away, makes it easier to tolerate a cold -- same reason antitussives have historically contained alcohol, cannabis extract (which may incidentally work as bronchodilator but was not the reason I imagine it was in antitussives) Funny…
This article uses the trick where you pick studies that support your argument and ignore all of the studies that disagree with it. There are other studies where Dextromethorphan improves both objective and subjective measures of coughing: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37232330/ They also picked a study that shows honey outperforming Dextromethorphan but ignored all the studies that show honey performing similarly o…
One of my favorite slides is when we compiled dozens of trials on something that’s basically a nitrogen fertilizer, which as much of a guaranteed positive effect as you can get in agriculture. When compared in a graph most of the trials show an overwhelming effect on increasing yield over an untreated check, however there’s always a portion of the trials where the yield decreases compared to the (untreated) check.
Real life is extremely noisy for a multitude of circumstantial reasons that are either not practical or possible to control for, so a single trial is generally worth fuckall. It takes a lot of testing to see a consistent trend across them.
"DXM does nothing", proceeds to link a study whose contents describe significant decreases in cough severity versus placebo. I am convinced that many people ask LLM's "give me a citation URL" and don't bother to read it.
The article kinda glossed over it, but one fact under-appreciated by the general public is just how dangerous acetaminophen overdoses can be . Scientists often talk about the "therapeutic index" or "safety ratio" of a drug. It's the LD50 (dose at which 50% of recipients die) divided by the effective dose. Common hard drugs like heroin or methamphetamine have a safety ratio of about 6-10 [1]. "Soft" drugs like marijua…
In Canada if you go to a drug store, the shelves are literally filled with literal homeopathic medicine. You have to carefully confirm that what you’re buying isn’t water, and there is no signage or other differentiation between actual medicine and magic. Completely unrelated, I noticed recently that tire detailing spray that makes your tires look black, and the recommended lubricant for my garage door weather stripp…
The very "medicine" you linked to in fact displays it right on the cover.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only historically. No Vick's brand product has contained it since 2016. The only "brand" name I'm aware of currently is Benzedrex.
Benzedrex is not l-Methamphetamine, it is Propylhexedrine
https://www.vumc.org/poison-control/toxicology-question-week...
Dextromethorphan is definitely not a placebo. Take enough and you'll go to space and meet God. Smaller doses produce euphoria and dissociation, which, even if they don't make the cough go away, makes it easier to tolerate a cold -- same reason antitussives have historically contained alcohol, cannabis extract (which may incidentally work as bronchodilator but was not the reason I imagine it was in antitussives) Funny…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is probably the OTC drug that is at the top of the list to be made RX-only due to its dangers.
Please no. We need to be going the other way on that trend: converting things which won't easily outright kill/maim you (and dare I say, even potentially addictive ones) at normal doses from Rx to OTC! Acetaminophen is one of the few cheap, easy, and working products on the shelf!
And then there's OTC drugs which are sort of in a weird middle area - and where some of these I feel personally might work best. Make them easily accessible to anyone without a prescription but at least a pharmacist has to hand it to you. They are the experts at dosing and what combinations of drugs are safe after all !
I only know one person who has ever found phenylephrine effective. It's definitely not for me, but they've done single-blinded self-studies (with help) to see if it's a placebo effect, and it's pretty clearly not. DXM is also not a placebo, although it might be specifically for cough. I don't especially want the FDA to ban them, but requiring separating out the acetaminophen might not be the worst idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please no. We need to be going the other way on that trend: converting things which won't easily outright kill/maim you (and dare I say, even potentially addictive ones) at normal doses from Rx to OTC! Acetaminophen is one of the few cheap, easy, and working products on the shelf!
A concern with OTC drugs is specifically that they won't be taken at normal doses. People confuse brand names and drug names, and don't realize they are taking more than the reccomended amount. This is especially problematic with combination drugs.