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The rise and fall of snake oil

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Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#31

Post by adrian_b »

alexjplant wrote: post #24
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…

> the current "It's got electrolytes" craze The modern emphasis on electrolytes is directionally correct but ultimately silly. Most electrolyte satchets and drinks are just overpriced salt water with artificial flavoring and sweeteners. The majority of the Western world actually fails to meet their recommended intake of potassium and magnesium. The former is rare in beverages because of its bitter taste and possible…

I believe that it is undesirable to ingest excessive amounts of chlorides.

Normally, the amount of chloride intake should not exceed the amount of sodium intake, i.e. one should not ingest other chlorides except table salt. The normal amount of chloride in the body is less than that of sodium, a part of the sodium ions being neutralized by bicarbonate anions. Any excess chloride requires additional work for the kidneys, to eliminate it from the body. Excreting chloride is also likely to take with it some of the useful metallic cations that you have supplemented.

Other metallic cations than sodium should be combined with organic anions, i.e. one should ingest their salts made with organic acids chosen from normal nutrients.

Good choices are potassium citrate (one of the cheapest organic acids that is also a normal component of food) and magnesium bisglycinate (because the magnesium salts of cheaper organic acids, like citric acid, are not soluble in water, while magnesium bisglycinate not only is soluble in water, but it also does not form solid precipitates with other components of food, which would prevent its absorption in the gut).

Both potassium citrate and magnesium bisglycinate can be found as cheap pure powders, which are preferable to any other forms, like capsules, which contain useless excipients for which there is no reason to be introduced in your body.

Besides sodium, the only other exception to the rule of using salts of organic acids is calcium, which can be supplemented as calcium phosphate or bone meal. However, calcium phosphate powder is not soluble in water, so unlike sodium and magnesium salts powders it cannot be put in drinking water, but it should be mixed like table salt in some solid food, before eating it.

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#33

Post by Nasrudith »

ccimmergreen wrote: post #28
Aerroon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My quality of life improved by a significant amount when I started supplementing magnesium. Better sleep and a bunch of other things. It's actually scary how much of a difference something so simple (and cheap) made.

Sounds like placebo effect. Which works too, but it doesn't have to be magnesium, zinc, or snake oil for that matter.

Understandable thing to test for but, in my experience magnesium has been legitimate for me. I've found it improved my ability to think personally and depression. The 'dosing effects' are the thing that convinced me it is a real effect. If I ran out of it and was say, waiting for it coming in the mail I could go for it for some days without noticing a difference. That level of 'some endurance, don't need it daily' seemed to suggest some real pharmacology behidn it.

I also say for me because if you already have good levels of magnesium in your diet, it will have nothing to improve.

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#34

Post by pedalpete »

com2kid wrote: post #29
pedalpete wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ca…

I understand your subscription model but I honestly hope you don't have large backend costs. If the device came with a year free, or even a 6 month subscription, sure. But over $500 for a sleep aid is asking a lot.

The back-end costs aren't high.

We decided to go with a low device cost and subscription to make it cost effective to purchase when finances allow us to get to a monthly instead of yearly subscription.

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#35

Post by pedalpete »

MrDrMcCoy wrote: post #26
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…

Are you folks going to support non-iPhones?

Yeah, my co-founder and I were discussing this yesterday.

It was always in the plans, we're all actually on Android, but we wanted to get the user experience right on one platform and not spread ourselves too thin, but we're thinking AI makes a big difference here, so... no announcement yet, but it was never going to be iPhone forever.

I still can't say for sure we'll have android at launch, but we'd like to.

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#36

Post by trashb »

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…

> "It's got electrolytes"

But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#37

Post by pjc50 »

janalsncm wrote: post #10

> Government analysis and enforcement of standards meant that snake oil had acquired a reputation for infamy that it retains to this day. Notably, they ended up being shut down due to a lack of actual snake oil in the product, not because of their claims that snake oil cured maladies. If we can draw a lesson for busting today’s multitude of scams, it might be easier to prove the scam is bogus on its own terms rather…

Also unexpected contents; I think Soylent Green suffered from an adulteration scandal where people were blaming them for food poisoning.

https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/california-tech-world-so... (I had to check if they were still in business, they used to be mentioned frequently on HN but haven't for years)

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#38

Post by RobotToaster »

It's worth noting the original "snake oil" from Chinese water snakes was high in omega 3, so it may have some minor medical effect[0][1]. The later marketing of rattlesnake oil and fakes made from mineral oil is where the term comes from.

[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/snake-oil-salesme...

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17622788/

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#39

Post by RobotToaster »

adrian_b wrote: post #31
alexjplant wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the current "It's got electrolytes" craze The modern emphasis on electrolytes is directionally correct but ultimately silly. Most electrolyte satchets and drinks are just overpriced salt water with artificial flavoring and sweeteners. The majority of the Western world actually fails to meet their recommended intake of potassium and magnesium. The former is rare in beverages because of its bitter taste and possible…

I believe that it is undesirable to ingest excessive amounts of chlorides. Normally, the amount of chloride intake should not exceed the amount of sodium intake, i.e. one should not ingest other chlorides except table salt. The normal amount of chloride in the body is less than that of sodium, a part of the sodium ions being neutralized by bicarbonate anions. Any excess chloride requires additional work for the kidne…

It's worth noting that glycine can have negative psychological effects on some people, anxiety, insomnia, etc. Supposedly it's because it's a NMDA receptor co agonist.

Re: The rise and fall of snake oil

#40

Post by adrian_b »

RobotToaster wrote: post #39
adrian_b wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that it is undesirable to ingest excessive amounts of chlorides. Normally, the amount of chloride intake should not exceed the amount of sodium intake, i.e. one should not ingest other chlorides except table salt. The normal amount of chloride in the body is less than that of sodium, a part of the sodium ions being neutralized by bicarbonate anions. Any excess chloride requires additional work for the kidne…

It's worth noting that glycine can have negative psychological effects on some people, anxiety, insomnia, etc. Supposedly it's because it's a NMDA receptor co agonist.

The amount of glycine that accompanies the at most a few hundred milligrams of magnesium per day that you might want to use as supplement is relatively small in comparison with the glycine content of most kinds of food that you eat anyway.

Bisglycinate is the cheapest form of chelate magnesium, but there are somewhat more expensive forms of chelate magnesium, which use other amino-acids instead of glycine. Someone who is very sensitive to glycine could use those. The non-chelate forms of magnesium are prone to form solid precipitates that pass through the gut without being absorbed.

Much more glycine than in a Mg supplement would be provided by any food with gelatin, so if someone really has glycine sensitivity, that should manifest when eating food with gelatin.

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