The rise and fall of snake oil

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/rise-and-fall-snake-oil

by samizdis • 3 months ago

79 53 3 months ago

Bender• 3 months ago

Over the course of the 19th century snake oil transformed from folk remedy, to industrial medicine, to notorious fake.

And yet they can be a great source for Omega-3 fatty acids, most notably the Chinese water snake up to 20% EPA, the Erabu Sea Snake high in DHA. Rattlesnakes are much lower, around 5% to 6% Omega-3's better than nothing. I will always personally prefer Krill Oil for the high absorption.

There will always be scammers and grifters but I would prefer to not let them ruin the original product they are trying to exploit.

delichon• 2 months ago

Given that this timeline maximizes irony we will soon find that the demonization of rendered gopher snake fat was an early victory of big medicine, protecting doctors from the competition of a genuine all purpose elixir of health.

0xWTF• 2 months ago

It was not only the FDA that stopped snake oil. A lot of it was also stopped by state licensure and medical school accreditation (see the Flexner Report), all of which happened in roughly the same era.

What I take from this is that AI code, biology, etc, will not announce itself. We will have to announce the human-produced content. Introductions are about to be ritualistic again. Queue humorous (but not really all that valid) counterpoint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoe24aSvLtw

pedalpete7• 2 months ago

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 Vagus Nerve stimulators that are worn on the wrist, nowhere near the vagus nerve. Products that claim to mimic the "magnetic frequency of hormones".

We've also got the current "It's got electrolytes" craze which is kinda crazy that we've truly replicated idiocracy.

For those curious, I'm the co-founder of affectablesleep.com

syncsynchalt• 2 months ago

The article is about the literal oil of boiled snake meat, or at least the product that purported to be that.

dabbz• 2 months ago

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.

pedalpete7• 2 months ago

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.

sqircles• 2 months ago

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?

pedalpete7• 2 months ago

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

alexjplant• 2 months ago

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 drug interactions. Magnesium is also used somewhat sparingly because certain forms create GI distress. This is very unfortunate since both of these minerals are essential to overall health and of great benefit to the cardiovascular and circulatory systems when taken in recommended amounts.

I dump Lite Salt (potassium and sodium chloride in equal amounts), Stevia, and powdered grapefruit into a bottle and shake to make my own electrolyte drink. It's dirt cheap and tastes like flat Fresca.

Aerroon2• 2 months ago

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.

adrian_b3• 2 months ago

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.

trillic• 2 months ago

I do lite salt, maltodextrin, magnesium glycinate, and lemonlime powder.

MrDrMcCoy2• 2 months ago

Are you folks going to support non-iPhones?

pedalpete7• 2 months ago

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.

trashb• 2 months ago

"It's got electrolytes"

But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

ZunarJ5• 2 months ago

The manosphere is rife with snake oil salesmen, it just changes form with time. Snake Oil as a concept is as old as money. Everyone wants a miracle, especially when hope can be commodified.

cogman103• 2 months ago

It goes far beyond the manosphere. You can find people selling all sorts of naturopathic, homeopathic, crystal, and Jesus endorsed medicines.

Anywhere a group of people gathers to downplay pharmaceuticals or evidence based medicine, you'll find them pushing their own untested and unregulated junk.

bluGill3• 2 months ago

I think you have the cause backwards. Anytime people can make money pushing their own thing they will downplay evidence based medicine.

cogman103• 2 months ago

We need yet another "This has what it says it has" regulation around supplements and vitamins. There's basically no guarantee that any vitamin pill you pull off the shelf has any percentage of it's claimed ingredients. You could be getting 10% of what you wanted, you could be getting 1000% of what you wanted.

Fortunately, the body can handle some pretty wide variation. But unfortunately if you are taking a vitamin because you lack a nutrient, there's really no guarantee that your actually treating that deficiency.

bluGill3• 2 months ago

But unfortunately if you are taking a vitamin because you lack a nutrient

Fortunately most people are not lacking a nutrient. Also fortunately most (but not all - the exceptions cause problems when they become the hype!) vitamins people take in large quantities are water soluble and you just pee out extra.

cogman103• 2 months ago

I tend to agree. But there are some like prenatal vitamins which people should be taking because dipping low on the nutrients can cause lifetime damage to the kid.

In that case, I worry less that the vitamin contains too much and more that it doesn't contain enough. Both could be a problem. There are also a few like iron which take longer for the body to purge where overdosing is a real problem.

janalsncm• 2 months ago

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 than appealing to science or medicine or financial authorities.

pjc50• 2 months ago

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)

rkozik1989• 2 months ago

Like 90% of wellness products operate the same way as snake oil salesmen operated.

bluGill3• 2 months ago

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.

kevin_thibedeau• 2 months ago

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

joenot443• 2 months ago

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

CobrastanJorji• 2 months ago

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.

itintheory• 2 months ago

Did we read different articles? That's right in there...

roysting2• 2 months ago

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

ccimmergreen2• 2 months ago

They've become bolder with the subterfuge too. You can see the glass bottle is empty but they continue insisting it's filled to the brim.

roysting2• 2 months ago

Now if only one side did not insist that their snake oil sales(wo)men were the good snake oil sales(wo)men, whereas the other sides' are the fraudulent con artist ones.

djeastm• 2 months ago

In 1915 an analysis of Stanley’s Snake Oil Liniment by the US Bureau of Chemistry showed it to ‘consist principally of a light mineral oil mixed with about 1 per cent of fatty oil (probably beef fat), capsicum, and possibly a trace of camphor or turpentine’. Stanley pleaded guilty to the charge of mis-branding his product, and paid a fine of $20.

$20 in 1915 is like $650 today

fsckboy• 2 months ago

Trademark registration for Clark Stanley's Snake Oil brand Liniment, June 12 1900. Library of Congress. Public Domain

I don't read the trademark registration as "snake oil" brand, it looks more like "Clark Stanley's" brand. The word brand should follow the trademarked name, and while this application does not contain the term brand, up at the top it says "Trademark. Clark Stanley. Linament."

the article starts out "over the 19th Century", and this trademark is from 1900, so a latecomer to the snake oil market, unlikely to be able to trademark the term "snake oil".

shmeeed• 2 months ago

I clicked on it expecting an article about antivirus solutions... guess I'm primed the wrong way.

RobotToaster2• 2 months ago

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/

Theodores• 2 months ago

Even if you had some genuine snake oil with every step of the manufacturing process documented, with the product protected by the best anti-tamper technology and legal department, nobody today would buy snake oil. You could make it organic, fair trade and everything, but, due to the snake oil salesmen of times past, selling an adulterated product that contained no snake oil, the market for legitimate snake oil is not exactly massive.

Hence the problem with snake oil is not the product, it is how it has been sold.

There are many other products that are a whisker away from the same fate. For example, olive oil. Can anyone say they have had the pure and unadulterated stuff? There is no way of knowing unless you have pressed your own olives.

It is the same deal with honey. None of that honey in the supermarket could possibly be legitimate, at the price it is at.

The rise and fall of snake oil

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