They're all useless. 100% of them.

Drink lots of water, exercise, eat small portions 4+ times a day - and all the "problems" supposedly addressed by supplements will vanish.

If there's no clinical trial, you have no way of knowing that you wouldn't achieve the same benefit of a pill that makes you "feel better" if you put in the work of exercising and eating right.

The only marketing pull of homeopathic horsesqueeze? You don't have to work to achieve the benefit. Unfortunately, there's no free lunch in nature.

A diuretic is a diuretic, it doesn't matter if you got it from your garden or a factory. Take too many, and they can kill you. Also, there's no regulation in that business. You have no idea what kind of dosages you're getting, or even what's really in that bottle.

The LWs colleague could be opening her company up to some truly ugly litigation if someone that takes these absurd nostrums becomes ill. That is definitely a matter for human resources to handle.

bigbuck623:

The only marketing pull of homeopathic horsesqueeze? You don't have to work to achieve the benefit. Unfortunately, there's no free lunch in nature.

The lure of getting results without work is the very essence of marketing. People are driven to buy this or that product because they want to feel safe, secure, important, and loved. It makes no literal sense, but it works. It sells the stuff.

You can dismiss the alternatives all you want, but there are a lot of people who have good results from homeopathic remedies. They can't all be deluded.

I'd like to jump on the dog pile with you all, but deep down inside something tells me that a billion Chinese folks just all can't be wrong. Surely some of the remedies in use for thousands of years work. I am not sure about the tiger cock or the Rhino horn stuff, but come on let's not be extremists here.

Not ALL herbal supplements are bad. Some of the medicines we use today started out as herbal supplements. Hippocrates didn't have the Eli Lily lab at his disposal when he was crowned the Father of Medicine.

They are not "insane". Using them without really knowing what they do... just the same as opening the neighbors medicine cabinet and grabbing a couple of each pill and popping them. Most modern medicines are either derivatives or synthetics of naturally occurring chemicals.

Someone help me search... I thought I saw a couple years after the Phenfen (sp?) issues that if you combine a couple OTC supplements (like St. John's Wort + something + something) it can act just like Phenfen and give you the ruptured vessels in the brain.

cycleboy:

...naturally occurring chemicals.

You mean like arsenic and mercury?

I think the issue should not be whether or not homeopathic supplements work; it should be that dispensing guidance or advice about their use is presumably not the LW's colleague's job.

If one of the people she provided advice to became sick, or just became annoyed at the money spent/wasted if something didn't work, the company would probably be liable; at the least the LW's colleague could be fired and she should understand that. If she's really that into homeopathy maybe that's the field she should be in.

there may also come the day when someone says "actually it's none of your business what pills I pop" if it's happening on a regular basis!

Perhaps bigbuck is classifying all herbal remedies and supplements as weight loss solutions? It seems that the top post is referring almost entirely to people trying to lose weight.

There are many things herbals are used to treat, like colds and memory loss, that can affect people despite good eating and exercise habits. I don't see what "work" one puts in to get over a cold.

Many of the herbal drugs are indeed drugs and do affect the body in a similar fashion to OTC and Rx drugs.

a billion Chinese folks just all can't be wrong

Well, history has proven that "logic" wrong on several grounds.

Homeopathy works! A drug may work because it's actually proven to be therapeutic...or it may work because you're convinced it's going to. The brain is a powerful thing, and if your relief is due to a placebo effect, does that make the treatment any less valid?

This is what I try to remind myself when family members ply themselves with homeopathic remedies. Since they're convinced it's going to benefit them, chances are they'll feel better. Unfortunately, since I think these supplements are a load of crap, they will not work for me.

Exactly, I think this is mainly a mental thing with lots of individuals. There may be health benefits to say, taking a daily vitamin, but the supplements are usually just that, supplemental junk the body cannot use and will not need. For most people, at worst, it'll be processed as waste.

There does not really sound anything "Eastern" though about the way this nutbar is practicing her homeopathy. Eastern medicine in general focuses on balance and a state of homeostasis to keep the body in good condition. Shift that balance one way or the other, and you get into trouble.

Confucius said: To throw oneself into strange teachings is quite dangerous.

I had a bit of a laugh over "the complications physicians are seeing in patients who don't tell them about the buckets of supplements they are taking". Those naughty patients.

In naturopathic medicine, the practitioner wouldn't dream of recommending a supplement or homeopathic without doing a full work up on the patient -- talking about what medications they are on, etc.

The reason naturopathy works is because it tries to get at the root of any health problem, rather than simply mask it with prescription drugs. Too bad those poor physicians just allow themselves to be used as human prescription pads rather than actually practicing medicine.

No, they aren't all useless, but can easily be abused. Many interact with prescriptions or with each other, exacerbate pre-existing conditions, or create new ones.

I knew a woman who put herself into a coma with these supplements, but kept taking them. She later moved to a country where they were not available. She told us how much healthier the food, water and air must be there, since she no longer was having the reactions she was getting from her supplements.

Cyanide is a natural substance. Just because something is natural, doesn't mean it's good for you.

Naturopathic supplements can work (or harm) very effectively. Willow bark extract contains aspirin, Ma Huang (Ephedra) is a stimulant and a decongestant. I have some honey-based herbal cough syrup at home, with Ma Huang and eucalyptus extract in it, and it works as well as DayQuil but tastes much better. If I need aspirin, though, I will hit Mal-Wart and buy some rather than take nasty drops of willow extract.

Homeopathy, however, is a friggin' hoax. It works on the theory that the fewer parts per million you have of the active ingredient, the more effective the treatment will be. Put a drop of herbal extract in a gallon of water, shake, put a drop of that gallon of water/herb tincture in another pure gallon of water, shake, repeat 8-10 times. At the end, the solution is so dilute, I would have a better chance pouring a glassful of extract into the Pacific Ocean, then sampling the water off of Spain.

Sure, psychosomatic symptoms, placebo effect, bla bla. Isn't it better for people to become convinced of the efficacy of something that might actually have the power to help them?

Freki