What's your favorite snake oil?

Ocillococcinum. It’s supposed to help keep away colds and flu.

Then there are all those penis enlargers ;P

Islamism.

Airborne is the king of placebos in my mind because they sell so damn much every year. I tell people “You know that stuff has been more or less proven to have no effect on your immune system, right?”

They respond, “Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, but I know Echinacea and Vitamin C are good for your immune system and it has those so it must be good.”

I sigh, “You know that Echinacea and Vitamin C have been more or less proven to have no effect on your immune system, right?”

Deionized water. What a crock of bull. It claims it can slow aging and prevent disease.

Enzyte is the biggest fake on the market and they sell millions. We are sure vain and are gullible.

@AmWiser – Wait, I thought it was ionized water? Or have they stopped even trying to sound consistent. I’m going to start selling polarized water.

@crazyivan – But how could Airborne be fake? It’s so popular and it was made by a schoolteacher!

@JustmeAman – It boggles my mind that a person could want something so bad that they are willing to believe anything. Thank goodness those men’s particular insecurity will never be my insecurity. :-)

Well, I have this St Ives face lotion with collagen in it, but I cannot seem to find evidence in any scientific documents stating that topical application of collagen in low concentrations actually benefits the skin. Also, my mom breaks out when aloe vera is in products so she hasnt used anything with aloe in years. I however can’t find any non-aloe products in my house… basically everything has aloe vera in it. Yet her skin is great looking, for her age and considering that she smokes. So perhaps low concentrations of aloe vera in skin care products is yet another snake oil.

How about powered water. If you want to mix up a cup of powered water just add a cup of regular water.

666 cold remedy. works like the devil.

How about Chiropractors?

@tigress3681 – Now I’m not 100% sure about this, and maybe it speaks to the lack of public education on these matters, but I thought that aloe, though not some magic panacea, was at least a workable moisturizer and anti-irritant.

@crazyivan – How about them? I know what you’re getting at, there are definitely quacks, though I’ve known a few that I respected, and I believed stuck to pretty rational understandings of their practice: pain management, not cures to conditions.

Bottled water. Water is a precious commodity in many countries but here we get as much as we want from a tap in our homes. Why then buy bottled water?

99% of all anti-aging cosmetics pushed on women. lol

There is no magic creme that will reduce or get rid of wrinkles, just like hair products. Hair is DEAD, you can coat it with a product for more shine, smoothness, but nothing penetrates the hair shaft as all the infamous ‘they’ claim.

I just laugh at my friends that spend $150 on one makeup product or lotions & potions. What a waste!

@flutherother Wrote a blog about the dumbest things we buy and I led the list off with bottled water. I couldn’t agree more.

@Smashley It seems to me that the industry of Chiropractics significantly oversells the efficacy of their “product”. I’m sure that there are definitely some good chiropractors out there, but the fact that any insurance company was ever suckered into paying for a Chiropractor is shameful. It is not a medical procedure and it is not based on valid science.

That being said, I’m sure there are some nonmedical uses for Chiropractics much in the way that there are nonmedical uses for massage, etc. It’s unfortunate, though, that so few people seem to recognize this.

A link to some real interesting discussions of Chiropractics

@crazyivan

I believe massage and other body work IS health related.

The mind/body connection.

Relaxing the body relaxes the mind and vice versa. So I would say that any body work that lends itself to an overall sense of well being is absolutely medically related.

I reserve the term medical for things that have been scientifically shown to have medical efficacy. Call me crazy.

“Fibrogel” never did me any good! Eat more fruit and veg… the right kinds of course if you can figure out which they are!

Ginkgo biloba

Or Taurine in energy drinks (which, by the way, does not come from bull semen or bull urine. It actually comes from bull feces, though the stuff in your Monster was engineered in a lab… I only mention it because it is claimed that this bull-fecal extract gives you energy, which is, ironically, complete bullshit!)

I just wanted to throw a shout out to Vitamin Water, V8 splash, and any other drink that is basically sugar but convinces you it’s healthy.

@flutherother – Couldn’t agree with you more. We’re paying for it anyway (at a really good price, by the way), and people decide to buy it in tiny plastic bottles at rates higher than you pay at the gas pump? It’s WATER, people.

Reiki. Sorry, I just don’t think you can cure someone by “manipulating” their so-called energy fields (a.k.a. waving hands over them).

Vicks Vapor Rub. Rub it into your chest when you are congested or perhaps a dollop under the nose.

NOT for any genital ailments though folks

Oh oh! Colloidal silver! It doesn’t really do anything, unless you take a lot of it and then it turns you blue. It’s true, 2002 a blue man ran for Senate.

@Dr_Dredd – You touched their chakras? Did you wear a condom?

@Blondesjon – Umm… are you saying Vick’s works or doesn’t work. I mean, it sure as hell doesn’t “cure” anything, but I always found it soothing.

@fundevogel – I remember a blue guy on the news a while back. He was all like “they’re trying to take my medicine away” and everyone else was all like “Dude, you’re blue.”

@Smashley lol. No one takes a blue man seriously.

I’ve used a colloidial silver nasal spray..meh…snake oil.
Saline does the same thing.

@Smashley . . . you kinda asked me a question in the exact same way i would have answered

@everyone not in love with bottled water… I wish I had your inability to taste. When I drink tap water I taste one of two things… a mouth full of chlorine or a mouth full of mold. If I do not have access to a water filter, I MUST have a bottle of water. I’ll get severely dehydrated if all I can drink is treated water.

@tigress3681 Good point – my son has to buy bottled water because his water district is in violation of the amount of Arsenic in the local water supply.

I’ve had very effective results from visiting Chiropractors to alleviate my neck, shoulder and upper back pains. I’m skeptical of colon cleansing products, water ionizers and most vitamin/supplement products out there.

@tigress3681 The taste of tap water varies from place to place depending on it impurities. When I lived in L.A. I used a Brita, but that’s the only place where I didn’t like the taste of the tap.

@Smashley LOL!

@tigress3681 – Sure not everywhere has great tap water. A filter is an excellent alternative, and much cheaper than buying bottled water (pick up a reusable bottle, too!) That said, if your water is substandard, that’s a major problem. Get hopping mad about the quality of it, rather than supporting the status quo by buying into water privatization.

Water privatization is a scary prospect.

Chiropractors do perform some legitimate functions: The functions of a physical therapist. There is no evidence to suggest that all the neck alignment stuff has any effect beyond a placebo effect.

I just want to throw out there that in blind taste tests there is also strong evidence that people can’t tell the difference between bottled water and tap water in more than 90% of municipalities. I know there are some places where the water is awful and you can taste the difference, but in most of the country the tap water is actually cleaner than most bottled waters.

I would be surprised if there were particular benefits to drinking water which had been taken from a source, processed in a factory, poured into manufactured plastic bottles in a plant, placed in storage, put on a truck, traveled for an undisclosed period, and stacked in a store to sit on a shelf under lights for another undisclosed period.

The water in my toilet has been sitting stagnant for less time.

I love it when they sell it as “Flavored Water”... that stuff used to be called “watered down drink”.

Message to Beverage Industry: Once you flavor it, it is no longer called “water”. Otherwise Beer is flavored water.

@crazyivan No, beer is unflavored moose piss. :-)

@Dr_Dredd – Apparently you aren’t drinking the right beer. (I’d agree with that assessment for Moosehead, but Moose Drool is just awesome)

@crazyivan ugh, the chiropractor is the only ‘doctor’ my mother trusts. She thinks fiddling with her back is good for her liver. This is a good example of why sometimes I need black metal.

With you on flavored water as well. But don’t forget vitamin water. I don’t know if it has any health value but I really hate it. It’s like they convinced people to buy predissolved tablets one by one. Throw in the fact that water soluble vitamins tend to travel straight through the body without doing anything and I have my doubts.

@fundevogel Right. While we’re on the topic of Vitamin water, why not just throw all Vitamins and herbal supplements in the ring. It amazes me how many people throw away money on GNC products. I don’t know that there’s anything that store sells that isn’t a load of woo.

@crazyivan I’d be willing to give them some credit if they were subjected to testing and regulation, but as it is they’re a big fat questionmark since you can’t even know if the label is honest about the contents, let alone if it does what they say. The FDA needs to get on this stuff.

It’s such a dick move the way supplement manufacturers claim their products do all sorts of things and then slap on a BS disclaimer that they aren’t intended to treat or cure illness so they can avoid legal consequences.

Personally I prefer water filters over bottled water because my tap water tastes bad and the filters really seem to make a difference for me.

@Paradox Yeah, I lived in a spot in Tennessee where there was a sulfur taste in the tap water and you pretty much had to filter or drink the bottled stuff. 90% of the country the tap water is great, but I’ve been in that other 10% of the country, too.

@fundevogel I’d at least like to see a law making them state in print (larger than anything else on the label) if tests have shown that it is unlikely that the active ingredients have any effect. When they say things like “these statements have not been evaluated by the FDA” it leaves people with the impression that the FDA just hasn’t gotten around to it yet. A more honest disclaimer might be “these statements are ravenous bullshit and if the FDA evaluated them they would find them to be false.”

@crazyivan I second that.

@crazyivan – third. It’s like “patent pending.” Perhaps as a middle ground we could go with “These statements do not legally require evaluation by the FDA.”