Modern day snake oils and their purveyors deserve a post all to themselves - they can cause much unnecessary suffering.
Whilst there is clearly merit to dietary adjustments not just for people with BPH, but with other health problems, there is no merit to pretend-cures packaged to look like legitimate medicines. This practice needs to be called out. Profiting from sickness and misery of others knowing your product is untested and ineffective is about as low as you can go.
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| Yadda yadda yadda |
Medicine made in C18th China from Chinese water snakes (Enhydris chinensis or Myrrophis chinensis) was a legitimate and effective treatment. It had known medicinal properties. The oil was rich in anti-inflammatory omega 3 fatty acids and could reduce joint pain, inflammation and other symptoms. It really worked!
Its reputation was tarnished when brought to America by Chinese railroad workers. There unscrupulous drug store owners, quack doctors and hucksters took advantage of its reputation replacing the Chinese water snake oil with low-omega 3 rattlesnake oil, adding fillers - mineral oil, beef fat and even turpentine -and selling it fraudulently to unsuspecting buyers. With no medicinal value whatsoever 'snake oil' then grew a reputation for being a fake-cure. It has kept that reputation to this day, now being a colloquial term implying uselessness. At least the Chinese water snakes got a break!
Cod liver oil has since replaced snake oil as an equally effective source of omega 3 and is still taken not as a 'medicine' but as a dietary supplement. It too really works!
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| Clark Stanley - 'Rattlesnake King' |
We tend to think of 'snake oil salesmen' as a thing of the past - respectable looking but unscrupulous old fashioned men touring rural markets and fairgrounds on horse drawn carts filled with cure-all tinctures and potions.
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| A Huckster |
They haven't gone away though. In fact they are more numerous today than they have ever been. These days however they don't drive around in horse drawn wagons, and the suits & ties have been replaced by lab coats. In an age where the cost of medical treatment can be far out of the reach of many people even in the richest countries 'snake oils' are very big business. Glass tincture bottles with beautiful labels have been replaced by plastic blister packs and packer bottles. Today's snake oils are manufactured in sprawling factories on industrial estates and sold globally on the internet 24 hours a day - still to unsuspecting, desperate and sometimes just gullible customers. The unscrupulous men behind the businesses drive expensive cars and live in big houses. Just like the C19th hucksters they profit off the misery and desperation of others.
As I discussed in my last post (#23) I do not believe anyone who claims they have found a cure for BPH. There is evidence to back me up. Apart from the ears and the nose the prostate is the only male organ that keeps on growing as we age - yes ears and noses are organs! That growth is unstoppable. It is 'dialled in' to our DNA by way of growth hormones - the same growth hormones that make a baby grow into a child and a child into an adult. Unstoppable prostate growth serves no physical purpose. It just happens as a result of age related hormone changes, primarily the conversion of testosterone to DHT (dihydrotestosterone) which stimulates prostate cell growth alongside a relative increase in estrogen as testosterone levels decline (this is the bit that causes BPH) As I said in an earlier post the flawed prostate organ contradicts the idea that some sort of 'intelligent design' played a part of our 'creation'. Evolution just got it a bit wrong - that's all.
Dietary alterations in early stage BPH can also have an effect in TEMPORARILY reducing its size but there is no clinically proven test information for this (see post #23) When you start experimenting with dietary alterations you are going off the beaten path and you are in the darl vis a vis efficacy. If you find something that works for you, you can say no more than that it works for YOU - for YOUR body with YOUR metabolism with your stage of BPH.
They have no idea what works for YOU. Their products have no regulatory body to oversee their claims. This means that consistent ingredients, purity and quality are all UNcontrolled - you literally don't know what's in the tablet.
"Just trust us!" they say. "Take our word for it!" is their motto. That's all they can say because they usually have no evidence at all to back up their claims.
Saw Palmento is often referred to in prostate posts. Lots of sufferers swear by it saying it helps them with their symptoms. However, many studies have been conducted on its efficacy in the treatment of urinary tract symptoms and prostate enlargement and they are not encouraging. The conclusion by NIH itself (National Centre for Complimentary and Integrative Health) was 'We know enough to conclude that Saw Palmento is probably not helpful for this purpose."
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| Saw Palmento |
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| Akik Pishti |
Reducing a load of herbs with vaguely anti-inflammatory properties into a powder or paste and flogging it to blokes with enormous prostates and blocked pee pipes is absurd and scandalous. However, sensible grown men who are so desperate to relieve their UR symptoms that they'll try anything will part with hundreds of pounds a month in a misguided hope of relief.
The American Urological Association (AUA) states that evidence of the efficacy of alternative medicines is mixed and that "While some small trials show promising results in symptom relief, larger, more robust clinical trials often find no benefit over palcebo."
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| Herby stuff |
A placebo is anything that seems to be a "real" medical treatment but isn't. It could be a pill, a shot, or some other type of "fake" treatment. What all placebos have in common is that they do not contain an active substance meant to affect health.
My first experience with the placebo effect was through a video posted on YT by a quack American doctor - one of those charismatic types who's energy is a little bit infectious and makes you WANT TO believe what they say. My UR was getting worse but I was unaware that my problem was shared by other men around the world. This video came like a bolt out of the blue - I WAS NOT ALONE!. The 'doctor' promised that eating flax seed would cure my UR in just a few days.
In the world of those who are sceptical about using modern medicine intelligent people can be too willing to trust the claims of fellow sceptics regardless of any proof. This can be due to a combination of personal beliefs, a desire for control over their own health, perceived positive experiences, and dissatisfaction with conventional medicine. Rejecting medical advice and conventional medicines is of course a choice we all have and if it makes us 'feel better' then who can judge? In the case of serious medical conditions it does however leave the door open to people being ill-advised, misled and needless suffering.
In every walk of life there are people who lack scruples and do not care how they make money or if someone else is harmed in the process. Some of the worst of these people that society has to offer are the modern day snake oil merchants. They are plain con artists.
https://youtube.com/shorts/D-fc_U4KYcY?si=cG9c3ArOqEipp9qS
Con artists don't just sell herbal potions. They flog us all sorts of goods that aren't what they are promised to be - cars, dishwashers, soap powders, clothing, foodstuffs - all sub-standard and not fit for their promised purpose. When it comes to the business of medical cures we need to be very conscious of the fact that there are Clark Stanley the Rattlesnake King types waiting to take our money at every turn in the road.
This practice of a con artist selling fake cures is timeless. As long as there has been humanity there has been deception and greed.
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In the C14th the writer Geoffrey Chaucer expertly captured the conman in the character of the "Pardoner' in the Canterbury Tales - a peddler who travels the land selling false hope and fake religious relics to gullible customers.
Chaucer's character perfectly illustrates that there are no depths some people will not plumb in order to satisfy their greed.
As you've probably already worked out I'm not a big fan of homeopathy either. This comedy sketch sums up why:
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