With the exception of alt-medicine nutjobs, I think this is a very popular opinion.
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2024
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I wish it was. Edit: "all natural" is a main selling point in a lot of ads.
I just learned that this is an unpopular opinion. In my head, I can't imagine how someone would think that a thoroughly tested medication that was made with impeccable precision in a lab is not considered safer than a "natural remedy" that legally can't even claim it treats anything specific because it would be a lie. If that natural thing worked, we would call it medication.
I have to be missing something. Can someone please explain to me (1) what is a natural medication and (2) how it is better/safer than a synthetic/isolated medication made in a lab?
I can assure you, had I posted this on facebook people would tell me Im insane.
Oh and (1) psychoactive compound found in nature (mainly plants) (2) It isn't but a lot of "average joes" claim it is.
Like so many other things, context matters. In some cases isolates and synthetics are not as effective or safe. Some substances are either not as effective or not active at all without an adjunct/adjudivant. However, pretty much any common medication is indeed safer as an isolate/synthetic.
A potential counter example would be willow bark for an analgesic. The plant doesn't contain acetylsalicylic acid but the prodrug salicin. However, the concentration of salicin typically found in willow is too low to be of significant use. It still works despite this though because of the flavonoids and polyphenols in the bark augment the analgesic and anti-inflammatory action of the salicylates produced by salicin metabolism. This actually provides a broader range of action than aspirin, while having a much better side effect profile, notably lacking risk to the digestive tract.
Then, you can look at foxglove (aka digitalis). I had a neighbor growing up that suffered from cardiac arrest caused by digitalis poisoning from handling (and likely eating) foxglove as a child. He lived but had permanent brain damage. However, digoxin extracted and purified from foxglove is incredibly useful for treating atrial fibrillation in CHF patients.
Where it gets really cool to me though is taking a step back and looking at biological/microbiological manufacturing processes and the impact of "superfluous" chemicals at that point. For example, pu ehr tea goes through pretty complex fermentation and genetic tests have found species of fungi that produce mycotoxins of concern. However, in the presence of chemicals found in tea leaves, production of said toxins is suppressed below the threshold of detection. This results in drinkable tea with potentially beneficial chemicals from plant, fungal, and bacterial origins.
Gonna have to downvote you on this one but only technically. The problem is our limited knowledge of effects of everything in every mixture. We may know a specific molecule has X effect but are unaware of how Y help regulate it and Z boosts its effectiveness and L protects against its negative effects. For whatever reason we see natural sources as having these other factors which if we understood them better we could 100% emulate but they are complex and its hard to account for all variables. lab research depends on limiting variables as much as possible.
If you are talking about enzyme inhibition in the liver, that is just another advantage of isolated chemicals. The metabolization is far more predictable.
no im talking about our knowledge of substances tends to be very narrow and we don't necessarily put the right combination together. A better example would be vitamin D and calcium. People are told to get vitamin D and they know they need to get calcium and they may see milk is supplemented with it. This is because we know vitamin D helps absorption of calcium which pretty much means getting it into our blood. That info was not known all at once and now we also know vitamin K is needed to get calcium into bone but we did not before 1974 and vitamin D started getting added before ww2. As far as I know we still don't add vitamin K. If for some reason you got your vitamins from a pill like that guy who ate almost nothing it would not be as good as eating a cron diet.
This only applies to anything taken orally and absorbed by the intestine. Also this can both be positive or negative since it increases or decreases absorption of the active agent, which makes it less predictable. Most "ingredients" dont cross the blood-brain barrier.
I can't think of a natural remedy over a synthetic/isolated that would not be oral. My point though is that I think the synthetic/isolated is superior if we actually know everything about the thing and can make that perfect concoction but most of the time we only really understand one dimension of how a natural thing works so the natural can be superior. Also though if the intervention need is high I will go for the man made thing. So prediabetic I will add barberries to my diet maybe but if I pass into diabetese I will likely take the metformin or whatever the doctor suggests.
We also don't know how the natural remedy works. It's dangerous to think something natural is automatically safer, nature is a bitch.
We by and large eat anything edible that is not posionous so its as safe as eating any food. granted though supplementing with it is not necessarily good if its being purified. Thats like just a half measure of purification but adding foods to the diet you otherwise don't eat is not dangerous.
In general I agree with you, but I'm going to play the devil's advocate. I think it's fair to mention that not everything we eat and consider edible is not poisonous. Especially when it comes to food that contains chemicals which kill you slowly, like carcinogens. It's beneficial to check what our food items do to us long-term, just like it is beneficial to check our medicinal remedies.
fair enough but I don't think it invalidates the technically part of my initial response which I think is what we are talking about.
I agree for most things with some exceptions. For example, when you have a flu/cold taking some herbel tea, citrus and honey are good natural remedies that help manage symptoms.
It's often better to do that than taking medication that suppress symptoms. Those symptoms (particularly fever when in acceptable levels) are your immune system working to kill the virus.
But in general replacing medication with natural alternatives is just a bad idea imo.
This depends on the kind of herbal tea you use. Not all herbs are as safe as others. Some of them can be toxic if taken regularly (eg. Petasites hybridus, used traditionally in the dorm of tea to treat cold). Some of them also just suppress symptoms. Some of them are understudied and we don't know whether some of the chemicals they contain are not carcinigenous or something. Medicinal plants are amazing but tricky.
I was more talking about "normal" herbal tea like lemon, camomille, mint... My go to when i'm sick is ginger/lemon herbal tea. I wasnt really talking about weird understudied herbs, that can be more of a problem than a solution for sure.
I tend to go for natural options if I have a choice. Feels better.
But there is absolutely a point where natural won't do and I'm aware of it and the above gets overrulled. In face of more serious issues, the strenght of non-natural medicine can't be denied.
I respect that you aren't denying that, despite your personal preference.
Of course, I'm not delusional. And I'll gladly take those pills I get recommended by the doctor or pharmacist. But if I got recommended 2 types of medications as options and one is natural based, I tend to pick that.
For better or worse, the pharmaceutical companies do a good job of selecting what remedies are actually helpful and have a proven effect.
If garlic actually boosted the immune system, then the pharmaceutical companies would immediately start working on a garlic-derived medication to help the immunocompromised. If elderberry was actually helpful in curing a cold, then doctors would be prescribing a corporate-produced elderberry derivative.
To a large extent, the natural remedies that haven't been studied, refined, and monetized aren't remedies at all. They're a placebo. I firmly believe there is no natural remedy that performs as well as whatever the standard medication is for treating the condition you're trying to fix.
"Alternative medicine that works is just called medicine."
I agree with general sentiment that pharmaceuticals are stronger. And when I need it, I go for it. But sometimes I don't need the strongest stuff. Sometimes my body just needs a helping hand, not a nuke. Pharma industry is about quick and easy - but that doesn't mean it's always good.
Calling something placebo just because it is not s strong is certainly over the line though.
My point wasn't that pharmaceuticals are stronger, it's that they actually work. Your doctor isnt going prescribe IV morphine for a headache, but they'll probably tell you to take a low-dose NSAID. The vast majority of natural remedies have no clinically significant effect on the body. The ones that DO have an effect have been turned into real medicine.
When I said that natural remedies are a placebo, I don't mean that to be insulting. That's literally why people think they work is because of the placebo effect.
Well... idk where you are from but here doctors would recommend natural stuff where applicable. And many times there are actual remedies made based on natural stuff, as you say.
By saying I prefer natural based medicine I don't mean thay when I feel sick I go pick herbs by the moonlight and only use that.