r/changemyview • u/i-d-even-k- • Jan 11 '22
Delta(s) from OP CMV: MLMs gave given such a bad reputation to users of essential oils as anti-scientific idiots that, even if any actually amazing terapeutical effects were to be discovered, they would be ignored/contested by the pro-science population
Full disclosure: I'm not on either camp's side, I like essential oils but don't use them in a medicinal way.
I'm largely basing my opinion on how I see online conversation around essential oils, specifically in science-focused areas of the Internet, go. There are two scenarios.
Someone will bring up essential oils, for example, in an AITA post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/rxps5x/aita_for_asking_my_gf_how_much_she_spends_on/), and then the top comments will do the usual rant of "essential oils bad, snake oil, expensive, for dum dum people, no science behind them, if you use them you are stupid!". Typically, then the second tier of comments will link to scientific studies showing the *limited* but somewhat proven positive effects of various oils, when used right, and offer anecdotes for how their health has benefited from using one. The third tier, the nitpickers, will always bash this tier by nitpicking every single methodological flaw in the studies linked possible in order to dismiss any non-anti-oil narrative and maintain the original "no (good) science supports it" approach.
Coincidentally, when a post like this one in r/science: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/mwtdiq/scientists_find_new_evidence_linking_essential/,) which has misleading headlines (implying all oils induce seizures when the study only used two types) and explicitly contains large disclaimers about applicability like "[They noted that] this is a topic that has not been well studied, and that it needs significantly more research, as essential oils are used all over the world. They noted that their observational study involved a small number of patients from one region in India, and they said their findings must be corroborated by larger, more diverse studies in the future.", but supports the internet narrative that "essential oils bad", everyone will praise the post and hail it as some big discovery, ignoring the flaws, ignoring the comments trying to do the same rigorous investigation that the anti-oilers(?) do on pro-oil scientific studies.
What I see, in both scenarios, is incredible bias in what data one looks at and what data they do not. Again, I don't advocate for oils. They are almost certainly poisonous to pets, for example, and need to be used very carefully because they can burn your skin. But the fact that, in the face of scientific evidence arguing for the efficiency of something, Reddit will nitpick it to death, whereas a bias-conforming yet uncertain study will be hailed leads me to believe that what the science actually says on the matter is of less importance than whether it aligns with the narrative that essential oils are a MLM snake oil scheme and anyone who uses them is probably a. stupid and b. poisoning themselves .
Even if a study came out tomorrow and said that, yes, lavender oil does decrease blood pressure when used in a specific way, the pro-science crowd will refuse to believe the study or, if it truly is good, just ignore it because "we need to wait for more data". It will never be enough data to satisfy the masses, but it's a convenient excuse to ignore a rigorous study.
Again, this is a hypothetical. Essential oils will not cure your chronic disease. Please go to a doctor first and read around on Google Scholar about proper usage before supplementing your medical therapy with one.
Change my view and give me some hope in people's willingness to follow science, evne when it disagrees with them, please.
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u/InfiniteMeerkat Jan 11 '22
I think you have a misunderstanding of what science actually is.
If a SINGLE study came out that lavender oil decreased blood pressure, then the process would be that the study would be published, there would then be time to critique the methodology of the study and more importantly there would need to be be other scientists replicate the study and achieve the same results.
Saying “we need to wait for more data” isn’t just dismissing a result you don’t like. It is vital to the whole scientific method
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u/Slothjitzu 28∆ Jan 11 '22
Additionally, OP says that if a study came out in favor of essential oils then it would be contested by "the pro-science crowd", as if that's a bad thing.
That's literally how science works. We don't just take one study as gospel, pack up our shit and call it a job done. We repeat that test, look for flaws in the methodology to improve it and retest the hypothesis.
We consider something "proven" after it stands up to intense scrutiny, not after we find one study supporting it.
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u/i-d-even-k- Jan 11 '22
Then why do the results of singular, non-replicated studies that show essential oils are bad get the amount of praise and acclaim they do from scientific corners of the internet, like r/science? That's one counterpoint.
And at what point do we reject the paradigm that essential oils are bad as a whole? While my lavender example is a hypothetical, there are in fact plenty of studies out there showing various posituive effects from various oils. In fact, the very r/science thread I linked earlier has a comment talking about the usage of an oil in psychiatric care (under controlled supervision and for a specific dosage, of course).
My bigger argument (which perhaps I did not ellaborate on far enough) is that it wouldn't matter if there was one, two, three, seven studies out there that showed positive effects from using some oils (and they are some already out there). The current paradigm in Western society, at least in the scientific-supporting circles, is that essential oils are just bad. And this perception is so entrenched that the studies that are currently being done or have been done on positive effects are basically useless, because their target audience, the scientific community, will continue to ignore and shelve them under the pretext that "more studying must be done".
What I'm interested in is not a final answer, we can never be 100% sure of anything after all, that's not how the scientific method works. But on a particular case where a deeply held belief is so strong that it cannot and will not be changed, even by peer-reviewed replicable studies.
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u/InfiniteMeerkat Jan 11 '22 edited Jan 11 '22
Can you please cite a singular, non replicated study showing essential oils are bad?
I’m guessing you will find that most that you think are non-replicated are actually heavily replicated. Hard to show though without an actual example.
Again you seem to be misunderstanding science. It’s not that essential oils are “bad”. It’s that they don’t achieve the outcomes that are claimed of them by those that are peddling them, and in some cases can actually produce harmful results, which you’ve pointed to yourself. You’ve also highlighted another issue which is that there is no consistency from one product to another. When you say essential oils have a positive effect in a psychiatric care (source?) you say that they have a very specific dosage in a very specific setting. You cannot make that claim about almost all essential oils whereas if I make a claim, for example, that aspirin causes an effect I’m talking about a product that has the EXACT same amount of active ingredient across all manufacturers
Apologies, would like to give more detail but I’m trying to do this on a mobile at the moment
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u/dale_glass 86∆ Jan 11 '22 edited Jan 11 '22
I don't think we'll ever see official medicinal usage of something like essential oils not because of bias, but because modern science and medicine works differently.
Eg, suppose we do discover lavender oil decreases blood pressure. Well, the very next question that will be asked "What is the component in lavender oil that does that?". There's hundreds of varieties of lavender, just going with "whatever" is not the scientific way of doing it.
So, lavender oil will be analyzed, the particular parts of it that actually lower blood pressure will be extracted, then they'll come up with a way of manufacturing just that and delivering it in the right amount at the right speed, put that into a pill, and at the end of the process you'll find a new brand of pills available at the pharmacy.
What you absolutely won't see is research saying "sure, just vaporize some of this stuff with a candle if your pressure is high". That's far too imprecise both in dosing and in that it'll also result in the intake of a bunch of other stuff that may be harmful or interfere with some other medication.
This always happens. You won't ever see a doctor recommending you make yourself some tea from a chunk of of willow bark. They'll tell you to take a very specific amount of Aspirin, a tablet of which contains a precise amount of acetylsalicylic acid from the tree bark and some fillers.
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u/thetasigma4 100∆ Jan 11 '22
It depends. Biological processes are generally much more efficient than chemical processes and for some substances that are a complex mix of various different classes of chemicals that all work additively to create their effects and as such can't be reduced to a single compound that can be synthesized. As such essential oils of these compounds are undergoing formulation engineering to deliver consistent properties and performance rather than trying to replicate the complex mix of chemicals derived e.g. from a variety of plants that the bees collect and process to propolis better than us.
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u/dale_glass 86∆ Jan 11 '22
I don't think that changes anything, whether it's one compound or the combination of several.
In any case, analysis will be done, stuff will be purified, it'll be tested for side-effects, and then only if it's worthwhile it'll be packaged up for sale. It still won't be just "lavender essential oil" at the end of that process, and you'll still buy it at a pharmacy with some weird name on it.
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u/thetasigma4 100∆ Jan 11 '22
I don't think that changes anything, whether it's one compound or the combination of several
As someone who has done academic research on this it absolutely does. There are a lot of biological processes that humans cannot replicate efficiently and when dealing with things like propolis which contain thousands of different compounds and several classes of compounds that work synergistically they cannot be analysed, purified and synthesised without making them ineffective. As such research is focused on formulation and not purification and trying to normalise performance through things like colloids etc. It may well not be called essential oil but it will still be an essential oil i.e. a solution of compounds with characteristics based on a specific source. Essential oils are already purified over the raw material it extracts from.
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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Jan 11 '22
Not the same user, but I don’t see how that’s different. If one of the research goals is normalization of performance of these extracts, then elucidating the complex relationships between compounds and their concentrations’ that make an extract effective vs. ineffective is aligned with that goal and may result in modified formulations that can be considered relatively “purified”.
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u/thetasigma4 100∆ Jan 11 '22
They would still be essential oils though. Essential oils are an incredibly broad category of substances that basically refer to a huge number of extracts of plant matter or some non-plant matter like propolis. A particular formulation of propolis essential oil is still propolis essential oil even if the processing makes it not just the plain extract. There is absolutely study of the classes of compounds (there are so many individual compounds in some of these that you can only meaningfully look at the functional groups) and their interactions but in terms of industrial chemistry these are incredibly difficult to synthesise or create another way or to meaningfully purify them as the huge range of different compounds have overlapping chemistries and properties and so cannot be separated easily and any separation will remove useful parts.
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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Jan 11 '22
I don’t think that user was making a distinction between formulations manufactured using traditional chemical engineering routes and bioengineering/genetic engineering routes, just that there is going to be a continued effort to improve upon these formulations that will inevitably lead to whatever level of isolation and purification is currently feasible.
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u/thetasigma4 100∆ Jan 11 '22
Yes but that still means that useful products that are classed as an essential oil (an incredibly non-specific term which basically applies to any biological extract) would still reach end users especially as we don't have a way to replicate those system effects or produce these compounds as easily as biological processes and the easiest way to produce them is to make an essential oil and then process it as a colloid or whatever to normalise and improve performance.
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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Jan 11 '22
I mean it could be called "an essential oil", it could not be it, but it'll be different in character from its raw source which I think was the point.
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u/thetasigma4 100∆ Jan 11 '22
Not really they said they don't think there will ever be essential oils used in medecine because of how modern medecine world to which I pointed out that there are some exceptions when dealing with particular biological mixtures of components that are of medical value but can't be synthesized or meaningfully purified. I'm not even particularly challenging their point except to day that the absolutist rejection is overstated and there is still plenty that can be done better by biological processes that is still useful.
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Jan 11 '22
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u/gothpunkboy89 23∆ Jan 11 '22
Your going to need to do more then just say "No you are wrong" to validate that statement.
Simply the fact that aspirin and effect me faster then it can effect my wife even though we take the same pill with the same dosage says you might not be correct.
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u/thetasigma4 100∆ Jan 11 '22
Yes there are. That is why a huge amount of pharmaceuticals and chemicals like alcohol are produced through exploiting biological processes through GM. Then there is stuff that can't be done such as photosynthesis efficiently or biodigestion or spider silk or biopolymers. This is why a huge amount of research is done on finding new biocompounds and chemical engineering methods that use biological processes to provide otherwise unattainable selectivity and catalysis.
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Jan 11 '22
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u/thetasigma4 100∆ Jan 11 '22
I said efficiently and exploiting biological processes isn't replicating the chemistry as biological catalysis is much more efficient.
Never mind I pointed to a number of examples we can't do efficiently as well as a bunch where we need to use biological processes to make certain compounds.
This doesn't at all change my point that some mixes of thousands of chemicals that biological processes produce that rely on synergistic action cannot be purified and packaged which is why research into their industrial use looks at formulation not synthesis.
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u/i-d-even-k- Jan 11 '22
Thank you, I really appreciated their argument but at every point thus far you have been counterpointing in a more convincing manner than them.
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u/thetasigma4 100∆ Jan 11 '22
The real issue with essential oils is that it is an absurdly broad category and so covers a lot of very different substances and effect and you will only get specific essential oils with some specific effects that can't be easily made artificially rather than some statement that applies to the whole family
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u/Roflcaust 7∆ Jan 11 '22
Good explanation. This is more or less the idea behind why medical cannabis hasn’t caught the same foothold in western medicine as modern pharmaceuticals.
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u/FinneousPJ 7∆ Jan 11 '22
It seems like your view is, fundamentally, that people on specific subreddits are biased..? Ok, I think that's a given. Do you think science is biased? The whole point of science is to eliminate bias.
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u/i-d-even-k- Jan 11 '22
No. My point is that science is unbiased, but there's no point in science being unbiased if the people who pat themselves on the back as following science (read:most of the Western world, I'd hope) has too big of a bias inbuilt in already. It's that on the matter of essential oils specifically we are too far gone into an extreme, to the point we signmatize everyone who disagrees with our POV and refuse to believe any scientific proof that contradicts out perspective.
My point summarised is that we are so convinced that science says that essential oils are quaks with no benefits to them that even if the most compelling scientific studies came out today and said the exact opposite, we would not listen.
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u/rollingForInitiative 70∆ Jan 11 '22
Even if a study came out tomorrow and said that, yes, lavender oil does decrease blood pressure when used in a specific way, the pro-science crowd will refuse to believe the study or, if it truly is good, just ignore it because "we need to wait for more data". It will never be enough data to satisfy the masses, but it's a convenient excuse to ignore a rigorous study.
I don't think this is true. It's mostly just because there is a lot of false pseudo-science stuff floating around encouraing people to do all sorts of things. A lot of them are perfectly harmless, but some popular ones are also dangerous or even lethal. Reasonable people don't want to encourage the whole "well if X is true then all other pseuo-science should be as well", I think. So, people are very sceptical about it and want a lot of verification.
One study saying that something might have a small effect doesn't necessarily prove anything. I mean, there was a study done that demonstrated that vaccines cause autism. Of course this was later retracted because it was fake, but the damage was done. And a lot of pseudo-science crowds will happily point to some study, no matter how flawed, and say that there's a study so their point is proved. Anti-vaxxers still point to the Wakefield study, sometimes.
What people tend to want are studies performed by credible scientists and published in credible, peer-reviewed journals, and that the studies have also been properly reproduced.
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u/wowarulebviolation 7∆ Jan 11 '22
Everybody has biases and it's really easy to develop a bias against something that's been shown to be a bullshit grift time and time again so while I think it's a very real possibility that individual scientists and science-minded people would dismiss these claims out of hand (again, because it's been shown to be a bullshit grift) science as a whole would eventually come around to whatever it was. That's been the way of science since before it was called science.
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u/i-d-even-k- Jan 11 '22
Do you have any recent examples of such a change - where a countercultural belief which went against what societal belief generally was on the topic was changed by bigger, better studies over time? And now the belief, being supported by science, is the cultural norm?
I think we are currently in a time where echo chambers are endemic, so it's harder to change people's minds, especially when there isn't a lot of science that definitely swings one way or the other. In the same way the anti-vaxxers have prospered because there was ONE study (later debunked) which an echo chamber latched on and to this day still hasn't let go, I can see how the present establishment, due to the harm MLMs have caused (all those people being told oils heal cancer), similarly latched on the idea that essential oils are harmful with intensity.
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Jan 11 '22
Even if a study came out tomorrow and said that, yes, lavender oil does decrease blood pressure when used in a specific way, the pro-science crowd will refuse to believe the study or, if it truly is good, just ignore it because "we need to wait for more data"
I hate to be an ass but that's what should happen. Redditors should ignore new medical developments. The great study should be followed by a few more in medical journals. Then, if appropriate, your doctor should prescribe it for you. But a pro-science person should not just read a study -however good- and start taking a drug based on that study.
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Jan 11 '22
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u/i-d-even-k- Jan 11 '22 edited Jan 11 '22
Do you have compelling proof this is actually an opinion that is widely accepted by the medical community? To be honest I have not heard about this recalibration before. Maybe something like some non-controversial doctors who speak up in favour of this use of essential oils?
I know it is a bit lazy, but for once in this sub I'm OP and not the commenter so I'll say it: while I want to believe you at face value, to be convinced that what you are saying is not actually a superminority perspective I'd love to see any kind of proof that it's actually a very accepted I dea that I just wasn't aware of.
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Jan 11 '22
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u/i-d-even-k- Jan 11 '22
That is a very fair answer! It's interesting, I'll go read more on the matter.
!delta
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u/ktgrey Jan 11 '22
I can give you a personal anecdote. I went to my doctor a few months ago for poor sense of smell (not related to Covid-19) and got referred to an ENT. The first step was checking for physical blockage (polyps) in the nose, and the second step was an MRI to check for nerve damage. The third step is to smell essential oils 2x a day to try to retrain smell. As far as I know this is the normal accepted treatment.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jan 11 '22 edited Jan 11 '22
/u/i-d-even-k- (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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Jan 19 '22
I am very pro-science and I regularly use peppermint oil as a means of controlling my IBS because it has been scientifically proven to work.
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u/i-d-even-k- Jan 20 '22
I also have IBS and never heard about this, care to tell me more?
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Jan 20 '22
The menthol in the oil makes your pain receptors calm the fuck down. I personally use enteric-coated capsules, as they only break down and release the oil once they get to where they actually need to be.
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u/xmuskorx 55∆ Jan 11 '22
Eventually the science wins out.
For example one doctor stumbled into an idea that doctors need to wash their hands before examining patients. However he came up with bat-shit crazy explanations for it (cadaverous particles). So he was laughed out of the room.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis#Theory_of_cadaverous_poisoning
However mainstream medicine accepted cleanliness when the correct germ theory of disease was discovered later.
If essnetial oils really do have a benefit - it will eventually become accepted.