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Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by zdragnar on Friday April 10, 2026 @05:34PM (#47723932)
There's tons of folk remedies that do absolutely nothing useful at all, too. When you don't have any reliable medicine, you take whatever you have on hand and hope for a placebo effect. Eventually, you find something helpful because even a broken clock is right twice a day.

There are recorded beliefs in medieval Germany, for instance, that carrying or wearing an eye from a bat will make you invisible.

Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by halflife on Friday April 10, 2026 @11:36PM (#47727100)
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by adzm on Friday April 10, 2026 @06:29PM (#47724493)
Folk medicine and remedies are one thing; traditional and herbal medicine certainly has its place and is understudied.

Homeopathy however is pure nonsense even on a fundamental scientific level.

It is unfortunate that the two get conflated.

Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by nkrisc on Friday April 10, 2026 @06:09PM (#47724259)
What’s the physical basis for that?
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by krior on Friday April 10, 2026 @05:25PM (#47723852)
Homeopathy is not a "folk" tradition, it is simply an insane concept.
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by halflife on Friday April 10, 2026 @05:29PM (#47723885)
I once sat next to a mint plant and it cured my cold, the farther I sat the better I felt. Obviously diluted mint particles in the air cured me.
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by lapetitejort on Friday April 10, 2026 @06:12PM (#47724303)
We must eradicate mint plants. Over time the dilution of mint particles in the air will become so small that all diseases will go extinct
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by halflife on Friday April 10, 2026 @11:32PM (#47727079)
We need to research what the distance from mint plants on earth did to the Artemis crew.
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by the_real_cher on Friday April 10, 2026 @05:40PM (#47723995)
How was your chakra alignment? That may have contributed to your recovery.
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by halflife on Friday April 10, 2026 @11:31PM (#47727073)
My aura turned purple
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by the_real_cher on Tuesday April 14, 2026 @11:21AM (#47766835)
That's great news! I think that means your chakras are in a lotus formation.
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by krior on Saturday April 11, 2026 @07:42AM (#47729730)
Correlation != Causation. Sitting this close to a mint plant gives you a dose that is way to undiluted to have any effect. Now if you were to sit roughly two kilometres away with a gentle breeze going from the plant towards you... (but make sure that there is not anothe mint plant on the path of the wind.)
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by msuniverse2026 on Friday April 10, 2026 @05:33PM (#47723912)
and yet it moves :^)
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by DarmokJalad1701 on Friday April 10, 2026 @05:37PM (#47723955)
Does it though?
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by lapetitejort on Friday April 10, 2026 @05:51PM (#47724084)
Can you give an example of a well-known homeopathic and/or folk remedy that has been adopted into regular medicine, maybe in the last 20-50 years?
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by ksymph on Friday April 10, 2026 @07:39PM (#47725298)
The premise is asymmetrical. One could just as easily ask "Which regular medicine has been adopted as a folk remedy?", to which the answer of course is largely no. There is also a (purely pedantic) argument to be made that folk remedies are more 'regular', though assuming the question here is "Are folk remedies widely prescribed in their original forms by typical modern-day MDs?", the answer, again, is largely no.

Now, to the question "Which folk medicines have a fairly robust (or at least promising) clinical basis?", there are certainly some: ginger[0], turmeric[1], honey[2], psilocybin[3], and of course capsaicin and peppermint. Not to mention sunshine, exercise, and meditation, all of which have traditional origins.

Taking a step back though, historically, pharmaceutical drugs have often been derived from natural remedies with bases in folk remedies. The pipeline from traditional medicine -> scientific study -> molecular isolation -> synthesis and mechanized production is pretty well-trodden. Aspirin comes from willow bark, morphine comes from opium, quinine (malaria treatment) comes from cinchona bark, paclitaxel (cancer treatment) comes from yew bark.

Homeopathy is BS though, no argument there. GP really shouldn't put it in the same bucket as folk medicine (it's not even particularly old).

[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9654013/

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36804260/

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37447382/

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35225143/

Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by rkomorn on Friday April 10, 2026 @06:01PM (#47724174)
I think the closest one ("but no cigar") might be oscillococcinum, but its popularity isn't due to doctors recommending it (because they don't, by and large).
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by lapetitejort on Friday April 10, 2026 @06:11PM (#47724281)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillococcinum

> There is no compelling scientific evidence that Oscillococcinum has any effect beyond placebo.

Does not sound promising

Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by rkomorn on Friday April 10, 2026 @06:15PM (#47724338)
Wonder if that might be related to why I wrote "but its popularity isn't due to doctors recommending it (because they don't, by and large)."
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by hammock on Saturday April 11, 2026 @01:17AM (#47727631)
Turmeric. Honey (on burns)- Medihoney was even used in a recent Pitt episode. Aspirin, though this is older than 50 years.
Re:Combining spicy foods with mint boosts anti-inflammatory ... by gib444 on Friday April 10, 2026 @06:06PM (#47724226)
Obligatory Mitchell and Webb https://youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0