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Smudgie Buggler posted:I actually don't think cannabis qualifies as herbal medicine in the sense that it ought to give you shits because it's fundamental bullshit non-medicine that hippies insist unclogs your chakras or whatever with some incidental medicinal benefits. Cannabis is just medicine at this point. There are plenty of medicines that are perfectly legitimate (ie. not alternative medicines, just loving medicines) that are derived from plant matter. That shouldn't be an annoying fact. The plant kingdom produces a lot of various chemicals, some of which we've discovered quite legitimately are good at healing illnesses or alleviated symptoms. That ain't bad. The argument for herbal medicine I always heard from my very new age-y mother who owned a health food store in the 70s is actually decent, because it can be tested and falsified on a case-by-case basis. Her argument has been that plants contain mixtures of chemicals that moderate or improve (by potency and/or by offsetting negative side effects) the effects of the primary active ingredient alone. Her version is too strong, since it doesn't account for case by case variance, or for the possibility of observed cases where the net effect of a herb's properties are negative despite potential medicinal value (ie, tobacco, which has medically useful psychoactive effects, but which is both more toxic and more addictive in smoked form than it is as pure nicotine). It is easy enough, meanwhile, to find cases in which it is true or likely, such as the effects of caffeine-related chemicals such as theanine in coffee). She also believes a great deal of.bullshit; for a relevant example, she frequently cites Dr. Mercola, who is a fraud, and doesn't recognize the evidential gap between herbal and homeopathic medicine. A lot of her medicinal ideas are based on a false dichotomy between Western medicine under capitalism and alternative medicine; capitalism, however, loves alternative medicine as well. As a rule, I consider this, as a whole, to be less dangerous in practice than the equivalent from the athletic supplement industry despite it being less likely to advocate for outright bullshit. That is because of the practical dangers of many extremely effective herbal athletic supplements, especially strong stimulants such as ephedrine (from Ma Huang), which is similar to amphetamine but favours the peripheral rather than central effects typical of that family of chemicals to a degree which has a strong probability of being dangerous in an athletic context. My mother is an oddity in that she is smart but inclined to explicitly metaphysical thinking. So I got to grow up going to literal sweat lodges and pow-wows ran by and mostly for the indigenous communities they were in, and went to Sikh temples more often than churches. (In the latter case it is relevant to BC goons that for awhile in my childhood, I lived in Surrey, which at the time was not yet a shithole and we were on a lot with two acres if forest that is now the suburb that we were evicted to build). She also likes Kabbalism and gnosticism, and understands them well enough to be interesting to discuss them with. Cross-posting with e/n itt.
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Oct 28, 2014 08:14
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 02:45 |
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Dancer posted:With metals and vitamins, which the body obtains from food and only needs trace amounts of, it's *usually* a safe bet that, unless you have a bad diet, you already get as much of it as your body can effectively use, and any more intake will simply be excreted. Obviously this doesn't apply all the time (and not even to all vitamins), but it's a good rule of thumb. Since no convincing evidence exists that excess zinc has therapeutic use for colds, you should assume it doesn't. Although I take a small amount of vitamins, I think the only one particularly recommended by medical practitioners on a regular basis is Vitamin D during cloudy winter months. Well, and most North Americans are short on Magnesium. It's an electrolyte and helps regulate stress, so like Calcium, it isn't a bad idea. In my case, medications I take happen to deplete it, and it also happens to help offset tolerance. Potassium is similar, but there is the delicious "eat bananas" option for that one. A lot of the time, the question with a "supplement" comes down to "am I willing to do a lot of research to make sure that it is safe and still, at the least, risk wasting my money"? That this is the same question that I ask before trying a nootropic that is technically not sold for human consumption doesn't really speak well of the regulatory climate. On the other hand, part of the reason for that is that pharmaceutical companies didn't like natural medicine (don't let anyone sell it) until they realized that they could get in on it (nevermind don't regulate it at all), and that has affected the regulatory schizophrenia around the subject.
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Oct 30, 2014 11:19
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IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:Nope, symptoms of hypomagnesemia: A seem to recall a similar thread in which this came up and was disputed, but "hypomagnesemia" doesn't cover magnesium deficiency, the symptoms of which are: wikipedia posted:frequently [...] muscle spasms, and has been associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety disorders, migraines, osteoporosis, and cerebral infarction. High blood pressure and anxiety disorders are often stress-related problems. Meanwhile, "[t]he adult human daily nutritional requirement, which is affected by various factors including gender, weight, and size, is 300-400 mg/day." According to the same, "although many foods contain magnesium, it is usually found in low levels. As with most nutrients, daily needs for magnesium are unlikely to be met by one serving of any single food. Eating a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and grains will help ensure adequate intake of magnesium." So it's not unbelievable that people might be deficient. Are they? Wikipedia gives one source claiming that "57% of the US population does not meet the US RDA for dietary intake of magnesium." I'm open to that source being challenged, but I'd like to hear the critique. In general, the idea of magnesium deficiency seems to be pretty well established in mainstream medicine at this point. Is this in error? Healthier eating is certainly a better alternative to supplements, but there are any number of issues which can make that difficult. And since actual hypermagnesemia is hard to cause, how do I feel about $10 a bottle for a placebo? Man, I sell cigarettes and lotto tickets all day; don't try to be holier-than-thou about how people waste their money to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_deficiency_%28medicine%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_in_biology#Human_health Meanwhile, I'm on three adrenergics, any of which are capable of causing actual hypomagnesemia through rapid depletion. All three are widely prescribed. There are specific side effect related symptoms which magnesium supplements help to relieve. Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Oct 30, 2014 |
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Oct 30, 2014 18:20
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Tim Raines IRL posted:That said, I'm skeptical that it's a great idea to take an assload of supplemental magnesium on a constant basis. My own experience (along with several other anecdotes I've read) was that after doing so for a period of time and then stopping abruptly, I had specific, unpleasant and fairly protracted muscle spasms which started 2-3 days after cessation, were relieved by taking more magnesium, and persisted for a period of about 3 weeks. Seems like drug withdrawal to me, which doesn't surprise me too much since magnesium appears to interact with NMDA receptors significantly. Unless, like me, you take it for spasms and other muscle-related effects of depletion and over-activation of the NMDA receptions. It does sound like your body adapted to a larger magnesium intake. I'm not sure if that is a bad thing though, it wasn't causing problems in and of itself, and I'm hesitant to agree offhand that "my body adapted to using less of an essential nutrient again" is a good thing. Your body needs a fair amount of it to run, and will literally take it from your bones if it needs more (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypomagnesemia#Homeostasis). This is not an expert opinion.
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Oct 30, 2014 18:42
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I would like some sort of citation, considering that there are tons of mainstream sources cited on the wikipedia articles. Note that a symptom doesn't have to be medically serious for treatment to be desireable. To the other poster, the spasms are a symptom of magnesium deficiency, so if you stopped taking the supplements and showed immediate symptoms of being deficient, that would be why he wanted you to take them.
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Oct 30, 2014 20:10
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 02:45 |
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Dancer posted:This is the other good rule of thumb, for both vitamins and minerals. When you take in a lot, your body will get used to excreting a lot to protect itself. By this same mechanism it's possible to get symptoms of insufficient vitamin intake even though you're taking in a normal amount, if your body is adapted to taking in a lot (there's a specific term for this, which I don't recall). That would make sense; suddenly your body is excreting more than it should for your new intake. Another speculative mechanism is that the NMDA receptors might take awhile to get used to having less magnesium, which functions to decrease calcium signalling (technically it is an antagonist, as are benzos which is a hint as why they would moderate withdrawl). Until it adjusts by downregulating the receptors that calcium binds to, you would have symptoms of excess calcium signalling. Either seems plausible to me, which honestly doesn't mean much. As a sidenote, a good 70% of calcium supplements are Magnesium Oxide, which is supposedly only as medicinal as your need for a laxative at a given moment.
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Oct 30, 2014 22:37
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