8 ms·

“Eat More Onions”: Desperate and massively debatable medical advice from 1918

40 points by Hooke 8y ago

danielbln 8y ago
Seems down, here's a mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20180918143108/https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/eat-more-onions https://web.archive.org/web/20180918143108/https://www.lapha...
the-dude 8y ago
From 1940 : https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-wwii-propaganda-campaign-popularized-the-myth-that-carrots-help-you-see-in-the-dark-28812484/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-wwii-propagand... More carrots, not onions.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
forapurpose 8y ago
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.[0] What else would you have done in their position? If you were the health authorities? Do nothing? At its heart, I think this issue is the same one as social science experiments being replicated with lower strength results: We naturally want to handle information as if the truth value is binary, as in mathematical logic and and IF ... THEN statements, true or false. Wouldn't that be wonderful and easy? When the information is imperfect, it seems like we feel justified in targeting our emotions at the offender, but they are doing the only thing they can - acting under uncertainty. Was telling people to eat onions a bad choice, given their choices, and in foresight? As everyone knows from personal experience, if you are giving medical advice, doing scientific research, or making a decision for your startup, the information and possible conclusions are not like in the textbook - they are unclear and messy. You can't wait for the perfect stuff. [0] Attributed to Voltaire
- whatshisface 8y ago
  There's a big difference between thinking or saying "I know what I'm doing and there is no risk," when you're clueless, and saying "We are facing a known unknown and have to take a risk." For one thing, if the blowhard eventually comes across the real answer he'll ignore it because he thinks he already understands the situation.
  - afarrell 8y ago
    The problem is that sometimes you don’t have the luxury of being honest with people. Sometimes if you try to give the honest, nuanced picture of the situation, then you just end up making them nervous or you’ll sound ridiculous or flip-floppy in one of the ways that normal honest people often sound ridiculous. At the next election, voters’ll dump you for a Real Man who will ‘talk straight’ to them. I would never want to be a politician.
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      Facing the ethical reality, if your team doesn't want to take a certain risk (based on their estimation of their own risk-tolerance), you're not lying for their own good if you convince them that the risk isn't there. If they do want to take the risk, then you can inspire a pretty cool culture by making the importance of the task at hand clear to everybody.
      - afarrell 8y ago
        If you are able to build a team, then you often have the ability to judge your hires based on their ability to accept that: - we live in a world of tradeoffs - we live in a world of uncertainty - order and trust are far more fragile than chaos and discord This is not so when working with a constituency.
    - forapurpose 8y ago
      > I would never want to be a politician. For similar reasons I look at 'politician' as a real, honorable professional with its own set of professional skills. First, you need to understand any issue that might cross your desk. Then, amidst the insanity of the political environment, you need to maintain your own clear vision, maintain a nuanced, up-to-date feel for your constituency's opinions and for the forces in the halls of power, triangulate and anticipate all of it in order to judge what is possible, and then have the skills to lead/nudge/guide/push/negotiate all those forces simultaneously in order to execute what you think is possible. The trend of hiring outsiders for the job is absurd, IMO. Few things impress me more than a skilled politician at work (i.e., one who uses their skills to accomplish things).
notthemessiah 8y ago
In North Carolina, young Dan Tonkel had taken to wearing a bag of asafetida around his neck, in the belief that the stinking extract would protect him. “It smelled to high heaven,” he recalled. “People thought the smell would kill germs. So we all wore a bag of asafetida and smelled like rotten flesh.” For most of human history, we thought that germs were spread by certain odors. So to counteract them, we would often use aromas: this is why plague doctor masks had the horn which was filled with herbs. EDIT: I meant diseases were thought to be spread by odors, as we didn't yet have a germ theory of disease.
- throwawayjava 8y ago
  It's fascinating to me how some of these "cures" continue to persist with modernized marketing script. See e.g. some of the claims made about essential oils ([1] contains a concise list for example), many of which were thought to be curative in antiquity mostly because of their powerful aromas:. [1] https://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/2014/ucm415809.htm https://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/...
  - amelius 8y ago
    The problem is that there are only few controlled trials for herbs and supplements, mainly because there is no money to be made because the substances can't be patented. If company A finances a controlled trial, then company B can just copy the claims. Another problem is that these herbal cures may work initially (through placebo effect or a real mechanism), and then stop working. However, at that point the word has already been spread. This is especially troubling in the internet age, where people post reviews after one day of trying something.
  - ben509 8y ago
    There are many quack remedies and elixirs that have been around forever and long ago obtained protected status with government regulators.
- the-dude 8y ago
  Some aromas keep away insects.
pella 8y ago
Food Chemistry: "Anti-influenza A virus effects of fructan from Welsh onion (Allium fistulosum L.)" ( 2012 ) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030881461200653X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030881461...
qwerty456127 8y ago
I still believe eating more onions is a great idea because of the fructooligosaccharides (prebiorics that good gut bacteria feed on).
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Unfortunately there is not enough evidence that such prebiotics help with anything. Other than increasing flatulence that is.
emodendroket 8y ago
Asafetida today is probably best known for its use in Indian cuisine.
- abritinthebay 8y ago
  You're getting downvoted for some reason. You're 100% correct. In Indian cuisine it's used as an umami enhancer. Usually with turmeric in vegetable dishes - especially lentil curries like dal and sambar but also those based on potato and cauliflower. Kashmiri cuisine famously uses it in Rogan Josh.
andreygrehov 8y ago
I'm at home for the past few days with a barely breathing nose, a sore throat and a headache. Humanity is about to get people travel around the Moon, we have self-driving cars and AI, but FFS(!), can someone create a pill that would kill a common cold/allergies? It drives me nuts that we don't have a solution for such a popular problem. I think I tried everything, but the recovery time is always around 7 days no matter what you do.
- savanaly 8y ago
  The wonders of evolution (of the cold virus, that is). I'm not sure we'll ever beat it.
  - Zircom 8y ago
    Randall Munroe actually did a small section on eradicating the common cold in his What-if book, the basic idea is if that all of humanity stayed away from each other for a week or two then the common cold would die out as it can't survive outside of the human body for more than a week and normally survives by continuously hopping from host to host.
    - AstralStorm 8y ago
      You'd need to provide water for humanity for this period somehow. Water supplies have to be sterile and available. (That is assuming everyone goes on a week long secluded water fast. It's harder if not everyone can fast. There's a problem with keeping people in care but not insoluble.) That is just for rhinoviruses too, there are other viral reasons of common cold, more hardy than this, and bacterial diseases that mimic it very precisely.
    - andreygrehov 8y ago
      Ha, that's awesome. I think I know why Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars now.
- ItsMe000001 8y ago
  Incidentally, I just wrote another (pretty long) reply mentioning just that. Based on my own very unusual medical history I suspect that maybe you should not want that. Of course I know nothing for sure at all, it's just that observing my own healing process I was pretty much force to conclude that at least sometimes there may be more to a cold than just "a cold", that it may (can sometimes) have an effect that is not just "I happened to be sick for a week", that it actually does something. Even if my own very personal reasons and thoughts turn out to be wrong, what about training of the immune system ("training" is not a good word because what does it even mean, but there must be some feedback effect, surely)? I snot having any little issues at all for decades really good? I think there are endless feedback loops and it's all a lot more mixed and complex. I would be skeptical that such a magic pill would be net positive.
lamarpye 8y ago
It worked for Stanley and Zero at Camp Green Lake
jlg23 8y ago
No need for time travel here... I currently live in the south of Morocco and this is exactly the kind of advice I am given here constantly. My SO went through months of dietary restrictions based on such advice; got her to hospital 2 weeks ago and today the lab results are in: bacterial infection. We are looking forward to the first proper dinner in a very long time. My personal highlight on local advice I was given: "Keeping a tortoise in your house helps with asthma. My cousin has asthma and when it is really bad, he comes back to his parents' house and after a few days it is much better!" (That house is in a very small mountain village with very clean air, he lives in a very big city full of cars and he does not dare to smoke anywhere in his home village or his parents' house lest his parents see that.. go figure.)

40 points by Hooke 8y ago

Seems down, here's a mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20180918143108/https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/eat-more-onions https://web.archive.org/web/20180918143108/https://www.lapha...

the-dude 8y ago

From 1940 : https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-wwii-propaganda-campaign-popularized-the-myth-that-carrots-help-you-see-in-the-dark-28812484/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-wwii-propagand... More carrots, not onions.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

forapurpose 8y ago

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.[0] What else would you have done in their position? If you were the health authorities? Do nothing? At its heart, I think this issue is the same one as social science experiments being replicated with lower strength results: We naturally want to handle information as if the truth value is binary, as in mathematical logic and and IF ... THEN statements, true or false. Wouldn't that be wonderful and easy? When the information is imperfect, it seems like we feel justified in targeting our emotions at the offender, but they are doing the only thing they can - acting under uncertainty. Was telling people to eat onions a bad choice, given their choices, and in foresight? As everyone knows from personal experience, if you are giving medical advice, doing scientific research, or making a decision for your startup, the information and possible conclusions are not like in the textbook - they are unclear and messy. You can't wait for the perfect stuff. [0] Attributed to Voltaire

whatshisface 8y ago
There's a big difference between thinking or saying "I know what I'm doing and there is no risk," when you're clueless, and saying "We are facing a known unknown and have to take a risk." For one thing, if the blowhard eventually comes across the real answer he'll ignore it because he thinks he already understands the situation.
- afarrell 8y ago
  The problem is that sometimes you don’t have the luxury of being honest with people. Sometimes if you try to give the honest, nuanced picture of the situation, then you just end up making them nervous or you’ll sound ridiculous or flip-floppy in one of the ways that normal honest people often sound ridiculous. At the next election, voters’ll dump you for a Real Man who will ‘talk straight’ to them. I would never want to be a politician.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    Facing the ethical reality, if your team doesn't want to take a certain risk (based on their estimation of their own risk-tolerance), you're not lying for their own good if you convince them that the risk isn't there. If they do want to take the risk, then you can inspire a pretty cool culture by making the importance of the task at hand clear to everybody.
    - afarrell 8y ago
      If you are able to build a team, then you often have the ability to judge your hires based on their ability to accept that: - we live in a world of tradeoffs - we live in a world of uncertainty - order and trust are far more fragile than chaos and discord This is not so when working with a constituency.
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    > I would never want to be a politician. For similar reasons I look at 'politician' as a real, honorable professional with its own set of professional skills. First, you need to understand any issue that might cross your desk. Then, amidst the insanity of the political environment, you need to maintain your own clear vision, maintain a nuanced, up-to-date feel for your constituency's opinions and for the forces in the halls of power, triangulate and anticipate all of it in order to judge what is possible, and then have the skills to lead/nudge/guide/push/negotiate all those forces simultaneously in order to execute what you think is possible. The trend of hiring outsiders for the job is absurd, IMO. Few things impress me more than a skilled politician at work (i.e., one who uses their skills to accomplish things).

notthemessiah 8y ago

In North Carolina, young Dan Tonkel had taken to wearing a bag of asafetida around his neck, in the belief that the stinking extract would protect him. “It smelled to high heaven,” he recalled. “People thought the smell would kill germs. So we all wore a bag of asafetida and smelled like rotten flesh.” For most of human history, we thought that germs were spread by certain odors. So to counteract them, we would often use aromas: this is why plague doctor masks had the horn which was filled with herbs. EDIT: I meant diseases were thought to be spread by odors, as we didn't yet have a germ theory of disease.

throwawayjava 8y ago
It's fascinating to me how some of these "cures" continue to persist with modernized marketing script. See e.g. some of the claims made about essential oils ([1] contains a concise list for example), many of which were thought to be curative in antiquity mostly because of their powerful aromas:. [1] https://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/2014/ucm415809.htm https://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/...
- amelius 8y ago
  The problem is that there are only few controlled trials for herbs and supplements, mainly because there is no money to be made because the substances can't be patented. If company A finances a controlled trial, then company B can just copy the claims. Another problem is that these herbal cures may work initially (through placebo effect or a real mechanism), and then stop working. However, at that point the word has already been spread. This is especially troubling in the internet age, where people post reviews after one day of trying something.
- ben509 8y ago
  There are many quack remedies and elixirs that have been around forever and long ago obtained protected status with government regulators.
the-dude 8y ago
Some aromas keep away insects.

pella 8y ago

Food Chemistry: "Anti-influenza A virus effects of fructan from Welsh onion (Allium fistulosum L.)" ( 2012 ) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030881461200653X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030881461...

qwerty456127 8y ago

I still believe eating more onions is a great idea because of the fructooligosaccharides (prebiorics that good gut bacteria feed on).

AstralStorm 8y ago
Unfortunately there is not enough evidence that such prebiotics help with anything. Other than increasing flatulence that is.

emodendroket 8y ago

Asafetida today is probably best known for its use in Indian cuisine.

abritinthebay 8y ago
You're getting downvoted for some reason. You're 100% correct. In Indian cuisine it's used as an umami enhancer. Usually with turmeric in vegetable dishes - especially lentil curries like dal and sambar but also those based on potato and cauliflower. Kashmiri cuisine famously uses it in Rogan Josh.

andreygrehov 8y ago

I'm at home for the past few days with a barely breathing nose, a sore throat and a headache. Humanity is about to get people travel around the Moon, we have self-driving cars and AI, but FFS(!), can someone create a pill that would kill a common cold/allergies? It drives me nuts that we don't have a solution for such a popular problem. I think I tried everything, but the recovery time is always around 7 days no matter what you do.

savanaly 8y ago
The wonders of evolution (of the cold virus, that is). I'm not sure we'll ever beat it.
- Zircom 8y ago
  Randall Munroe actually did a small section on eradicating the common cold in his What-if book, the basic idea is if that all of humanity stayed away from each other for a week or two then the common cold would die out as it can't survive outside of the human body for more than a week and normally survives by continuously hopping from host to host.
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    You'd need to provide water for humanity for this period somehow. Water supplies have to be sterile and available. (That is assuming everyone goes on a week long secluded water fast. It's harder if not everyone can fast. There's a problem with keeping people in care but not insoluble.) That is just for rhinoviruses too, there are other viral reasons of common cold, more hardy than this, and bacterial diseases that mimic it very precisely.
  - andreygrehov 8y ago
    Ha, that's awesome. I think I know why Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars now.
ItsMe000001 8y ago
Incidentally, I just wrote another (pretty long) reply mentioning just that. Based on my own very unusual medical history I suspect that maybe you should not want that. Of course I know nothing for sure at all, it's just that observing my own healing process I was pretty much force to conclude that at least sometimes there may be more to a cold than just "a cold", that it may (can sometimes) have an effect that is not just "I happened to be sick for a week", that it actually does something. Even if my own very personal reasons and thoughts turn out to be wrong, what about training of the immune system ("training" is not a good word because what does it even mean, but there must be some feedback effect, surely)? I snot having any little issues at all for decades really good? I think there are endless feedback loops and it's all a lot more mixed and complex. I would be skeptical that such a magic pill would be net positive.

lamarpye 8y ago

It worked for Stanley and Zero at Camp Green Lake

jlg23 8y ago

No need for time travel here... I currently live in the south of Morocco and this is exactly the kind of advice I am given here constantly. My SO went through months of dietary restrictions based on such advice; got her to hospital 2 weeks ago and today the lab results are in: bacterial infection. We are looking forward to the first proper dinner in a very long time. My personal highlight on local advice I was given: "Keeping a tortoise in your house helps with asthma. My cousin has asthma and when it is really bad, he comes back to his parents' house and after a few days it is much better!" (That house is in a very small mountain village with very clean air, he lives in a very big city full of cars and he does not dare to smoke anywhere in his home village or his parents' house lest his parents see that.. go figure.)