I don’t see how this is legal, but people on Tik Tok peddling miracle “medicine” are becoming more common every day. No FDA approval, no research. Just their marketing hype and false promises. This one, lady is showing some sort of probiotic and claiming it can help people suffering from severe acid reflux and gastrointestinal reflux disease or GERD, replacing medicine that has been tested for decades.

    • quixotic120@lemmy.worldEnglish
      591·
      2 months ago

      The important takeaway from this is that “supplements” have 0 oversight. The CBD, probiotics, vitamin d, etc that you buy could just be capsules of vegetable oil that does nothing at all. Or they could be asbestos and cyanide for all you know (that probably would lead to an investigation though). There’s also no safety regarding packing and handling, so it might literally be a guy with unwashed hands who just picked his butt loading your gelcaps in a dirty bathroom that someone just took a massive shit in. No one checks and verifies any of this and that’s why shills and hucksters jump onto this shit, it’s a completely unregulated market where can cut corners everywhere and say whatever you want as long as you include *not intended to treat any diseases and not evaluated by the fda

      A $1200 thing you buy on instagram that sends “good waves” to your brain? Supplement. The cbd you buy at the gas station? Supplement. Doterra oils? Supplement. No regulation, no oversight, just robbing people based on their desperation to fix chronic pain and mental illness

    • remotelove@lemmy.caEnglish
      11·
      2 months ago

      You can actually find small bottles of water on Amazon marketed as a miracle cure.

        • remotelove@lemmy.caEnglish
          14·
          2 months ago

          Just stay away from nearly anything that uses “healing ions” in its marketing material. If it’s not a straight-up fake product, it’ll likely kill you in due time. (Ozone generators are an exception unless you get a beefy one like mine, and then it can actually kill you.)

          Edit: lol! I have seen that video and made my comment about ions before I clicked it. Good video, btw. 5 stars.

          • JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.worldEnglish
            6·
            2 months ago

            What I don’t get about these products, is the use of radioactive material intentional? Do the people making this shit do it with the intention of giving people rings covered in thorium? If not, then why does it happen? Is the manufacturing process just so sketchy that it somehow gets cross contamination with actual fucking nuclear reactor fuel?

            • SweatyFireBalls@lemmy.worldEnglish
              4·
              2 months ago

              When we were first learning about it, there were some misconceptions about radioactivity and health. There were even business minded individuals who widely sold it as a miracle cure. This public belief was reinforced by the fact that around that time we discovered hot springs have radioactive elements, (and people have always believed hot springs heal your ailments) which lead to a mass conception radioactivity was actually a miracle cure. A large part of that down fall was when the “Radium Girls” started literally dying because they were told it was totally safe to work with radioactive material, began falling apart and then worked for legal pushback.

              I’m not an expert on the matter, so I might be a little off but that is a good overview on why some people have that belief still. As always it’s shitty people looking to make money off of hype. The Radium Girls had a tragic but ultimately fascinating life/story. They would even rub the material on their teeth to glow. Check it out if you’re interested.

    • CulturedLout@lemmy.caEnglish
      5·
      2 months ago

      Wow. You’d think “natural” would be more heavily regulated since a lot of people consider it to be a synonym for “harmless” (I am not one of them)

      • intensely_human@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        Marketing is ensuring your product offering matches what people want.

        I don’t see how an influencer pushing a particular probiotic product fits this

  • Lad@reddthat.comEnglish
    57·
    2 months ago

    We’re getting dangerously close to social media apps where you scroll through ads and only ads. Maybe we’re already there…

    • irotsoma@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      2 months ago

      My Facebook and Instagram are now >3/4 stuff that I didn’t follow. Not all are explicitly advertisements, but they aren’t things I wanted to see. That’s why I’m moving to federated services. Just wish I could convince more of my friends and family to move over. I use Lemmy as a replacement for Reddit so it’s more widely social, but the other stuff I only really used for friends, family, or special interest groups.

      • Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        2 months ago

        Man am I glad I killed my FB back In 2012 when it was mostly pictures of peoples babies and people acting like hating Obama was a personality trait

    • cheers_queers@lemm.eeEnglish
      4·
      2 months ago

      i stopped using Instagram not long after realizing every 3rd post was an ad, and most of the actual content were not from people i followed. i don’t miss it.

  • sp3tr4l@lemmy.zipEnglish
    20·
    2 months ago

    I used to know sooo many people that would justify this, a cryptoscam, shilling literally any outright fraud or vastly overpriced bs on their social media.

    ‘They’re just getting their bag, you’re hating cuz you broke!’

    This is the cyberpunk dystopia.

    • remotelove@lemmy.caEnglish
      10·
      2 months ago

      Kale has a naturally high pH, so it’s basically just an antacid. If it works consistently for you, keep it up. No point in taking industrial strength meds for something simple, after all.

      The class of drugs for my kind of heartburn are proton-pump inhibitors and help limit acid production across the board. It’s good these are over the counter now as I am on a 2x dose, but have been as high as 4x before.

      I switched from standard antacids to just water and baking soda my stomach was so bad. Kale wouldn’t have put a dent in my stomach acid, TBH. I drink a ton of water these days, and even if the pH of the water was off by a hair, it would be a bad time.

      I probably might be able to cut my dosage back or even stop soon hopefully. It’s one of the few drugs that are actually supposed to provide a long term solution.

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        2 months ago

        Kale has a naturally high pH, so it’s basically just an antacid.

        I have mild reflux, but know what triggers it after what time of day and can make easy diet adjustments to avoid those triggers too late before bed. For whatever reason, I never considered looking at the alkaline level of the foods I eat. In just doing so now, I see a whole bunch of my regular diet. Have I been unconscious choosing these to mitigate my reflux? I mean, I seek out these foods (that I now know are alkaline) because I like them, but do I like them more than just for their taste?

        • remotelove@lemmy.caEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          That is probably some good theory crafting, but I have no idea as that is a level of psychology that is beyond me. (That sentence looks a little smart-ass, but it absolutely isn’t, btw. 100% curious.)

          Personally, I can say is that I tend avoid foods that cause pain and may even subconsciously steer away from them too. I don’t actively seek out things like tomato sauce, but wouldn’t likely turn down a free spaghetti meal either.

          I do also tend to prefer cereal and milk, generally heavy fiber types. Antacids are great, but sometimes, just giving my stomach something harder to break down works fine too.

    • seathru@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      3·
      2 months ago

      I just slam a shot glass of baking soda and water when it gets bad.

      Disclaimer: Not sound medical advice. Probably not good advice at all. But nothing works faster.

    • intensely_human@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      But has steamed kale been approved by the FDA for acid reflux?

      Perhaps what you’re doing should be made illegal, for safety reasons.

  • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
    51·
    2 months ago

    Probiotics hype in pill form but why is nobody shilling various yogurt type products?

    I guess it easier and more PROFITABLE to sell avg tiktok consoomer some capsules then it is to educate them to eat “spoiled” milk product… Eww

    An interesting system we go though. Solid incentives and well educated citizens.

  • itsathursday@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

    Obviously and issue but on par with actual product advertising on TV that has 0 approval and more often that not lists death as a side effect.

  • Draupnir@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    This and random plugs for that fucking bovine colostrum shit. 3 slides of well known advice then slide 4 BAM “I don’t know how I ever lived with [insert condition here] until I tried this colostrum!!!”

  • WhyFlip@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    Not new. There will always be idiots, therefore, there will always be people selling snake oil.