[HN Gopher] Lavender's Game: Silexan for Anxiety
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Lavender's Game: Silexan for Anxiety
Author : andsoitis
Score : 109 points
Date : 2022-05-20 14:37 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (astralcodexten.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (astralcodexten.substack.com)
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| A naturopath prescribed lavender oil for my anxiety early on in
| the pandemic. I think it might have helped a little, but it
| wasn't a game changer. But she only had me taking 1 80mg pill per
| day. I'm going to get some of the recommended brand and try
| 160mg/day as suggested in the article.
| tga wrote:
| Edit: not directly relevant to Silexan, but I'm not surprised
| that the lavender oil didn't work, especially if it came from a
| naturopath.
|
| The Massachusetts Medical Society states, "Naturopathic
| practices are unchanged by research and remain a large
| assortment of erroneous and potentially dangerous claims mixed
| with a sprinkling of non-controversial dietary and lifestyle
| advice."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy#Evidence_basis
| hash872 wrote:
| Seems like a non-sequitur in response to his specific
| statement- OP isn't endorsing naturopathy (nor am I), the
| discussion is about the specific efficacy of silexan. The
| linked article is a meta-analysis of silexan by a board-
| certified psychiatrist. No one here is pro-naturopathy.
|
| If silexan isn't effective, surely you can prove that
| empirically and without resort to an argument from authority.
| If a naturopath says drinking water is good for you too, that
| doesn't mean that specific claim is wrong because naturopathy
| is pseudoscience (which it is). We're evaluating silexan
| here.
|
| Larger discussion is that a lot of modern medicine is not
| based on well-replicated studies, either
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Lavender oil != Silexan
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Sure, I get that. I'm pretty skeptical of a lot of stuff that
| goes on in naturopathy, but the best doc I've ever had was a
| naturopath (not the doc I mentioned above, unfortunately, I'm
| still looking for a replacement for that best doc) - why do I
| say he was the best?
|
| 1) he wasn't into the woo-woo stuff - he'd present papers on
| efficacy. So if I were talking to him about a specific issue
| he'd quickly look things up on his laptop "I was just reading
| a paper on this the other day, here let's take a look..."
|
| 2) he'd actually take time to listen - appointments were at
| least 45 minutes. Sometimes 1 hour. All the MD's I've been to
| since seem to be in a huge rush - you're lucky to be in there
| for 10 minutes (not the fault of the MDs, likely, more the
| fault of our healthcare system)
|
| 3) he taught complementary medicine to MD students at a local
| Medical School so he wasn't anti-MD as some NDs are. He was
| well aware of the limits of naturopathy and didn't hesitate
| to send me to a specialist when needed.
|
| 4) Very comprehensive blood tests. I haven't had an MD who
| tested for so much. And just because some parameter was in
| the normal range he didn't necessarily consider that
| everything was ok. He'd say stuff like "this is considered
| the normal range [for this parameter] but it's right on the
| edge of normal, we need to look into this further... (or we
| need to keep a watch on this)"
|
| 5) he thought like an engineer - most doctors aren't great at
| troubleshooting, in my experience. This guy was a good
| troubleshooter. He got me through some digestive issues that
| I'd been dealing with for a long time because nobody else
| seemed to dig into it like he did.
|
| Unfortunately he retired a few years back - because of his
| reputation he was in huge demand and I think he just kind of
| burned out. In the years since I haven't found a replacement
| doctor that I've been happy with (either MD or ND).
| ibeckermayer wrote:
| Man, that's too bad, you had a diamond in the rough. Hoping
| to find a practitioner like that myself.
| zamalek wrote:
| Anecdata: based on a blood lab I was horribly GABA deficient,
| which explained my weekly (out of the blue) panic attacks.
| She put me on a hero dose of 1000mg daily and the panic
| attacks immediately stopped. After a year I stopped
| supplementing and haven't had panic attacks since. I'd
| probably still be on Xanax if I had gone to a doctor first
| (to be clear, I would have had the naturopath not worked
| out).
|
| A friend of mine had issues with irregular menstruation:
| months with nothing, and doctors weren't able to help. The
| same naturopath identified a deficiency by ways of a blood
| lab, and those problems have also been solved.
|
| Naturopaths are a worthwhile starting point, the one I
| visited could even prescribe if all else failed, but I'd walk
| out if one didn't start with a blood lab/science.
| voldacar wrote:
| I don't think GABA in the bloodstream crosses the blood-
| brain barrier
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > She put me on a hero dose of 1000mg daily
|
| Of GABA? What form? I've heard that it's not well absorbed
| or gets destroyed in digestion, but then others say it's
| best absorbed orally by sucking on a lozenge.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| Starting with references to a _Daily Mail_ interview and a
| podcast (even if from a purportedly reputable source) doesn 't
| exactly fill me with confidence.
|
| The Daily Mail is gutter-level tabloid trash. If anything, it's a
| pretty strong _anti_ -reference.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Be cautious, lavender has compounds that interfere with hormones.
|
| https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180318144856.h...
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| It would be surprising if it was effective and had absolutely 0
| side effects.
| [deleted]
| 01100011 wrote:
| I believe mint and licorice root have similar issues.
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| About a decade ago I acquired some lavender extract which looked
| something like cannabis extract. I can confirm that it was
| sedating and obviously anxiolytic, both vaporized and dissolved
| in hot water.
|
| Vaporized the effect is instant and lasts only perhaps 20
| minutes.
|
| Notably, it was not euphoric like some benzodiazepines can be. So
| I would say recreational/"abuse" potential was virtually non-
| existent for me personally.
|
| Qualitatively I would describe the experience as a mental and
| physical shift towards moderate relaxation, not unlike the
| feeling after a brief shoulder rub.
| amelius wrote:
| I tried the exact same product as mentioned in the article, and
| used it for several months. But for me it only worked as a way to
| reduce depression. For anxiety it did little to nothing. Your
| mileage may vary, of course.
| tmountain wrote:
| Isn't reducing depression a pretty impactful outcome? Given the
| prevalence, it seems like that's a big deal.
| amelius wrote:
| Yes, but for me certain foods already helped to reduce
| depression. The effect could be highly specific to me.
| mise_en_place wrote:
| That is interesting. Out of curiosity did those foods have
| a lot of PUFAs? More MUFAs? Saturated fats?
| prophesi wrote:
| The Amazon referral link is suspicious, but I don't know anything
| about the author and they may very well be an unbiased critic
| simply trying to make some additional income from their blog.
| jdpigeon wrote:
| This is Scott Alexander, previously from Slate Star Codex. He's
| highly respected as a blogger about psychiatry
| rrose wrote:
| im not going to tell you you're wrong for respecting him, but
| i feel this comment is only telling half the story. He's very
| well respected in the "rationalist" community, but he and
| that community are pretty controversial and definitely not
| universally respected
| civilian wrote:
| If anyone is curious about the controversy, here's the
| NYTimes piece on Scott Alexander:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technology/slate-star-
| cod... It's a decent article, and the few attempts at
| pearl-clutching fall pretty flat.
|
| My only gripe with rationalists is that they suck at
| running their own conference, CFAR. (:
| 0x_rs wrote:
| If somebody's interested, I would strongly suggest
| checking out both sides of the dispute and not only that,
| as the NYT story caused quite some ruckus at the time.
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-
| my-...
|
| https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-
| york-...
| lalaithion wrote:
| Would you write the same comment about a Catholic
| psychiatrist who wrote a blog about both Catholicism and
| psychiatry?
|
| Catholicism is definitely pretty controversial and
| definitely not universally respected, but I think most
| people would have pretty strong pushback against a
| commenter who felt the need to bring up an author's
| Catholicism regarding a blog post that had little to do
| with catholicism.
| tomcatfish wrote:
| The operating point is that Scott Alexander isn't looking
| for a few extra dollars selling potentially fake health
| products.
|
| He makes a *lot* of money on Substack, enough that this
| concertn isn't valid.
|
| Also, "So and so isn't respected in the whole world, only
| in the people that know about them" isn't a super helpful
| argument anyways.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| How much of that money is made on referrals like this,
| health or otherwise?
| Natsu wrote:
| There's no referral link in this post, he's not profiting
| from this and he's written about many different
| treatments.
| Tenoke wrote:
| Probably very little if any. Most of his other posts that
| mention promising substances (e.g. Zembrin and other
| nootropics) like this one[0] don't even include links and
| if they do I believe they are usually stripped out but I
| didn't find one with a link easily to confirm. I'm
| guessing he just included it as there are multiple
| different brands for this one.
|
| 0. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/nootropics-
| survey-2020...
| thebooktocome wrote:
| He is potentially shilling for right-wing influencers
| (e.g., Sailer), however, so perhaps people should take
| him with a grain of salt.
|
| It's so bizarre to me that there's a link between the
| naturopath/supplement community and the alt-right. Like
| how did that happen.
| slater wrote:
| Grifters gonna grift.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Both communities define themselves by their opposition to
| mainstream establishments that find them destructive.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Well, the point was that he (or at least the community he
| is in) is actively disrespected by some people as well,
| so it's a bit more pointed than just "not known about".
|
| Mentioning this only for completeness' sake. I think he's
| good, on net. But somewhat adjacent to some more dubious
| and distasteful stuff.
| astrange wrote:
| Well, he is trustworthy on psychiatry even if he's a
| member of a religion that worships nonexistent AIs and
| Bayes' theorem.
|
| But his main posting hobby is that he wants to be friends
| with weird internet right-wing intellectuals and that you
| should too. So every time I glance at the comments there
| someone wants to give their opinions on exactly who is
| genetically less intelligent than the commenter.
| floxy wrote:
| I heard he's been known to wear white after labor day.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Yeah, that's not it.
| margalabargala wrote:
| To be clear- he isn't _just_ a "blogger about psychiatry",
| he is a licensed, practicing psychiatrist with an MD.
| [deleted]
| amusedcyclist wrote:
| I would not trust Scott Alexander on real science. He's a
| pseudo scientific hack with an agenda
| Tenoke wrote:
| Must really be a pretty bad right winger given that he
| talks so much about being liberal and donates to
| Democrats[0].
|
| 0. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/open-
| thread-217?s=r
| thebooktocome wrote:
| That article says he donated to what he considered an
| "Effective Altruist", so the party affiliation was
| probably secondary.
|
| Politically, he's a centrist with some
| libertarian/communitarian mix-ins. More conservative now
| than he was in the Archipelago days. [0]
|
| Dude used to love Musk and the other technocrats before
| that became cringe in actual leftist circles.
|
| [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-
| and-atomic...
| amusedcyclist wrote:
| Okay maybe hes not a right winger , just pseudo
| scientific
| Tenoke wrote:
| Or more likely given that your first claim was clearly
| incorrect you are just trying to paint him in a bad light
| and your specific accusations have little real basis.
| yewenjie wrote:
| and also an influential figure in the Effective Altruism/
| LessWrong communities. Interestingly enough, he also wrote a
| really enjoyable and clever fiction novel.
|
| https://unsongbook.com/
| [deleted]
| Yvain wrote:
| If you look at the link in the piece, you'll notice it isn't an
| affiliate link. If it were an affiliate link, it would have a
| linkcode section, or more likely just use the amzn.to link
| shortener that Amazon automatically applies to all its
| affiliate links unless you stop it.
|
| (source: I am the OP, I do have an Amazon affiliate link, and I
| chose not to use it in the article to avoid concerns like this
| one)
| prophesi wrote:
| Dang, sorry to wrongly call you out then! I saw
| "sr=8-2-spons" in the link which looked sponsor-related. But
| looking online, referral links generally have a tag
| parameter.
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| Anyone suffering from Restless Leg Syndrome, big caution. This
| drug, like SSRIs, can make the condition worse and/or trigger it.
| newobj wrote:
| Source? (Asking, not accusing)
|
| Counter-point?
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733501/
| beagle3 wrote:
| Will use this comment to say: Anyone suffering from Restless
| Leg Syndrome, some people report that iron supplement helps,
| some people report that flush niacin (pure vitamin B3 in primal
| form; NOT inositol hexanicotinate, NOT nicotinamide, NOT slow
| release) help.
|
| Be careful with advice on the internet (for all you know, I'm a
| dog). Iron overload is harmful. Niacin may cause a "flush"
| which is transient, but feels like your skin is sunburned for
| 20-30 minutes. Do your own research about amounts etc. Consult
| a medical professional if you don't feel qualified to do your
| own research. This is not medical advice, just some random
| info. (Though, it helped me a lot)
| uoaei wrote:
| I get the symptoms when I go to bed dehydrated. Chugging
| water helps me.
| manmal wrote:
| Start with 100mg Niacin or less. I can report that 500mg
| might induce an urge to go to the ER.
| arisAlexis wrote:
| Examine.com says it may be anticholinergic (that would explain
| some properties). If it's the case then it's not very good for
| longterm use, it may make you demented
| ddlutz wrote:
| My doctor suggested I take this last year for my GAD. I've been
| taking it since September, and it's definitely been a huge change
| for me. Previously, I was really "on edge" and would get panic
| attacks semi regularly. I haven't had a full panic attack since
| starting to take in, and day to day I feel much more like I'm
| able to function like a regular person instead of always having
| that "on edge" feeling.
|
| I guess it's possible it could be a placebo? Previously I was on
| lexapro for a while, and that didn't seem to be as effective as
| this, and had some side effects.
| guerrilla wrote:
| How long do you think it took to start working?
| ddlutz wrote:
| It took a couple weeks for me because I started with taking
| one daily at night, didn't notice much benefit, then took two
| per dr. recommendation. After that noticed benefit pretty
| quickly.
|
| One thing I did not expect which the article mentions is the
| "burps that taste like lavender". It was quite unexpected for
| me but I personally quite like them. I think my stomach might
| have gotten used to the lavender though because I would get
| them ever single time I took them for the first few weeks,
| and now it's maybe once a week some minor burp.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Yeah, I figured there'd be lavender burps... Did you grow
| breasts (assuming you didn't already have them)? (That
| seems to be a prevalent side effect)
| symlinkk wrote:
| None of this shit works. If it did it would be called medicine.
| astrange wrote:
| Caffeine is a very effective supplement that isn't sold as
| medicine. So's creatine.
|
| NAC is a pretty effective supplement which is also
| coincidentally a medicine sometimes which is why you can't get
| it on Amazon anymore.
| Smaug123 wrote:
| This is, of course, addressed in the article and associated
| comments - namely its second quote and the thread
| https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lavenders-game-silexan...
| .
| dsr_ wrote:
| Once it is proven to work, it's called medicine. Prior to that,
| it's unproven stuff that people are selling to you.
|
| The entire article is about evaluating the trustworthiness of
| the studies of this particular shit.
| strbean wrote:
| There are numerous studies supporting it's efficacy, but none
| that are really independent and conflict-free. This is the
| start of how something starts to be called medicine.
| xutopia wrote:
| I believe that most naturopath are charlatans, selling placebos
| for more money than they should. However a lot of molecules in
| use today were discovered in plants and proved their worth in
| double blind studies.
|
| This is preliminary... you may well be right but it's just a
| guess at this point.
| throwaway92394 wrote:
| I disagree just on the grounds that if they're confident it
| affects serotonin 1A receptors then there's definitely a
| decent chance it really does _something_. As mentioned
| Buspar/Buspirone is prescribed for anxiety and affects that
| exact receptor the most.
|
| Similarly I've seen NAC recommended a lot - by a doctor with
| a phd in neuropsychology. There's a lot of positive reports
| about it for several mental illnesses - and there's also
| reason to beleive it affects glutamate (and in turn GABA).
|
| I think the truth is that many chemicals (or plants) are
| overlooked. As long as there's a solid idea as to what the
| mechanism of action is, then I think it has a very real
| chance of being beneficial to someone.
|
| This wouldn't be the first psychoactive plant/fungus - Cacao,
| mushrooms, kava, marijuana, acaia (dmt) and opium are all
| relatively potent (noticable within an hour).
| op00to wrote:
| Yet we have "medicine" that you can buy that in fact is not at
| all effective (Phenylephrine, for example).
| Tao332 wrote:
| I saw it recently used in the cocktail being administered by
| an anesthesiologist during surgery. It seems to have a use in
| staving off hypotension during that sort of thing.
|
| Is it a nasal decongestant? Hell no.
| throwaway92394 wrote:
| Yeah I was going to say - definitely a real drug just a bad
| nasal decongestant - and generally overshadowed by other
| phenethylamines.
| nkozyra wrote:
| A long tail from the ephedra plant, once similarly an
| unregulated supplement that absolutely does stuff.
| dllthomas wrote:
| If you're unfamiliar, see
| https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/uselessness-
| phenyl....
|
| Where do you think Derek goes wrong?
| nkozyra wrote:
| Think of all the "medicine" that we have that came from folk
| cures or supplements.
|
| A lot of supplements/nootropics don't work, but a lot of them
| do. The issue is more their efficacy and safety.
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