217
votes
Accepted
Can drinking "harmonized" water prevent sunburn
The study that the company uses to prove that "scalar waves" give human skin the ability to "neutralize" UV rays is bunk, for a multitude of reasons.
Instead of commenting on the ...
- 22.4k
82
votes
Accepted
Is Reiki scientifically valid/proven?
There is a review article: Effects of reiki in clinical practice: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials International Journal of Clinical Practice
Volume 62, Issue 6, pages 947–954, June ...
- 106k
76
votes
Can drinking "harmonized" water prevent sunburn
In addition to the other excellent answers, which already show that the product is not to be trusted, I'd like to point out two more reasons why one should be worried about the "research" being ...
- 78.6k
65
votes
Is the skeptical movement an offshoot of the Communist Party?
The claim, "The skeptical movement is an offshoot of the Communist Party" is not found in either of the links provided. The first link says, "I know that not all skeptics have these roots." The second ...
- 44.9k
60
votes
Can drinking "harmonized" water prevent sunburn
While anything is possible, there is absolutely no reason to believe these claims, mostly because the claims don't make any sense scientifically.
"Scalar waves" is a meaningless term, as ...
- 9,688
38
votes
Is Reiki scientifically valid/proven?
Reiki is a framework that the Japanese Buddhist Mikao Usui developed in 1922. In Mikau Usui own account he didn't find it through empiric investigation but says that the Reiki methology came as a ...
- 33.3k
36
votes
Is seemingly bare-hands surgery (with no instruments) fake?
Your video is an example of what is known as psychic surgery. The practioners claim to be able to treat and heal many diseases.
Psychic surgery is a fake. It does not heal anything. Its ...
- 5,568
22
votes
Can heat cure COVID-19, the common flu and the common cold?
"Are there any peer reviewed studies regarding the efficacy of heating the sinuses as a treatment for COVID-19, or more generally upper respiratory diseases?"
No. None that I could find. ...
- 59.8k
18
votes
Accepted
Can honey help heal wounds?
In short, yes. Picking one of the first recent publications to come up in my search for "honey wound healing", I give you Honey and Wound Healing: An Update (DOI 10.1007/s40257-016-0247-8), which "...
- 852
18
votes
Can drinking "harmonized" water prevent sunburn
tl;dr- The collection of claims about "Harmonized Water" appear to be incoherent gibberish which prevents us from falsifying them ("not even wrong"). If this were a real product, a common chemistry ...
- 4,111
17
votes
Accepted
Does drinking cattle urine have health benefits?
This is a religiously motivated idea. And it is very probably a quite terrible idea from a health perspective. It is definitively a terrible idea from a taste perspective. After reviewing the ...
- 44.1k
17
votes
Accepted
Are most humans infected with parasites that water fasting can eliminate?
It is NOT TRUE that "most humans are hosts to these parasitic worms called Ascaris lumbricoides (Roundworms)."
Ascariasis (CDC.gov, 2018):
An estimated 807 million–1.2 billion people in the world ...
- 5,002
14
votes
Accepted
What is the actual position of WHO regarding alternative medicine
The WHO's position on alternative medicine seems to be the same as their position on conventional medicine: if it is proven to work and proven to be safe, go ahead and use it.
The document you linked ...
- 11.4k
12
votes
Does inhaling steam from fresh-boiled potatoes help with a cold/flu cough or congestion?
It sounds like this is a Russian variant of a common home remedy of inhaling steam as a decongestant. [Examples: The Health Site, WebMD]
The Cochrane Library reviewed the evidence: Heated, humidified ...
- 141k
9
votes
Does Ginkgo Biloba "promote memory"?
While some studies have promoted Ginkgo Biloba as possibly having these effects, the results have been mixed at best, and the claims seem to be unlikely.
WebMD says the following with regards to ...
- 22.4k
9
votes
Do crystals have healing powers?
Short version
There is no evidence that Crystal Healing works, beyond placebo.
Longer version
Wikipedia introduces crystal healing as a "pseudoscientific alternative medicine technique".
Wikipedia ...
- 141k
9
votes
Accepted
Does Steve G. Jones have the title "Dr"?
Yes! He has a Doctor of Education degree from Georgia Southern University.
His website is stevegjones.com and on his about page he claims to have:
Ed.D. (Doctor of Education), GSU (Georgia Southern ...
- 8,424
8
votes
Can 'resonant frequencies' kill cancer cells?
Short version
This is a partial answer, as I've traced this back far enough to find significant connections to pseudo-science and basis for doubt, but I haven't found any sources that directly refute ...
- 4,111
7
votes
Does cupping have medical benefits?
Most of what I will repeat here comes from a blogger that goes by the moniker of Skeptical Raptor. In particular, his looking into the research. In his article, he cites two main sources (which ...
- 9,257
6
votes
Can 'resonant frequencies' kill cancer cells?
The FDA approval is confirmed in FDA's press 2015 release, which mentions a trial, because it would have been absurd for the FDA to give apporoval otherwise:
In the clinical study used to support ...
- 59.8k
6
votes
Are most humans infected with parasites that water fasting can eliminate?
Fasting, and or eating of weird stuff can make roundworms move, but they get no benefit from leaving the body, so they migrate internally. They procreate by "eggs", thus the notion of them leaving ...
- 1,625
6
votes
Has shea butter been clinically proven to help?
Just to focus on one of the specific claims, a journal article from 2009 describes what the authors believed to be the first clinical application of shea butter to treat eczema (aka atopic dermatitis)....
- 7,350
5
votes
Accepted
Is vinegar a sunburn remedy?
There seems to be indeed not much done for this research on a definitively not patentable solution. Most online sources craving credibility for this claim mention the University of Pittsburgh. ...
- 44.1k
5
votes
Is acupuncture an effective treatment?
Linde, Klaus, et al. "Acupuncture for tension-type headache." Cochrane Database Syst Rev 1.1 (2009)., based on eleven trials with 2317 participants (median 62, range 10 to 1265) that met the ...
- 7,260
5
votes
Accepted
Are fish oil capsules beneficial?
There is insufficient evidence to say that intake of fish oil supplements (high in omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA) reduce the risk of heart or other disease.
1) Omega-3 intake for cardiovascular ...
- 5,002
5
votes
Do lipid droplets in our skin create a laser?
If we discard the "activates programs" part of the claim as unclear that leaves the claim that lipid droplets in the skin create coherent light when stimulated by the sun.
A laser requires the ...
- 15.9k
4
votes
Accepted
Is Kambo frog poison dangerous and/or useful?
According to professor Chris Shaw, who was interviewed in the article you linked, the evidence for Kambo's effectiveness is a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10. "Kambo is not scientifically proven for treatment....
- 12k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible