> I don’t know. Maybe a little.
is not the right way to interpret the null result (insufficient evidence to reject null hypothesis that it has no effect) because the prior for supplements that people are trying to sell you is so low. In the absence of clear, strong evidence, you should assume the the whole thing is just an example of motivated reasoning. People want nootropics to be real, and other people really want to sell you readily available powders by claiming they have nootropic properties. In that environment, they were always going to trying to concoct a similar narrative about some supplement, and it just happened to be creatine. Those efforts were always going to result in a handful of "positive" studies that turn out to be non-reproducible, maybe because of p-hacking, maybe because of publication bias, maybe because of outright fraud. This is what the literature always looks like for stuff that just doesn't work. If it did work - if the effect size was large enough that you could personally detect it in your own life - then the papers would be trying to put error bars around the effect size, not trying (and failing) to barely distinguish it from a placebo.
“If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.” - Ernest Rutherford
So this is more like trying to determine whether ginseng is good at keeping away colds or whatever. Maybe it does (actually quickly searching this, it definitely does but let's pretend it's as folksy as it sounds for a minute) but even if it doesn't then it's harmless and has a bunch of other effects, so when one takes it - the whole possible cold prophylaxis can just be seen as an added perk.
So no, you should not take something merely because it's "probably harmless".
According to Reddit, Epsom salt has no effect (doesn’t absorb) - you’re wasting your time by using it. They’ll cite all sorts of real, funded studies that agree and yet always the comment section is filled with anecdotal evidence of the contrary - to which a typical response is “hot water in general is soothing” (ignoring efficacy of magnesium sulfate in ice baths).
I digress - creatine is a similar situation. All this confusion at best. It’s also not unlike the health effects of cannabis just prior to going effectively legal - it either causes or cures cancer, or something? We need more research! That’s the real problem!
Any time you see this sort of narrative it’s corporate politics and influence at play.
By virtue of how hard it is to get any information on creatine, it probably threatens some market or vertical at least (whether or not it “works”). Like A. muscaria mushroom or sassafras, you’ll have to do your own research to really know.
Basically, HN doing HN things - having a good deep think about topics outside their realm of expertise, then debating the minutiae. I'd just rather trust someone who has spent their career researching this stuff, thanks (unless that's what you do - in which case please tell us more).
The fact that there's a biologically plausible mechanism plus mixed statistical evidence makes "maybe" a perfectly reasonable conclusion.
You also seem to reject the possibility that some things help just a bit. The author has another article in the same vein about "things that can help maybe a bit but the evidence we have doesn't really help detecting small effects" https://dynomight.net/vitamin-d/
Their conclusion seems like an absolutely fair interpretation of what they saw, and it also strikes me as dangerous -- perhaps more dangerous -- to suggest "writer genuinely believes, or doesn't believe, a thing, but they should say it differently from their own interpretation because..people are dumb?" Something like that.
No noticeable cognitive difference/improvement. And the more I've researched creatine the less convinced I am that there are reliable conclusions about cognitive impacts.
Significant physical changes! But other than the pure aesthetics, it's hard to say that my strength increases are tied to creatine or instead a solid routine, plan, diet, and progressive overload. Probably some all of above.
I also take whey protein isolate (20-25g at least once a day)
The Nootropic space fascinates me. A few observations:
- Not sure if caffeine is considered nootropic. Caffeine definitely makes a difference.
- Unclear if placebo effect or real, L-theanine seems to help with calm and focus.
- Otherwise, when it comes to what I'm sure alters my state/body/etc. - drugs! And I'm not suggesting anything specific but my point is the effects are obvious/real/etc. vs. much of the supplement space that suffers from very murky conclusions (imo).
Each 2-ounce rollmop contains about a gram or two of creatine, sometimes more. Steak is about a gram per 8 ounces.
If you can afford it, it's way nicer than choking down that powder in water getting all crunchy in your teeth and stuff.
It's decent pre-workout food although not for everyone as mentioned elsewhere in the comments here (Something like 20% of people don't see any workout endurance benefits)
If I know I'm only going to get a few hours of sleep, I'll take 5–10 g of creatine, drink plenty of water, and go to bed. The next morning, I usually don't wake up with a headache.
If I skip the creatine under the same conditions, I'm much more likely to wake up with a headache after a short night's sleep.
Now it's become a habit, I automatically take creatine whenever I know my sleep duration is going to be much shorter than usual.
Anecdotal so safe to ignore this… but my hair did thin out but only after I was lazier on my work outs. Stopped taking and hair mostly returned to normal thank God.
this is wrong [0] , it's just hard to measure.
Also search for 'sleep' in this comment section, seems many see similar improvements!
Why is "gains" spelled this way? I found myself suddenly trusting the whole thing a little less. But maybe I'm missing something. Is this jargon in the body building world or something? Author being cheeky?
The cited paper in Wikipedia might be accurate and the author is just expecting "at rest" to mean awake but mostly idle. I'd wager that during sleep, we use less than 100W. For the sake of argument if you take out 8 hours (asleep time) from a 24 hour period, you end up with a rate of ~0.8681 grams per second, much closer to 1g/s. Anyway, just a little fun with numbers.
I’ve researched it quite a bit and found that others do experience it as well, but the usual advice of “just drink more water” (which yes, I have tried) is about the extent of info I find on it. Then, the “it causes your body to retain more water” idea which doesn’t seem to be accurate as what I’ve understood is that it causes your muscles to store more water…
If the cognitive effects are real, they aren’t noticeable to me without placebo effect. Meaning, I hadn’t heard any notion of creatine impacting cognitive function and I’ve been taking it on and off for years, and never noticed anything.
Thinking back, maybe an uptick in mood and a mental performance while tired? Purely unscientific, though.
Like being tired, stressed, etc...
Here are the sleep deprivation studies
They missed a zero behind the comma, didn't they?
The one thing this misses is many supplements are tainted, which skews the popular perception of both upsides and risks. This was especially true in the US prior to 2005 or so when prohormones were still legal over the counter. Anything branded that wasn't just pure creatine was extremely likely to actually be a low-dose oral steroid, which really can make you lose hair and will increase strength quite a bit more than any dietary supplement.
This also misses caffeine as the other a-tier supplement that consistently shows strength increases in RCTs, though of course, caffeine is more frought than creatine because you build tolerance and it can disturb sleep.
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Up to 50 Cal extra over ~2 hours of intense thinking IS significant given brains consume 240-400 Cal over 24 hours.
> Start thinking hard, and watch as your heart rate does not increase.
And yet you soon get tired and slow down. Now try the opposite. Stretch or punch the air a few times to get the heart rate going. You'll sustain brain performance for longer. Try it.
Perhaps the problem is that higher brain activity SHOULD trigger heart rate increase, but doesn't due to one of many design defects of the human body.
Well, yes. It is well known that you must eat fish, beef, i.e., animal protein, to get close to optimal levels of creatine.
I never ended up doing it because you had to cycle it, and it was just one more thing to track
Is it the same case in 2026? Is there a simple pill I can take?
You can just take 3-5g daily.
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It could be underlying genetic predisposition to hair loss, but I do believe the creatine had an accelerating effect. When I stopped taking creatine, the rate of hair loss noticeably slowed down throughout the rest of my 20s.
Although OP's post says "There is no mechanistic reason to think that would happen." but I don't think that's true. Creatine is known to increase DHT, and higher levels of DHT is linked to hair loss.
if you truly want fuel for the brain nothing beats keto
Is creatine safe to supplement for children?
exits stage left
I'll be here all week folks!
The vegan/vegetarian is a big spectrum. A vegetarian eating plenty of dairy products and eggs should in theory be much better creatine-equipped than a poor vegan student feeding on noodles and ketchup pastas. A lot of pseudo-meat for vegans are full of processed shit.
Confusion will be even higher if you include fish in the vegetarian diet, which is odd but some people do that.
Could the cognitive effect works in the case of creatine deficiency (vegan) and not in the case a vegetarian (low creatine but not deficient) ?
> Does creatine make you smarter?
> I don’t know. Maybe a little.
People are throwing away their money
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It safely builds muscle and boosts cognition.
More like "probably", "yes", and "probably not."
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You and I should not. But I'm also not going to bother correcting someneone taking homeopathy for a cold. It doesn't do anything. But unless it contains heavy metals, it also isn't hurting.
When I found ivermectin in my father's fridge, on the other hand, I absolutely asked him what he was taking it for. When I confirmed he's also taking real medicine, I dropped it provided he told his doctor in case there are drug interactions. (There aren't. Ivermectin is pretty safe. That's why the nutters congregate around it.)
The actual things that I now swear by and actually help is consistent sleep of whatever hours that doesn't make you feel sleepy in the day/night (depending on shift) since actual consistency matters more then timing and also in case of workouts really balancing the fatigue to intensity ratio. I understood this late and thought one should always push hard but there needs to be a balance. It's kind of like how cheetah can run really fast but only for 20-30 seconds and then it needs a 30 minute reset period or something. So if you go to failure or always at very high intensity it affects later sets and increases recovery period and in a way driving down overall weekly sets/volume which is main hypertrophy factor.
That might be relatively likely.
Clearly measurably neutrally and scientifically -- or clearly measurable as measured by supplement company funding studies or cherry-picked by health influencers?
It doesn't make you a genius. I think a better view on it is that it may mitigate some of the adhs symptoms (at least for me).
I can keep on track for a significantly longer time since ive started supplementing with it at ~15g/day - and while i dont feel a difference, i can observe it when actually paying attention to what i do / how often i drift off etc.
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"look to the left of you, look to the right of you, one of you isn't real"
Especially when the guy so into code cleanliness can barely dress himself, can't design well, and so-on.
A lot more parallels between visual design / art and people who structure code nicely in files and use the "latest syntax" (omg so clean)
What exactly is hard about that? You can get all sorts of information about creatine, it is one of the most studied supplement ever.
What they “doubt” is that it can be absorbed through the skin.
But anyone who takes magnesium tablets can tell you the effect is the same.
And it is studied btw - problem is there are countless on both sides.
Who disputed this?
> What they “doubt” is that it can be absorbed through the skin
The science is helpful. Magnesium sulfate is absorbed less effectively than magnesium chloride. Of course, you're not eating the amount of Epsom salts one dumps in a bath.
> And it is studied btw - problem is there are countless on both sides
This is why meta analysis exists.
But sure, keep believing they are on your side.
Is discussing such secondary but still highly relevant aspects verboten? Must every comment here be by a lead researcher in the specific field? Would a biomedical science researcher necessarily have any more expertise on these important secondary aspects?
"Trust me, I'm a scientitian". No thanks.
It is a hell of a thing for a random person on an internet forum to be so unilateral, without providing some kind of strong evidence (aside from statements about "the industry", which is kind of beside the point). I would also suggest if you want to be so unequivocal, that the burden of proof is especially high for you.
This "point" isn't actually all that rational - it's knee jerk skepticism. It's a fine default for yourself, but it's not something you get to force on others because they admit there's room for the potential of benefit.
Again: You're perfectly fine to hold that opinion yourself, but when you start trying to force that on others - you now have an especially high bar to reach, and yes - being a lead researcher in the field is exactly what I'm looking for when someone says "X has been proven to not have a benefit for Y".
"Trust me, I'm a scientitian" - Not sure the point of that juvenile wordplay, but Ok: we do have these things called scientists, some are good, some are terrible. You still need to back up your statements - that's the key part, this isn't a blind appeal to authority. And it's a hell of a lot better than "Trust me, I'm a nerd with very strong beliefs about a topic I know very little about".
It'll be people arguing about exact language not being someone's preferred level, or overloading the importance and exact definition of a technical term that experts don't really care about, or blowing up some edge case or another.
That's why I dropped creatine since I didn't notice any benefits when I tried it for a year.
That said it's obviously the right decision to drop it if you're not seeing any effects. The interesting thing about creatine is that people's bodies are very different in their natural levels of creatine, and if you're already at 'saturation' then more creatine isn't going to do anything. Same reason the typical benefits of creatine don't show much difference beyond 5g/day. That's enough to send the overwhelming majority of people towards 'saturation.'
But speaking of creatine itself, while not inherently toxic, consuming large doses can cause serious indirect harms, such as triggering falsely elevated kidney markers on blood tests that lead doctors to misdiagnose organ failure, unnecessarily cancel crucial medical treatments, or order invasive biopsies. Furthermore, overloading the body with creatine while taking kidney-stressing medications (like heavy doses of ibuprofen) or having an undetected renal condition can cause actual acute kidney strain, while the massive shift of water into muscle cells can trigger severe dehydration, heat exhaustion, and electrolyte imbalances during intense heat or exercise if fluid intake falls behind.
But, I don't want to belabour the point about creatine. Rather, I want to focus on the negatives stemming from NOT doing other things that ARE proven to be safe and effective. People tend to think creatine will solve a lot of their problems (for instance, they may believe it will fix their feeling of being "low energy). But by avoiding things that might actually help their problem get better, they're persisting a poor state of health.
“There's a sucker born every minute.”
I think mostly through placebo effect, people buy a supplement to treat condition X and they think it's getting better, so they keep buying.
I mean, just look at the wide variety of homeopathic "cures" that are often so diluted that there might not be any molecules of the active ingredient left. Yet people keep buying it.
I'm sure that the comic wants to be sarcastic but is missing the mark here. This is how science works. Trying and failing every color except green, does not mean that the green experiment has an invalid result.
The author is not understanding that each experiment is independent.
The correct cartoon should show researchers trying green jellybeans 100 times, with 99 negative results and one positive result, and then the press keeping only the positive (Or in this comic, claiming that all jellybeans produce acne).
Mocking the scientific method, and showing scientists as lazy people that play video-games is funny, but is just a cartoon, not the reality. People should not take XKCD as god's speech without any critical thinking. This in your workplace says to me "I don't really understand statistics".
There is an effect that is statistically rare just by chance, AND is consistently absent within a huge control group of "non-green jellybeans" (the author seems to think that this weakens the result, but in fact is reinforcing it). And it needs further research. Not less, not more.
You could have skipped the wall of text. They didn’t find a link. They found a random correlation.
The scientists here essentially engaged in P-hacking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging
Munroe didn’t misunderstand the independence of the experiments at all. He understands that misleading spurious results can arise from repeated experiments.
> And it needs further research. Not less, not more.
No it doesn’t. At least not anymore than the other colors. A positive result is no more deserving of further investigation than a negative result. What you are describing is bad science.
> A positive result is no more deserving of further investigation than a negative result.
This is not how science works.
Your null hypothesis is rejected, you publish and continue trying to explain why. Otherwise you stop and try something different.
Films have sold us the idea that science can be done in the countdown of a bomb, experiments take 30 seconds; and if it does not work in the first try, it means that you are not a real genius. The weird guys build a time machine in a weekend with empty cans of soda, and the hackers broke into high security buildings with a paperclip and then remove their glasses and nobody recognizes then anymore. Yeah. Master of disguise. This Big Bird costume pays for itself every time we break into the Pentagon. G'morning Mr Hegseth
But this is a fantasy, not the real life. Scientists stumble and limp all the way. Even the geniuses. Specially the geniuses. And they faint at the price of the required spare part that must be ordered and imported from one, and only one, company in Finland, and will be here in five months. Meanwhile, researchers throw things to the wall to see what sticks, and laser focus on the unexpected strange result that is different in a subtle way, because their grants depend on it.
> "Single dose creatine improves cognitive performance and induces changes in cerebral high energy phosphates during sleep deprivation"
You need a dose high enough to penetrate the blood-brain barrier, around 0.3g/kg (so ~30g for a 100kg person).
The mouth-tapers aren’t always wrong (though we do always look silly).
Kinesio tape seems to be the solution
I've also heard just practicing circular breathing by blowing through a straw into a cup of water can produce the same effect but playing a didge is just so much cooler.
But seriously, yeah pretty much, usually with some beeswax on one end.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48243666
I haven't read into it much but I believe the circular breathing excercises strengthen some of the muscles that tend to relax during sleep so they keep your airway open.
It might have some kind of neuroprotective effect. For people who are already very healthy, there may be no measurable difference. But for the rest of us, it may be more helpful.
I'm reminded of something I read about dual n-back. (I forget where, it might have been Gwern page on it.) Someone said that when they are sleep deprived, they feel totally fine, but their n-back score absolutely tanks.
It might be interesting to test that, the intersection of sleep deprivation, creatine and objective measures of executive function. That could give us more data on the "helps most in stressed cases" theory.
So as long as you’re trying things, CBT is the most evidence-based long-term solution for the (very likely) cause of your insomnia.
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And protein is just convenient way to hit daily protein intake goals for someone doing lots of sports.
No. They're not steroids.
But to be more specific:
* Protein supplements make it easier for your body to get the protein required for whatever demand you're putting on it. You need higher protein intake to growth than to sustain muscle. If you were on protein supplementation during a growth phase, and then transitioned to a maintain, and stopped supplementing, while making sure your actual diet was sufficient, then you could in principle maintain your muscle mass with no problem. The extrapolation of this is that in principle, you could always replace protein supplements with "real food", regardless of phase and get pretty much the same benefits. There may be lifestyle/ease/cost tradeoffs.
* Creatine supplementation helps your body get "a little extra" work done. The direct boost that creatine grants you is real, but also like... small. I think it's often visualized as "it helps you get that one extra rep/half rep". Where creatine pays off is that by sustainably helping you get that one extra rep, it helps create greater demand on your body over time, therefore promoting more growth. If you stopped creatine supplementation, you would probably lose that "extra rep", but all the extra growth that you got would be locked in.
* Caffeine... well, that's far more psychological. Leaving the world of sports, as a knowledge worker, I've committed myself to my addiction. The withdrawal is real, and even if I worked through the headache, I definitely do not feel as sharp.
So drinking water part is consistent with or without creatine. I do know the creatine takes a while to build up, so i don't know why it works but it does.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21517-dehydra...
>Headache pain often appears along with other signs and symptoms of dehydration, including darker-than-usual pee, dry mouth and fatigue
none of these symptoms are true for me.
How old are you?
Also, working out helps reduce stress. Does it seem more plausible that getting lazier on your workouts, rather than the creatine, increased stress in your life, thus the hair thinning?
I have never heard of creatine causing thinning hair.
BTW, it tends to trash the eGFR test which relies on an unbiased creatinine reading.
But they fail to account for ice baths with Epsom.
Similarly you fail to account for anyone who takes creatine with any other food or beverage.
So I don’t love such theories.
There's also no shortage of expensive water bottles being sold, and smart water bottles that track your drinking frequencies and flavor pods sold via subscription.
Like many hippie health trends that then go mainstream, a lot of it seems to filter in from Rastafarian traditions, where in the Ital diet they believe that alkaline water coming from the Blue Mountains in Jamaica (and other natural springs there which are naturally alkaline) help detoxify the acids in the body.
Since taking creatine I feel so much more energized. I can make it through the day with just 2 coffees (was previously drinking 5 coffees and an energy drink).
Maybe it's placebo. Maybe it's not. I don't really care. I feel the benefit and I love it.
At a certain point I was wondering if it was just placebo, stopped taking it for a month or so, and was quickly back to feeling tired after training. Started taking it again, back to feeling energized. It really does work.
"Other studies already proved those effects with creatine with a normal dose schedule, what they were testing is if a single high dose would have a beneficial effect too, which it did. A normal schedule is 3-5g per day with an optional loading phase of 10-20g per day during 7 days.
In the study they used a single dose of 0.35g/kg which means 20-40g per dose. How do they not get diarrhea? The loading phase is usually split into several doses to avoid diarrhea and I can personally attest to that being a good idea."
What the above doesn't tell you is that taking a loading dose can draw water into your intestines causing diarrhea. You probably can guess how I found this out.
Creatine works because of buffering ATP and creatine kinase.
A problem though is that 1lb of chicken breast contains about 1.5 grams of creatine.
If a person is already eating a modern high protein diet, they are most likely already getting a decent amount of creatine.
I would imagine a vegetarian taking creatine would get a much better effect.
Yes. It’s very rare for a supplement to have such strong and consistent evidence.
A widely-cited review says that short-term supplementation increases maximal power/strength by 5-15%. This in turn may increase the long-term gainz from strength-training exercise. Creatine also increases sprint performance by 1-5%. Though, there seems to be little if any benefit for endurance exercise like long-distance running.
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If it’s really hard to measure because the amount is so small that it requires precise equipment, it’s not significant relative to the rest of the body’s energy expenditure.
The other was a periodic check. Both times, BP returned to normal over the course of about a week when I stopped creatine supplementation with no other changes.
Perhaps you can say "danger to your hair is rare", but there's very clearly (to me at least) an effect there, and the way it gets hand-waved away is strange to me.
Just curious for other folks experiences as they are on or off creatine in parallel with other hair interventions.
In college Ripped Fuel wasn't banned yet. We would take two, go to the gym for 2 hours, shower, then go out until the sun came up the next day. It's no surprise it was eventually banned. I think some people ended up dying by taking too many.
Last I checked, the only study actually focusing on this is n=38, out of Iran, and has heavy conflict of interest issues (funded by the supplement industry).
That's not remotely sufficient to consider this a settled fact.
Creatine is not an anabolic steroid and does not increase testosterone levels, according to Harvard Health, so while there was 1 suspicious study that claimed that creatine increased DHT, that study has afterwards not been able to be replicated, and since creatine does not manipulate hormones but rather energy instead, it seems to as closes a possible to being a settled fact sans the final nail in the coffin.
It was always start by 'loading' and then cruise at 5g. Of course GNC was filled with sugar filled "delivery" products like Celltech that claimed to forego any need for 'loading'.
As for pills, yes, there is about every form of creatine supplement now, even chewing gum, but this is just dumb, how much of creatine do you think you can consume this way in a day?
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It’s just resurfacing as a general health fad/marketing campaign.
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Meat Is Murder but Fish Is Justifiable Homicide.
- Something in the way, Nirvana
Into what?
Drinking the same Epsom salt in water that you soak in has the same effect as soaking in hot or cold water with it, and it's also the same effect as taking magnesium supplements sold over the counter.
You can try it yourself - totally safe. You already eat magnesium all the time.
Whatever you're doing with your comment, I'm not convinced.
> That's why I dropped creatine since I didn't notice any benefits when I tried it for a year.
Some percentage of people (~20%) are creatine non-responders [1]. It's pretty reasonable to try creatine and then drop it if you find no benefit. I personally find the gain very marginal.
My level at tennis dropped too, but bicycle endurance remained the same.
I stopped because of high blood creatinine, and wanted to see what baseline was
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B...
Creatine supplementation not having significant effect in X domain in population level does not mean that it will not have effect on YOU if for example you are vegan and don't get enough creatine from diet. If you have low energy, probably you have something that may not show in a population level. Similarly you may be low in B12 and then B12 can help you, but it may not show effects in population level if most of the population is not low in B12 (and your study is not powered enough to catch nuances).
It is not like when you have to choose between two medicines and excluding one can be harmful even if the other is not harmful to take per se. You can supplement creatine and try whatever else at the same time.
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They ran the same experiment 20 times with a meaningless variable changed until they got a positive result with a confidence of 95%. (i.e. 1/20 chance of a random positive result.)
The point of the comic is that this is bad science. Or at least it is ver bad science reporting. This kind of nonsense is why there is a multibillion dollar market for supplements that do not hold up to further testing.
> This is not how science works in the real life.
True. There is a lot of bad science in real life.
P-hacking doesn't mean doing a lot of experiments. This is called working hard or going the extra mile. Working hard is not cheating. That the real scientists would do is frown upon the green jellybean result, think "hum, this is strange" and test further for effects of the green dye in other products. Science knowledge is in-cre-men-tal.
P-hacking is: changing the statistical model that you use to analyze the data, until you find one that gives you the desired (publishable) p-value.
P-hacking is manipulating the methodology in your favor and sometimes grooming the data also. All of that while ignoring other models available known to be more robust, precise and better for your particular case. This is why p-hacking is cheating.
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Second. There are a market for fake supplements because, to express it crudely: people is idiot and the government does not care about them.
1) Some people didn't cared to learn even basic biology at the school, and will believe that the moon is made of cheese if it comes from somebody in their tribal team. Scientists take a lot of pain to assure that their knowledge is available to the public.
There are thousands of scientific articles about creatine. Never has been so easy in the history to find them. And with AI, you don't even need to read the whole horror anymore, to have a general idea of cons and pros before to jump in the water. Do your f*k homework before to gulp a mysterious pill. If not. Don't blame scientists later.
2) The government make laws. Is not scientists fault, if it allows to sell legally dubious supplements, or even more if politicians profit of it, (ehum, mandated testosterone tests for every soldier, ka-ching!).
Their job is to protect citizens from scammers. Most countries ban anything that is remotely medical and not proven effective, or at least advice strongly against taking it.
It’s literally a comic about how spurious results arise.
I understand what you are trying to get at with your insistence on pedantically misreading the comic, but you’re missing the forest for the trees.
> Your null hypothesis is rejected, you publish and continue trying to explain why.
In this case the “why” is “we ran so many experiments that a false positive was inevitable”.
> Otherwise you stop and try something different.
“Only publish the positive results” is exactly the problem. This is terrible science because it magnifies false positives and hides the negatives (false or not). Do enough experiments and eventually you get a positive result for basically anything.
Not really. In the US at least, there’s the “Lead And Copper Rule”, which effectively requires utilities to adjust water composition to make the water minimally corrosive to copper and to lead. This often involves delivering water at a pH higher than 7. (San Francisco, for example, has water pH near 9, although it seems to be on the high end compared to other systems.)
$50 for flavoured salt is pure insanity.
If you can say "Oh yea that makes sense" with the same set of knowledge you had both before and after some event happens, all else being equal, you have an expectation. That is enough for placebo.
You have to have literally 0 knowledge about an event to rule out placebo.
I drink lots of water. Lots and lots, to the point that it’s already kind of annoying how frequently I have to piss. I’m fairly skeptical that drinking yet more would yield any benefits.