I looked for orange flavor online, especially in bulk on alibaba and flavor supply, as well as smaller consumer packages, and it seemed to in basically every case mean orange essential oils, which I don’t think have citric acid as it is hydrophilic (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_oil). If said oil did give citric acid, so would the lemon oil. No clue exactly though.
You didn’t look closely, correct. The literature does engage with the “mannitol, sorbitol, citric acid, glycine, and many others may cause past studies to not find an effect”. At least five of the eight studies referenced in the meta analysis, the meta analysis itself, the other paper, and many other studies make statements to that effect and are designed to avoid it. It’s still a mess though.
As for testing yourself—unless you do a blinded, well done, long term, controlled self experiment a la Gwern, it’s so easy to make a mistake that it probably is meaningless. I have over the internet seen hundreds of “this worked for me!” with many different methods of confirmation and levels of confidence—most of them ended up being very wrong. Here, Gwern takes magnesium—sees a benefit or signs of benefit—then does several detailed and careful self experiments and finds it causes significant harm. https://www.gwern.net/nootropics/Magnesium There are so many other examples.
Fair enough re: flavoring. (I did have a quick look myself earlier, but didn’t find anything. Thanks for being more thorough.)
The literature does engage with the “mannitol, sorbitol, citric acid, glycine, and many others may cause past studies to not find an effect”. At least five of the eight studies referenced in the meta analysis, the meta analysis itself, the other paper, and many other studies make statements to that effect and are designed to avoid it.
To clarify, do they do “we tested a zinc lozenge with some of these things and a zinc lozenge without (and maybe also a placebo)”? That’s the kind of thing I meant by taking it seriously. If we want to compare condition A and condition B, my sense is we can learn a lot less from “study on condition A, study by different group on condition B” than a study comparing them directly.
As for testing yourself—unless you do a blinded, well done, long term, controlled self experiment a la Gwern, it’s so easy to make a mistake that it probably is meaningless.
Eh, honestly I just don’t think this is true in this case. There are ways I could have made mistakes—it’s possible that
The first cold I took them for just got better really fast naturally.
And then I didn’t catch one for a year and a half, despite twice thinking I was coming down with one.
And then when I did get one, it had fast onset and unusually light symptoms. Or I just didn’t remember what it was like to have a cold by then.
Or maybe I got more colds than that and completely forgot about them. I acknowledge that this kind of thing is possible. I don’t think it’s super likely. I definitely don’t think it’s likely enough that I should consider my experience meaningless.
I looked for orange flavor online, especially in bulk on alibaba and flavor supply, as well as smaller consumer packages, and it seemed to in basically every case mean orange essential oils, which I don’t think have citric acid as it is hydrophilic (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_oil). If said oil did give citric acid, so would the lemon oil. No clue exactly though.
You didn’t look closely, correct. The literature does engage with the “mannitol, sorbitol, citric acid, glycine, and many others may cause past studies to not find an effect”. At least five of the eight studies referenced in the meta analysis, the meta analysis itself, the other paper, and many other studies make statements to that effect and are designed to avoid it. It’s still a mess though.
As for testing yourself—unless you do a blinded, well done, long term, controlled self experiment a la Gwern, it’s so easy to make a mistake that it probably is meaningless. I have over the internet seen hundreds of “this worked for me!” with many different methods of confirmation and levels of confidence—most of them ended up being very wrong. Here, Gwern takes magnesium—sees a benefit or signs of benefit—then does several detailed and careful self experiments and finds it causes significant harm. https://www.gwern.net/nootropics/Magnesium There are so many other examples.
Fair enough re: flavoring. (I did have a quick look myself earlier, but didn’t find anything. Thanks for being more thorough.)
To clarify, do they do “we tested a zinc lozenge with some of these things and a zinc lozenge without (and maybe also a placebo)”? That’s the kind of thing I meant by taking it seriously. If we want to compare condition A and condition B, my sense is we can learn a lot less from “study on condition A, study by different group on condition B” than a study comparing them directly.
Eh, honestly I just don’t think this is true in this case. There are ways I could have made mistakes—it’s possible that
The first cold I took them for just got better really fast naturally.
And then I didn’t catch one for a year and a half, despite twice thinking I was coming down with one.
And then when I did get one, it had fast onset and unusually light symptoms. Or I just didn’t remember what it was like to have a cold by then.
Or maybe I got more colds than that and completely forgot about them. I acknowledge that this kind of thing is possible. I don’t think it’s super likely. I definitely don’t think it’s likely enough that I should consider my experience meaningless.