Chances are if you've used the home remedy at some point.

Maybe it was an herbal tea for a cold.

Maybe your college roommate told you to try an essential oil of the dull headache and

you ended up smelling like lavender, perhaps you used a plant-based supplement for a better night's sleep.

Maybe it was Vix vapor rub for congestion, mosquito bites, and pretty much any ailment that your family and grandparents

thought that you had and Vix would fix it.

Maybe it was ginger ale for an upset stomach when you were a young child.

Whatever these things are, the point is that you've probably tried it at some point,

and as health care providers now, you're questioning whether or not these things worked,

and more importantly

should you try it again and should you be recommending it to your patients now.

Now it's not clear why a home remedy does the trick.

Is there an actual physiological change that's happening in our body

from these plant-based-derived things or maybe Vix vapor rub truly is the cure to everything?

Or maybe it's just a placebo effect.

We're not sure for a lot of them, but what we have found out is in recent decades,

scientists have looked at a lot of home remedies that are both cultural, that are both sort of ingrained into the US

populace, and more importantly they've discovered whether or not some of these things are real

or are some of these things just old wives tales.

And so what we're going to do this week and this podcast is go over some of the most common

home remedies that you're going to have your patients come in and tell you they tried and some of the ones that you can actually

then tell your patients. Why don't you go ahead and try this. It may help, you may not fix it,

...