This could be telling in a way though, don't you think? Scurvy is a fun example of what I mean. Most people now know that scurvy is just a disease caused by a lack of vitamin c. But for centuries it was not really understood what caused it, and it has resulted in countless millions of deaths throughout the centuries. Some people would discover the cure, but it never really stuck around. Part of this is because it sounds so absurd that e.g. eating limes is a way to stop an otherwise aggressive and deadly disease. Imagine I suggested you eat apples to stave off the flu. Sounds, at best, 'folky.'
And this was also further complicated by the fact that lime juice can lose its nutritional character in some situations (such as certain sorts of storage), and so some experiments in using lime juice as a cure/prophylactic failed. It was also complicated because there's also high quantities of vitamin C in various fresh meats, and so crews that had access to these meats, but consumed minimal citrus, would also never seem to be affected. Tricky to nail down!
As a fun factoid, vitamin c is ascorbic acid, but it wasn't always called that. It was originally named hexuronic acid. It was renamed ascorbic (against scurvy) acid once it was confirmed that it was indeed absolutely what was treating and preventing scurvy. Another fun one is that this is also related to the slang term for a Brit - a 'limey'. The nickname came from the fact that the British navy was one of the first to start dosing their sailors with lemon/lime juice to ward off scurvy.
So the point of this is that if a whole bunch of people are suggesting something works, to the point of it becoming a meme, there may actually be something to it - even if it can be difficult to isolate the exact reason why, or why it may not work in 100% of cases. Definitively solving the mystery of scurvy took about 3,500 years from the point of it being formalized. So a bit of patience is probably justified for these sort of things.
And this was also further complicated by the fact that lime juice can lose its nutritional character in some situations (such as certain sorts of storage), and so some experiments in using lime juice as a cure/prophylactic failed. It was also complicated because there's also high quantities of vitamin C in various fresh meats, and so crews that had access to these meats, but consumed minimal citrus, would also never seem to be affected. Tricky to nail down!
As a fun factoid, vitamin c is ascorbic acid, but it wasn't always called that. It was originally named hexuronic acid. It was renamed ascorbic (against scurvy) acid once it was confirmed that it was indeed absolutely what was treating and preventing scurvy. Another fun one is that this is also related to the slang term for a Brit - a 'limey'. The nickname came from the fact that the British navy was one of the first to start dosing their sailors with lemon/lime juice to ward off scurvy.
So the point of this is that if a whole bunch of people are suggesting something works, to the point of it becoming a meme, there may actually be something to it - even if it can be difficult to isolate the exact reason why, or why it may not work in 100% of cases. Definitively solving the mystery of scurvy took about 3,500 years from the point of it being formalized. So a bit of patience is probably justified for these sort of things.