[Verdex]

Interestingly enough, my understanding is that some snakes in Asia can be used to produce oil that helps joint problems.

American snakes weren't useful for this.

So something that was sort of useful in a niche application was co-opted by people who didn't know how to make it work and then ultra hyped.

The parallels are spot on.

[tdeck]

The famous "snake oil" salesman sold jars filled with beef fat mixed with capsaicin and turpentine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Stanley

[irishcoffee]

That’s actually how it started. Some water snake native to china, when the oil is extracted it contains omega-3 fatty acid, which does help arthritis.

It was turned into a scam in the west.

Seems like a lot of work to get omega-3 in a consumable form.