Who is your preferred source for health advice? Gwyneth Paltrow? Pete Evans? Or qualified medical practitioners – like Dr Oz?
I hate to break it to you, but if you’re getting advice from any of these people, you’re quite likely being misled.
For example, contrary to Gwyneth Paltrow’s website, experts advise inserting jade “eggs” into your vagina is a very bad idea.
And last time I checked, Facebook wasn’t a peer-reviewed medical website, but that doesn’t seem to matter to 20 per cent of people using it for health advice.
The sheer volume of online health information now at our fingertips is both a blessing and a curse. How do you determine what is right and what is outright dangerous?
Should you get a “V-steam” to keep your lady parts looking young and healthy? Should you whip up a batch of paleo bone broth for your bub? (the answer to both these questions is no).
Top Comments
So if doctors start commandeering google, we'll have to go somewhere else again. The reason we're googling is because we don't want to take medication and therefore, avoid seeing a GP where possible. Doctors have long convinced us that they are the only experts on our health, we now know that is not true. The practice of medicine is a very different thing to wanting information on how to stay healthy. They are mutually exclusive.
I occasionally use Dr Google, but you really do need to be smart about it. When a family member was diagnosed with cancer, I was able to find out lots of information - but I went to reputable websites, like the Cancer Council and the Mayo Clinic, not the sites which tell you they can cure cancer by drinking turmeric tea. As with most things these days, a little common sense goes a long way.
You mean you wanted pharmacological treatment for your loved one's treatment. Which excludes a whole other area of cancer treatment, found on nutritional websites that also can be successful. The organisations you mentioned specialise in one form of treatment. I'd want to try everything...
I wanted reliable information that had science to back it up. Not Belle Gibson style 'cures'.