Things to keep in mind when checking health information
Health news is reported in a variety of media, some public, some private, some with conflicts of interest, and some without.
While it is necessary for us to have access to this health information, some of it lacks important information, and many sources publish it in a confusing, contradictory, or misleading way.
Lack of Information in the Media
Various media reports on health issues need to be "quality" news to raise awareness and change attitudes and behaviors, but information on medicine and folk medicine is often insufficient to make good decisions.
Examples
1) Comparison of the effects of one treatment with those of another.
2) Reported side effects of a treatment.
3) Are the results of those studies "statistically significant"?
4) Whether the studies were done on animals or on people?
In Japan, a study was reported in the news in 2011 that compared Tamiflu, a conventional influenza drug, with a combination of two Chinese herbal medicines commonly used for influenza, Macyoukansetsu and Gingyozang, or Tamiflu and a combination of both. A study comparing the combination of Tamiflu and The companies reported that the combination of Tamiflu and the combination medicine accelerated the patients' fever compared to no treatment, but they did not report that the combination of the formulations only accelerated the patients' fever by about 11 hours.
This lack of information also meant that there was no mention of the decision to consider a new combination or that none of the formulations relieved symptoms such as coughing or sore throat.
Thus, there are many news reports that emphasize only positive information without reporting serious information, and the possibility of harmful side effects and the quality of the scientific evidence supporting the study results may also be omitted or not fully explained in health news reports.
The media, wanting only viewership and subscription numbers, sometimes use contradictory information and self-serving headlines. They may report only the positive results of a new medical study, or they may later report side effects or conditions with limited effectiveness.
Why can't the media get the information right? Because the results of new studies may not match previous studies. When researchers complete a study, they report their findings, but often the new study results are different from the previous results. It may be advisable to look for comments from medical experts who also discuss the new study and the conflicting studies if possible.
When receiving information, it may be helpful to choose sources that come from the media, such as those that do not try to promote a single view or cause, those written by science or health reporters who are trained to understand medical findings, or those that quote comments from experts who have no stake in the study to give a more objective view of the results or to give an alternative view.
In a typical fake "news" site,
reporters often use a product for a few weeks and report on the study with "dramatic" results. Such websites may appear to be genuine opinions that have been experienced, but in reality they are just advertisements. In the worst websites, everything was fake; there were no reporters, no news organizations, and no surveys themselves. Sometimes all that was real was an article on a web page or a link to a sales site displayed elsewhere.
To help you identify these "news" sites as "fake," you can look for sites that endorse some product, quote only positive comments about the product, describe only positive research results, have links to sales sites, and only include positive comments from readers. Only positive comments from readers will be listed, and you cannot add your own comments.
Summary
You will need a lot of information to maintain your health. There are many sites that cite portions of research papers or just the results, which at first glance may seem like a well-reasoned opinion, but many studies have content limitations.
For example, if there is a study on strength training, what is obtained in healthy adolescents, males only, and those with a history of exercise, it is unlikely to have the same results for those who do not fall into these categories.
The reason this blog site even describes the details and methods of the studies is to explain that they are obtained under these limited conditions.
Be careful not to be deceived.
