Warning over bad health advice online
18 Oct 2004

Following health advice given on the Internet could leave people in worse health, a new study has warned.

The research from University College London (UCL) has shown that many people would be in a better state of health if they followed advice from their doctor rather than relying on information found online.

Although the UCL team found that using the Internet improves people's knowledge of medical conditions, the evidence suggests that so-called "cyber-medicine" does not help people change their behaviour.

One explanation could be that the more people know about a disease, the less concerned they become about the effect it will have on them.

People are less frightened when they discover more about an illness such as diabetes, because they realise there is no immediate threat and are therefore not motivated to change their habits.

Lead researcher Elizabeth Murray suggested people could be making their own decisions as to how they should best treat an illness based on information they have found over the Internet, ignoring their doctor's advice.

Such an approach has led to many people actually being worse off than if they had not found out anything about their

condition.