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.

Considering the rather psychotic advice emanating from the ADA, I have my doubts about this article.

Sure there is a lot of bad advice out there, but unfortunately there seems to be just as much bad advice coming from the authorities.

Wow, the researcher is saying that people should not try to understand their medical conditions and just remain ignorant and blindly follow their doctors medical advice.

Hmmm - that means I should still be doing the low fat approach, gaining weight, starving myself into a really nasty temper and having my blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol out of control.

Nah - I like the info I get here - my doc lives in the dark ages and I'm losing weight, have controlled blood pressure and blood sugar and a better cholesterol profile than anyone in my family - BY NOT FOLLOWING HIS ADVICE.

One of the things this forum has taught me is that the medical establishment highly over-rates itself. It calls itself a 'health care' system, when really it's a 'disease treatment' system. Health care begins with you, some books, and maybe internet access.

The internet holds a tremendous amount of interesting information regarding diet. It is up to us to read up, and then use our critical thinking skills to decide for ourselves what is valid and what is bogus. Individual doctors can hardly be held accountable for every aspect of health maintenance. I think the best you can do, is find a physician with an open mind.

It IS truly confusing sometimes.

Fortunately my doctor is young and open minded. He encourages my WOE since his tests clearly show my health is much improved. He knows I did low fat before and I was significantly overweight, having blood pressure issues, risk of diabetes, etc.

Now he didn't tell me to go low carb it, but he certainly supports my choice and told me to keep it up. (psst... his wife works in the office and is trying Atkins due to the number of patience having success.. .LOL )

Brobin

I've found that the medical community is hesitant to move in a new or different direction than what is popular. And it is because of that fact that we need to be able to use the internet. Not to self-diagnose but to make sure our doctor have our best interest at heart. Because individual people have individual issues. Not every problem can be solved the same way. And losing weight is defiantly one of them.

Well, I used to be 310 lbs and almost dead. I could barely move this 5' 5" frame of mine at 60, with arthritis of the knees, high blood pressure, uncontrolled diabetes (sometimes with readings up in the 600s) and thyroid problems too. The endocrinologyst gave me one more low fat low calorie diet one day and said: Here, you can lose 10 lbs in a week with this. I went home very depressed and tried to do the diet, failing on the first day because I was so very hungry. Then I found out that a family member whom I have not seen in more that 40 years, was living close to me and decided to get in the car and go see her. Well, I could not do it, I could not drive for a long time. My feet were numb and I was having a lot of leg cramps. I remember coming back home and feeling so sad and bad that I decided to go on the Slim Fast diet and see if I could make it. Within 1 week I was in bed unable to function. Blood sugars were very high and I had no energy whatsoever. So I started to research the Internet and it is when I found the Atkins site. Liked what I read and started the diet. The rest is history. I have lost over 70 lbs, my blood sugars are normal, eliminated about 8 of my medications and I am feeling a lot better.

Did not get here listening to my doctos !!! I would probably be dead by now if I had...

While fear certainly is a powerful motivator for many, it troubles me that this researcher seems to see it as the best motivator for many. Fear without hope leads to despondency; a "why bother, it's hopeless anyway" attitude. Fear without knowledge can also be paralyzing (hence their view that we need them to tell us what to do). We fear what we do not understand. We act on what we do understand (at least most people do). Knowledge is empowering and while there is a lot of misinformation on the internet, there is also a lot of very good information out there as well.
To be honest, my doctor never talked to me about the complications of diabetes and high blood pressure. I researched and found that information for myself. All I got was, "Your blood pressure and blood sugar are high. Here's two prescriptions. Get them filled and come back in 3 months for a recheck." I knew I was feeling crappy and that my test results weren't good but I had no idea how serious my state was until I started reading about it myself. That was motivating, especially upon discovering that while it was serious, there were a lot of things I could do myself to correct the situation. It certainly didn't lead me to a "well, see...it's not that serious. I can just go on like I was, take these pills and be fine" line of thinking. It lead me, instead, to realizing that I needed to make some changes and make them now if I wanted to still be around in 10 years and that pills alone were not going to "fix" it.
Personally, I think one big driver behind statements such as the one in the article above is that doctors don't want to have their edicts questioned and they also don't want to have to take the time to actually explain why the patient needs to do something about their condition. I can imagine it's threatening to have a patient say, "You know, I've researched this some on the internet and I don't think this is the best way to go for me." because now they are put in the position of having to enter into a dialogue with the patient instead of simply handing out prescriptions unquestioned.

Excellent points Lisa. I am not a frequent visitor at the doctor, but the last time I went, I came armed with knowledge. I didn't go the traditional route of listing my symptons and asking for a diagnostic.... I pretty presented the doctor with my diagnostic and asked him to confirm it. IMO, it moved me from the level of supplicant to almost-equal. I could tell that it bothered him a little. He gave me a "oh no, not another know-it-all" kind of smirk.

So I agree that it bothers them