Combatting False Medical Claims: Keys to Identifying Misinformation and Protecting Your Health

2024-03-22 01:17:27

It is difficult to escape the system where we are inundated with extreme headlines and do not delve deeper, both in social networks and in the media (we sing the mea culpa). Here are some keys to combat false medical claims

Fasting associated with 91% mortality, making a macronutrient such as protein responsible for cardiovascular risk or one that is hardly needed 3,967 steps to be healthy. These are just three examples taken from information published with great fanfare in numerous media and social networks in recent months. Experts highlight the Potential harms of medical misinformationwhich has become increasingly complex and difficult to identify, as well as misinterpretations of studies.

Everything is changing so quickly and it’s even harder for the average person to filter it. Health warnings that are not backed by science have spread widely across all platforms. The New York Times warned in information published in recent days that the same type of Conspiracy theories That helped fuel vaccine hesitancy during the Covid-19 pandemic are now undermining confidence in vaccines against other diseases, including measles, as more people have lost trust in public health experts and institutions. And the rapid advances in artificial intelligence They have made it even harder for people to know what is true and what is a lie.

INTERPRETATIONS WITHOUT A SOLID BASIS

To this we add the impulse to attract attention in a fast-paced world, both in an Instagram and TikTok video and in the need for a journalist to appear on Discover to be read. A feedback loop in which we lose trust of users/readers.

“All studies must be taken into account, but It is irresponsible not to consider the limitations of each study and, above all, give false headlines,” explains Marcos Vázquez, a health promoter on the podcast, website and social networks under the name Fitness Revolucionario, who was very critical after the publication of a teletype from the Efe Agency released by this same media and others, skyrocketing searches on the topic instantly.

According to this expert, whom we turn to for his great reputation and rigor, as he is among the most important health communicators in Spanish, if one day an article is published talking about the benefits of intermittent fasting and the next day another talking about the ” grave dangers,” people will begin to ignore the rest of health messages.

“Starting with the headline, an observational study, no matter how well designed, cannot conclude causality, only correlation. That is, we could not affirm that the cause of the highest mortality is fasting. There could even be reverse causality, that is, that people are forced to fast because of medical tests, because of pathologies… and that prolonged fasting was the consequence of the increased risk and not the cause,” he warns.

But, in addition, the study has many limitations. “At first it is a preliminary publication, it has not been reviewed. If more problems are found in that review It won’t even really be published.. Besides, did not control other variablesso we don’t know in what other ways the people who fasted were different from those who didn’t.” When it came to cross-referencing data, for example, we didn’t know what habits the people in the study had. “It’s based on self-reported data and only twice in many years, so these two samples tell us little about how they really ate during the follow-up years,” emphasizes Vázquez.

DANGEROUS APPROACHES

“Fasting has shown certain benefits in controlled clinical trialswhich give us much more information than observational studies as limited as the one in this news,” clarifies the health communicator.

Let us remember that Yoshinori Ohsumi He won the Nobel Prize in 2016 for his research on autophagy. And it is related to fasting because, during it, The body uses its own energy reserves. “In many cases, shortening the feeding window facilitates caloric control and may also improve glycemic control. That said, It is not necessary to do it nor is it anything magical. Messages that glorify fasting as if it were a pillar of health can also lead to confusion. It is an interesting tool that we have at our disposal, but it is neither the key to health nor will it harm it (as long as we talk about short fasts of 14-16 hours)”, explains Marcos Vázquez.

We must remain alert to cases in which statements jump to conclusions without evidence or appeal to emotions. The case of the 3,967 steps from which there is a health benefit, It does not mean that we banish the 10,000, but rather, the study said the opposite: that from that minimum amount, the benefits were much greater. Therefore, it is dangerous to tell a sedentary society that the myth of 10,000 steps is dismantled. In fact, health professionals insist that walking alone is not enough to stay fit.

Regarding the fact that “eating more than 22% protein in the daily diet increases cardiovascular risk”, as stated in another of those alarmist headlines, the nutritionist Ismael Galancho He was blunt with ZEN in a recent interview, where he expressed himself about demonizing a macronutrient: “They are accused of being responsible for overweight and obesity, for diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular or cancer and that is not the case. All of these are problems. multifactoriales“.

OBSERVATIONAL STUDIES

This happens especially in the field of food, he points out. Juan Bolanutritionist and Physical and Sports Activities technician, who is informed about observational studies that show biased statistical coincidences and not causalities and can be very easy to manipulate if you know the scientific method. “They are studies with food frequency and habit questionnaires where statistical data is correlated.” They are done through questions and follow-ups, usually phone calls. “It really is impossible to determine in an objective and quantifiable way what a person eats over years or decades. Do you remember what you ate 10 years ago? How many half-cup servings of peanuts did you eat per week last year?” he exemplifies about the model.

That is, people can say that they eat less of ‘X’ because they do not consider it healthy or vice versa, I am going to say that I consume more of ‘X’ because I know it is healthy, Bola questions. “And of course, most scientists who do an observational study expect results that validate their theory, if those results are not what they expect it is as easy as don’t publish it“.

In a study Published in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society in 2011, the authors drastically state: “Any statement that comes from a observational study It is probably incorrect.” For this reason, Bola concludes: “It is a shame but the scientific evidence is increasingly less rigorous and little by little the main objectives are to get shocking headlines or favor some industry. Observational studies are easily manipulated statistics that tell us little about true human nutrition. Before believing any headline or video, read the study calmly and bring out your reflective and critical side, endangered skills“he recommends.

CRITERIA OF A GOOD STUDY

At ZEN we ask health and well-being experts for help to identify when to trust and when to question information. Our intention, knowing that we are part of this solution, is for the reader to reflect and actively get involved in the process of filtering what comes to them in the overabundance of content.

Peer Review: “Other experts have evaluated the study before it was published.”

Representative and unbiased sample: How many people are we talking about? How long? In the analyzed case of fasting, barely 20,000. Can we extrapolate to the entire population? “It is important to read the methods of the study to understand if it is really well supported, do not stay at the headline.”

Study funding: “It is very suspicious if a study that talks about how beer improves cardiovascular health is funded by Anheuser-Busch InBev, a company that produces global brand beer. Always look for where the money for the study comes from and read the conflicts of interest of the authors,” advises Bola.

Look for high-quality studies with scientific weight: “Randomized controlled clinical trials and if they are double blind, the better. In these two groups are selected at random and assigned a different variant, usually blindly (they do not know what variant they have). For example: group A is given to cook sunflower oil and group B olive oil. Everything else about their diets and lifestyles remains unchanged. A well-designed randomized controlled trial is indeed a good study to create dietary guidelines and to affirm that certain “Foods or nutrients can have an ‘X’ impact on the body. The problem with these studies is that they are very expensive, they are long and there is a principle of ethics that weighs them down,” Bola explains.

Observe “false experts”, adds Sander van der Linden, a professor of social psychology in society at Cambridge who researches misinformation. These are people making health claims without any medical credentials, or doctors making claims on topics in which they are not experts. “You wouldn’t want to go to an ENT doctor to have heart surgery.”

Disinformation also often uses a polarizing language: “Bad actors take advantage of intense and extreme emotional reactions, such as fear and outrage, an ‘us versus them’ mentality, and scaring people.” Images and videos designed to provoke concern, such as crying babies and huge needles, are likely to be used. Better to stay in the grays because almost nothing is completely good or as bad as it seems.

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