Don’t Trust YouTube Videos For Cancer Treatment, Study Says They Can Be Dangerous and Misleading
he research studied 150 most-viewed videos on YouTube on prostate cancer and found out that many of them contained factual errors and biased content, especially in the comments section.
We are growing increasingly dependent on YouTube for everything under the sun, from tying shoelaces to baking a cake. But when it comes to medical advice, always trust your doctor over YouTube. A new study warns people about the dangers of trusting these videos for cancer treatment due to the sheer amount of misleading or biased medical content. The research studied 150 most-viewed videos on YouTube on prostate cancer and found out that many of them contained factual errors and biased content, especially in the comments section.
YouTube is a fertile ground for quackery and unscientific information to spread. Many videos about miracle herbs and naturopathic treatments for various illnesses hit record views. The researchers studied many such videos and found that 75 percent of them focused on the advantages of certain treatment methods for cancer, only 53 described the hazards and side effects. Nineteen percent of the videos also discussed alternative treatment for cancer which is not validated by research. Did You Know That These Therapies Can Make Cancer Cure Possible?
The study was published in the journal European Urology. Stacy Loeb, one of the researchers said: “Our study shows that people need to be wary of many YouTube videos on prostate cancer. There is valuable information available in them, but people need to check the source to make sure it's credible and to beware how quickly videos become outdated as care guidelines constantly evolve with the science.” Curcuminoids in Turmeric Can Cure Cancer: Is The Whatsapp Forward A Hoax or Truth?
The study revealed that such videos are quite popular on the internet. There are more than 600,000 videos on prostate cancer on the internet, and many have views between 45,000 and 1.3 million.
Shockingly, one video also promoted the practice of injecting the herbs directly into the prostate to treat cancer. Loeb says there are other sources where people can get credible, trustworthy information and YouTube isn’t one of them. PubMed and NHS offer credible information about the diagnoses and treatment of various diseases.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 28, 2018 04:45 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).