When Illusion Prevails Over Science: The Dangers of Digital Medical Advice

SadaNews - In just thirty minutes of browsing social media, a troubling phenomenon unfolds before the viewer: dozens of individuals present themselves as experts in health and nutrition, diagnosing diseases in minutes and speaking with striking confidence about dietary supplements, dietary systems, and special programs, claiming they can cure complex and serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and autoimmune disorders.

These claims are not presented timidly or with scientific caution, but rather in an assertive language that entices patients and touches their despair, in a digital space that rewards audacity and exaggeration more than accuracy and knowledge.

Many who could be labeled as "social media doctors or scientists" intensify their claims to the extent of asserting that chronic autoimmune diseases, for example, can be reversed simply by stopping the consumption of milk, avoiding bread, or excluding entire food groups.

On the other hand, others seek to lend a false scientific veneer to their discourse, showcasing complex biological explanations in a polished language mixed with some scientific or technical terms, attempting to deceive followers into believing in their knowledge, before it quickly becomes clear that they are far from a true scientific understanding of what they are talking about, and they confuse concepts more than they provide knowledge.

What ties all these segments together is not evidence or accountability, but absolute certainty and the dangerous impact it carries when medicine is reduced to mere content.

The danger of medical advice on social media is no longer limited to being superficial and inaccurate; it also creates a false sense of security among broad segments of the population, especially those suffering from silent diseases or in their early stages, convincing patients that their feelings are simple or temporary, and that they can control them with general advice or personal experience, while the disease continues to progress within the body away from any scientific diagnosis or responsible medical follow-up.

In this digital space, diseases are reduced to symptoms, symptoms are condensed into catchy titles, and the entire field of medicine is summarized in short posts, while the medical reality is much more complex and dangerous, as a single symptom could be an expression of dozens of pathological possibilities that differ in their causes, courses, and outcomes. This makes diagnosis a systematic process that cannot be reduced or compensated for by self-research or the collective reassurance created by comments and views.

The danger of this logic is particularly evident in silently progressing diseases, such as cancer, fatty liver disease, metabolic disorders, and endocrine disorders. The risk lies not in immediate pain or temporary fatigue, but in wasting time, because these diseases do not cease to progress merely by being ignored or reassured. Any delay in diagnosis may mean the transition from a treatable stage to a more complicated one, or, sometimes, a stage where intervention can only be made to alleviate damage.

In cases of cancer, for example, the greatest risk lies not only in taking incorrect treatment but also in listening to speech that downplays symptoms or links them to stress and lifestyle, or promises "natural" solutions without exams, because time in oncology is not a neutral element but a crucial biological factor, where the chances of healing are measured in months and weeks, and where delay can turn into an unspoken judgment on the patient's future.

The same applies to fatty liver disease, which is presented in digital discourse as a simple condition solved by a single diet or a "liver-cleansing" supplement, while this disease, if not accurately diagnosed and medically monitored, can silently progress from fat accumulation to inflammation, then to fibrosis, and then to liver failure or liver cancer. These stages are not halted by general prescriptions nor treated by passing advice, but require meticulous follow-up and continuous risk assessment.

The catastrophe multiplies when patients, explicitly or implicitly, are encouraged to stop prescribed treatments or replace them with unregulated supplements or herbal mixtures, as their toxic effects, drug interactions, and long-term impacts on the liver and kidneys are unknown, while hospitals report increasing cases of liver poisoning and renal failure as a result of this type of "self-treatment" marketed as natural and safe.

As for hormonal disorders and metabolic diseases, these are among the most affected by general advice, as tinkering with delicate balances within the body without diagnosis, analysis, and monitoring may lead to imbalances that are difficult to correct later. While symptoms temporarily disappear, the problem deepens at the biological level, giving a false sense of improvement, but accumulating risk in the medium and long term.

The core problem with medical advice on social media is not just its simplicity, but that it strips medicine of its essential elements: time, repeated assessment, and accountability. Disease does not stop progressing because a post reassured the patient; cells do not wait for the end of a "healthy experiment" or "detox"; the body does not recognize algorithms or follower counts.

In contrast to this reality, there remains an essential difference between diagnosis-based and responsible medicine, and health content produced for quick consumption. A doctor is held accountable for their decisions, follows up on their results, and adjusts their course when mistakes occur, while the creators of digital advice disappear at the first failure, leaving the patient to face the consequences of a decision they had no tools to evaluate in the first place.

In conclusion, health is not content, and disease is not a personal experience that can be generalized; treatment is not an opinion or conviction, and the most dangerous thing a person can do is to postpone diagnosis in the name of reassurance or replace medical follow-up with the illusion of self-control, as many diseases do not punish immediately, but patiently wait until the cost is multiplied, treatment becomes harsher, and results are less merciful.

In medicine, not all mistakes are correctable, and not all delays are recoverable. Therefore, blind trust in "medical advice" on social media, especially concerning silent and advanced diseases, is not merely a wrong behavior, but a real risk that may not grant a second chance.

Source: Al Jazeera