Health "Tips" That Do More Harm than Good

Health tips that do not work are by no means a new phenomenon. Every family has at least one recipe passed down from Grandma which promises to cure everything from the common cold to a broken leg. Before the rise of social media, these bizarre pieces of health advice were usually confined to individual families or, at worst, spread among close friends.

Sadly, due to the fact that the majority of people in possession of an Internet-connected device believe that, after a couple of hours Googling, they are now fully qualified medical professionals, really bad health advice has now become so prevalent online that it can be difficult to differentiate between the antibiotic and the snake oil. In this article, we shall take a look at a few of the most popular health tips and tricks which, should you choose to use them, could actually be detrimental to your health.

The HCG Diet

There are far too many ridiculous, unrealistic, and frankly dangerous diets kicking around to mention them all. In fact, if we did so, then they would fill several articles all on their own. Today, we have singled out just one example, The HCG Diet. The advertising for this miracle weight loss strategy follows a pattern that will be familiar to you all.

Take the magic pill or injection, stick to a very specific diet and you, much like the allegedly Photoshopped people in the advert, could lose 30-40 pounds in a single month. So, how does this one work? Well, according to one of the many, many websites hoping to make vast profits from this latest fad:

“The use of HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) combined with a low-calorie diet has become a major breakthrough in losing excess weight and stubborn body fat.”

But what exactly is this miracle chemical? Well, we’re glad you asked. According to the same website:

“HCG is a hormone. In pregnant women, it is produced in the early stages of pregnancy to control a woman’s metabolic function. Research is now suggesting that it similarly increases metabolism and promotes lipolytic, or fat-burning activity for non-pregnant women and men.”

Sounds great, right? On the surface, yes. Who wouldn’t want to trick their body into burning off all that unnecessary fat?

What you have to scroll quite far down on almost all of these websites in order to read is that, in addition to taking HCG, which incidentally is a prescription-only drug not licensed for weight loss in any country we could find, you also have to stick to an exceptionally low-calorie diet. When we say a low-calorie diet, we really mean it as well. Some purveyors of this “wonder drug” insist that, in order for it to be completely effective, you must consume no more than 500 or 600 calories every day.

Given that the UK national health service recommends that, on average, a man should consume 2500 calories and a woman 2000 calories every day, the more skeptical among you may be starting to wonder if it is the drug or the devastating calorie deficit which causes the aforementioned spectacular results?

Well, we were wondering that selfsame thing, so we had a look around to see what the actual medical experts had to say about it. The results were, shall we say, unsurprising. According to Carolyn Becker, director of the Office of Unapproved Drugs and Labeling Compliance in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research:

“These products are marketed with incredible claims, and people think that if they’re losing weight, HCG must be working. But the data simply do not support this; any loss is from severe calorie restriction. Not from the HCG.”

Apparently, the FDA has gone even further than publishing the previous statement on their website. According to mayoclinic.org:

“HCG medications are required to carry a label from the FDA noting that the medication is not effective for weight loss. Some over-the-counter HCG weight-loss products are labeled ‘homeopathic’ — but the FDA says they’re still not safe.”

Even if we leave to one side the mounting evidence that the drug itself is not fit for this purpose, the active component of this diet, limiting your calories to 500 or 600 every day also carries risks. These risks include, but are not limited to: gallstone formation, irregular heartbeat, limited intake of vitamins and minerals, and an imbalance of electrolytes. As we have said before, nobody who works for this publication is a medical professional, but there are definitely safer ways to lose those extra pounds.

You Should Forgo Putting on Sunscreen to Get a Vitamin D Boost

Nowadays, it is almost impossible to become an adult in the Western world, or indeed anywhere at all, without having at least a basic understanding of just how dangerous the Sun can be. Countless billions have been spent on advertising campaigns alone to ensure that as many people as possible are both aware of the dangers and of the best ways to mitigate those dangers. Sadly, in recent times, all popular social media platforms have been filling up with self-proclaimed experts working tirelessly to undo all this hard work. So, what’s going on?

As we all know, prolonged exposure to the sun’s rays can lead to unwanted medical complications such as melanoma. However, the ultraviolet rays emitted by our local star also have some positive health benefits, perhaps most importantly among these being that they activate the production of vitamin D.

For those of you who are interested in exactly how this happens, here is a brief description from skincancer.org:

“When your skin is exposed to sunlight, it manufactures vitamin D. The sun’s ultraviolet B (UVB) rays interact with a protein called 7-DHC in the skin, converting it into vitamin D3, the active form of vitamin D.”

Vitamin D is very important. Without the correct amount, your body is not able to absorb important nutrients such as calcium and phosphate. Unfortunately, mostly due to a fundamental lack of understanding as to exactly where vitamin D can be obtained, many influencers are now encouraging people to spend much more time out in the sun unprotected by sunscreen, because it is causing vitamin D deficiency. Not only is this advice dangerous in the extreme, it is fundamentally flawed in at least two important ways.

Firstly, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation:

“Studies have never found that everyday sunscreen use leads to vitamin D insufficiency. In fact, the prevailing studies show that people who use sunscreen daily can maintain their vitamin D levels. One of the explanations for this may be that no matter how much sunscreen you use or how high the SPF, some of the sun’s UV rays reach your skin. An SPF 15 sunscreen filters out 93 percent of UVB rays, SPF 30 keeps out 97 percent, and SPF 50 filters out 98 percent.

This leaves anywhere from 2 to 7 percent of solar UVB reaching your skin, even with high-SPF sunscreens. And that’s if you use them perfectly.”

Secondly, even if all of the available research is wrong and sunscreen is indeed preventing us from getting that sweet, sweet vitamin D, it is available through other sources. Foods such as mackerel, tuna, salmon, egg yolks, liver, and cheese are a good place to start, and many fruit juices are now available that have been fortified with extra vitamin D. If you are unable to hit your daily recommended amount with food alone, then there are various over-the-counter supplements available or, if you’re really old school, a single teaspoon of cod-liver oil will provide you with almost twice your recommended daily intake. Although this last choice may not be everybody’s favorite, it is certainly better than greatly increasing your risk of skin cancer by leaving off the sunscreen.

Drinking Activated Charcoal for Detox Purposes

Participating in any kind of detox is questionable when it comes to successful results; however, introducing activated charcoal to your system on a regular basis can actually have the opposite effect of the one intended.

So, what are the legitimate medical uses for this modified carbon? Well, if you have been poisoned or taken an overdose, then it may very well be your friend. Due to the fact that it binds itself to many different chemicals and helps to prevent them from being metabolized when swallowed, according to Google, it is often administered to remove an unwanted excess of: acetaminophen, aspirin, barbiturates, tricyclic antidepressants, theophylline, and phenytoin. As overdosing on most of these drugs can result in death, it is a pretty handy substance for hospitals to keep around.

Unfortunately, like so many things, people have taken the fact that it can remove toxins from the digestive system and run with it, reselling it as a system cleanser, a daily supplement regime, or as an additive in juice or smoothies. This is not only misleading but potentially dangerous as well.

Firstly, claims that the charcoal detox can help to remove impurities and toxins from your bloodstream and your skin are incorrect. The only part of your body from which it can remove toxins is the digestive system, and this is precisely because it cannot be absorbed into the bloodstream. So, if you are hoping to use it to purge the alcohol from your system after a three-day bender, then you’re out of luck.

Furthermore, consuming it in a fortified drink will prevent the body from absorbing any other useful vitamins that it may have contained. It is broadly equivalent to taking paracetamol coated in titanium and then wondering why your headache didn’t get any better. Speaking of medication, anybody who is taking the medications we previously listed should absolutely not participate in this trend.

Doing so will greatly reduce the effect of said medication, which can lead to serious health problems.

Thirdly, and finally for this entry, far from helping your body to get rid of unwanted chemicals, prolonged use of activated charcoal slows down the transit of the bowel, which can lead to chronic constipation and, in severe instances, bowel obstructions or impaction. Seeing as an impacted bowel often has to be, shall we say, manually cleared, you are probably better off giving this trend a miss and leaving the charcoal on the barbecue.

As a sort of extra bonus fact for this entry, juice only cleansers don’t work either. According to an extract from an article written by an actual licensed medical professional:

“Many of my patients who come to me after completing a restrictive cleanse report feeling weak and tired. They are typically under the impression that this fatigue and brain fog is a proof of the ‘toxins’ leaving the body. In reality, their body is functioning sub-optimally from not getting enough calories, fat, and protein. In order to keep your colon healthy, you have to basically do the opposite of a juice cleanse: have plenty of fiber, pre- and probiotics such as fruits, vegetables, yogurt, kefir, fermented vegetables, soy products, and/or beans.”

You Can Cure Cancer with Dandelions

Although we already briefly mentioned the dangers of social media when it comes down to spreading things that just are not true, in this last example, we are going to zero in on one specific area: the spread of misinformation regarding cancer treatment. Even more specifically, claims that gained traction in 2016 that dandelions were more effective at treating cancer than chemotherapy. So, where did this all begin?

According to The Independent, out of the top 20 articles shared on Facebook that had the word cancer in the title, more than half of them contained what would later be categorized as fake news. One of these articles even went as far as to say that cancer was not, in fact, a disease but had been manufactured by big pharmaceutical companies so that they could make money.

Whilst this probably opened the original author up to some pretty serious lawsuits, it paled in comparison to the outrageously dangerous and of course completely inaccurate claims published in the most viewed article on Facebook under the same search criteria. This article, which has mercifully been removed from the internet (in fact, the entire website on which it was originally hosted seems to have completely disappeared), was titled “Dandelion weed can boost your immune system and cure cancer.”

Having obtained a copy of the original article during our research, we can tell you that it contained such pearls of wisdom as:

“This potent root builds up blood and the immune system - cures prostate, lung, and other cancers better than chemotherapy.”

“Traditional cancer therapies harm the immune system by killing all cells, even the healthy ones. Dandelion root has the opposite effect - it actually helps boost your immune system and only targets the unhealthy cells. It’s definitely a win-win situation!”

“Within 48 hours of coming into contact with the extract, cancerous cells begin to disintegrate. The body happily replaces these with healthy new cells.”

Now, anybody who has ever been through or witnessed anybody else go through chemotherapy will tell you that it is a horrific experience. The idea that you could, as the article suggests that one elderly gentleman did, consume 3 cups of dandelion tea every day and not only go into remission but remain there, probably provided a great deal of false hope to terminal cancer patients everywhere. There is just one problem with these trumped-up claims: you absolutely cannot cure cancer by drinking dandelion tea.

As far as we were able to ascertain, whoever wrote this article seems to have gotten hold of some research that showed positive results when treating cancer in mice with a specific chemical extracted from dandelion roots and, after adding two and two together and coming up with 36, fabricated the rest as a juicy piece of clickbait. To clarify, we are not in any way suggesting that this is exactly what they did, merely that this is how it appears to us. Whoever did write the article was quite clever about it though; they even took a legitimate quote from a legitimate doctor who said she was excited about the progress being made and wrote it into the story so it looked like she was talking about the fabricated claims that it made.

Whereas some dubious health tips you might find on the internet probably won’t do life-changing damage, stuff like this really does. People who have found out that they could potentially die from cancer are not always in the most logical frame of mind. It is certainly not beyond the realms of possibility that, after having endured several brutal rounds of chemotherapy and being presented with a pain-free miracle cure which promises to not only make them better but to make them considerably healthier than they were before they came down with the disease, some people may forego the actual beneficial treatment in favor of this snake oil.

Before we go, we would like to leave you with this piece of advice from an exceptionally wise man: “Homeopathic remedies have the potential to do a hell of a lot of good for people who are not actually ill.”

Key Takeaways

• The HCG diet is ineffective for weight loss, with results due to severe calorie restriction.
• Skipping sunscreen to boost vitamin D is dangerous and unnecessary, as sunscreen allows some UVB rays through.
• Activated charcoal detoxes are misleading and can interfere with medication absorption and cause constipation.
• Claims that dandelions cure cancer are false and dangerous, misleading vulnerable patients.
• Social media spreads harmful health misinformation, making it hard to distinguish valid advice.

Sources

• Original Side Projects video: Health “Tips” That Do More Harm than Good

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