Can I trust journals about health?
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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There are a lot of magazines published, including about health. But is it always possible to trust the advice published in them? To answer this question, it is worth investigating on what the information in these journals is based, from what sources it is taken and in whose interests it is placed on the pages of the publication.
More and more disputes arise about whether it is possible to trust doctors and medicine in principle. Much of what was considered unconditionally useful is now being questioned - vaccinations, vaccinations, ultrasound, etc. Inadequate or outdated education, low salaries of doctors, focus on eliminating symptoms instead of treating causes - all this makes medicine inefficient. Doctors now often receive rewards from pharmaceutical companies, selling their products to patients. If this happens in medical institutions, what to say about other areas of dissemination of information about health, including the media.
In many ways, magazines exist at the expense of advertising revenue on their pages. Often entire articles are written specifically for ad units to smoothly bring to the advertised product. These articles can be both truthful and useful, and vice versa, depending on what the product is, what it is and how it heals. It should be remembered that not always the authors of articles have a medical education or at least somehow related to health issues.
Of course, the magazines have useful and truthful information. However, any tips and recipes should be "filtered", especially if their application affects your health. Check the information, analyze. Do not buy every drug advertised. Remember that pharmaceutical companies are primarily focused on making profits. And meanwhile, it may turn out that you absolutely do not need this medicine, but you need something else.
Do not forget that it's not the pills that help the best, but preventative measures, especially proper nutrition and sports, refusal of cigarettes and alcoholic beverages, harmful food products. It really can cut diseases at times. In this sense, magazines on health, dedicated to sports, fitness and a healthy lifestyle, are of considerable benefit.
Carefully review the magazine, read the articles. Pay attention to their size and the evidence of the information provided. Publications that care about their reputation, try to put the checked data. Their articles are well structured, they give arguments, scientific information and conclusions. They are, as a rule, interesting to read. In "cheap" publications, information often looks too simple, articles are short, at the end they are advertised, sometimes you can find texts copied from the Internet.
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