7 Myths About Health & Wellness
Sydney GP Dr Brad McKay knows from personal experience how easy it is to be seduced by the promise of better health, or even a cure for a serious illness, using preparations or regimens promoted by people glowing with energy and vitality but without any health qualifications.
In his book, Fake Medicine, the doctor warns that exhausting modern medical options before turning to the alternatives is a safer option. If people delay getting a diagnosis and treatment because they’re following the advice of an unqualified Instagram influencer, or decide to treat themselves, they risk being sicker or even dying.
Dr McKay writes about his own chronic conditions: narcolepsy and an osteoblastoma (a very rare type of bone tumour), a painful condition that was misdiagnosed for years.
“My experience as a patient helped me understand the embarrassment, vulnerability and anxiety people can feel when they engage with doctors and try to navigate a confusing healthcare system,” he writes.
“I also saw just how easy it was – when faced with an overwhelming diagnosis, a painful treatment or confusing medical advice – to be lured towards alternative therapies that might sound more promising, more optimistic and less painful.”
For years, McKay has called out dangerous health advice from people with no medical qualifications. He wants to provide his readers with the tools to pause and evaluate what they see before they follow the edicts of the latest influencer.
“We’ve all heard the phrase, ‘Everything happens for a reason’, but reality is much more messy. Bad people can skate through life without any comeuppance or retribution, while good people can be mercilessly hit with one illness after another,” he writes.
“When your mother develops Parkinson’s disease and you’re searching to find the root cause, attributing blame to fluoride, 5G or junk food can be cognitively comforting, even if it’s incorrect.”
Here, Dr McKay identifies some of the most common myths you may have fallen for.
Google is a good source of health advice
A 2020 study done by Edith Cowan University in Western Australia found that symptom-checking websites and apps gave correct advice only about a third of the time, Dr McKay notes.
Health influencers know what they’re talking about
“Wellness warriors may sincerely believe they are providing good advice but they can inadvertently mislead their audience if they are not formally trained in health sciences. They are often highly skillful at being approachable, entertaining and engaging, which makes it easy for their opinions on healthy living to be misinterpreted as fact,” Dr McKay writes.
Traditional treatments are safe
“We like to think only plants and herbs are used in traditional Chinese Medicine, for example, but in 2015, a team from the University of Adelaide tested 26 different TCM products and found the results were shocking and showed that nine out of 10 products contained a substance that wasn’t listed as an ingredient,” Dr McKay writes. “Half of the samples showed significant amounts of heavy metals, including arsenic, cadmium and lead. Some items even contained genetic material from cats, dogs, shrub frogs, rats, pit vipers, goats and snow leopards.”
Everyone benefits from vitamins and supplements
“Randomly picking supplements off the shelf is generally a waste of time and money. For unwell people this action will only delay appropriate care or make you feel worse,” writes Dr McKay. “If your doctor diagnoses you with a deficiency you’ll get benefit from taking a supplement, but when your vitamin level is already normal it won’t do you any good.”
There is a state of wellness anyone can achieve
“Wellness is not only about living in the absence of disease or illness. [It brings with it] the added pressure of maximising your fitness, productivity and enjoyment of life,” writes Dr McKay. “In other words, wellness is an ethereal concept that is unattainable in the real world. You might feel well on occasion, but you can never reach a state of wellness because there is always something else that you can improve. “The reality is that wellness is an endless pursuit for the privileged – an expensive hobby for those who are already well.”
More is better
When something is found to have beneficial properties, our instinct is to consume more of it but that is not how our bodies work. Many natural substances can have nasty side-effects if you consume too much of them.
Cinnamon, for example, has been touted as a way to lower blood sugar in diabetics. Small doses are unlikely to cause any problems, but high doses can damage the liver, Dr McKay writes. Ginger, which is a traditional treatment for gastrointestinal problems, in high doses can cause a reaction in some people’s delicate digestive systems resulting in abdominal pain, heartburn, diarrhoea, bloating and flatulence. It can also accumulate in the gut and may interact with prescribed medications, preventing them from working.
And while turmeric’s active ingredient, curcumin, has an anti-inflammatory effect it doesn’t absorb well from our gut. In an effort to counter this problem, higher and higher doses of curcumin have appeared on our shelves, but increased doses don’t improve the anti-inflammatory effect. It’s still poorly absorbed, so you’re only going to increase the severity of side effects, including abdominal pain and diarrhoea.
We all benefit from detoxes
“Medical doctors will talk about ‘detoxing’ our patients if they have had an overdose or they need help withdrawing from alcohol or other addictive drugs. But the word ‘detox’ has been hijacked, twisted into a marketing gimmick to help move products off the shelves,” Dr McKay writes.
“The modern marketing concept behind a detox is to suggest that toxins continually accumulate in our bodies and will cause us harm unless we use a detox to get rid of them. However, these ‘toxins’ are never specifically named, making it impossible to determine if a detox has actually made an impact. “Pills, potions, tinctures and tonics claim to detox your liver, but the truth is that with time and a healthy diet your body will detox itself. Your internal organs have evolved to do this without special products from the health food shop.”
Fake Medicine: Exposing The Wellness Crazes, Cons and Quacks Costing Us Our Health, by Brad McKay