WAtching Netflix Apple cider vinegar May have the impression of venturing into the hollow of a disinformation sump and oscillating between horror, disgust and perplexity all the time.
The series tells the story of the influencer of real health beautiful Gibson (played by Kaitlyn Dever), the Australian sensation which in 2015 confirmed that it had Fed brain cancer and that she had cured him by alternative medicine in order to reach the status of celebrity. The true story is nightmare, in part because Gibson’s practice of building massive follow-up based on lies that endanger everyone except itself is far from being an anomaly, especially in the influencer.
Apple cider vinegar Eliminates frustrating some of the nuances that made Gibson’s possible ascent, including his whiteness, race and sex Medicine inequalities This can lead patients to be wary of doctors and a frightening disinterest in truth in the middle of our social media age. There was a generalized increase in disinformation influencers of health and well-being. And Apple cider vinegar is far from the first example of people who turn to other remedies to try to cure cancer. Liana Werner-Gray, who defends remedies “Natural Health”, wrote a successful book 2014 entitled Earthly regimeOn the way it overcome cancer by going to “a massive detoxification plan”.
False truths like these are a particular source of concern for many health professionals. Gail Cresci, dietitian and researcher at the Cleveland Clinic, says that people often come to recite all that a health influencer said with little consideration for the facts. Take, for example, an apple cider vinegar antidote that is described in the Netflix series. While Cresci, who offers advice on product development as a member of the Bragg’s scientific advisory council, considers the advantages of “wonderfully diverse” apple cider vinegar, it adds quickly, “but can he cure cancer? No.”
“I teach medical students and I hear how they even talk about things that are just on social networks,” she says. “They listen to an influencer. I say to myself: “There is no evidence for that.” »»
Why are people attracted to influencers of well-being
Apple cider vinegar Reflects influencers of influence health and austere medical reality faced with many patients. In an episode, a sarcoma patient named Milla (played by Alycia Debnam-Carey and partly inspired by real life Jessica Ainscough) rejects the recommendations of her doctors to amputate her arm in favor of so-called remedies such as apple cider vinegar that she learned from Gibson’s popular social media account.
It is only when Milla disease progresses that it is desperately returns to her doctor to ask for her help. But by then it is too late. She died at 30.
“I think many patients, when you get this early diagnosis, do not feel pain,” says Cresci. “I manage it all the time. People who have pre-diabetes or early hypertension, they don’t really feel it as long as it has not progressed. And then they start to feel what’s going on. “”
But Cresci says that she understands why a patient could ask for advice from well-being influencers, especially in the space of cancer. They can be not evaluated, but they often offer more recognizable solutions for patients – at home like apple cider vinegar instead of an expensive drug, for example – and the temptation to believe that it can work is difficult to resist. “When you are dealing with medicine, it is prescribed and you may not understand it fully,” she said. Cresci adds that serious side effects and uncertain success rates of cancer treatments can give people that “there is no longer really for them”.
“So they grasp anything. The person has control of what’s going on. »»
This lack of information and familiarity feeds a fundamental problem that patients feel towards their doctors: a lack of confidence. Even Cresci has experienced how difficult it can be. She remembers having visited a doctor after suffering an injury as an endurance adhesive and not feeling heard. “They don’t understand someone who likes to run all the time and they say,” You can never run again, “she said. “It’s like:” Well, it does not correspond to my lifestyle. So you are going to look for another opinion, someone who will tell you what you want to hear.
This second opinion no longer always comes from another doctor or a trusted professional, says Cresci.
On the one hand, some patients feel far too in a hurry at the doctor’s office. “Now, doctors don’t have as much time to spend with their patients,” she said. A backlog of patients sitting in a doctor’s waiting room contributed to this question. Another other. “Often, patients are precipitated in the system or the doctor does not really know how to communicate in terms of the patient understands what they really try to transmit to them.”
This is a problem that consists only of racial and gender disparities that have long tormented women at all levels, but in particular blacks and browns. A study last year suggested that patients are more likely to die When they have a doctor and not a doctor. In the meantime, NPR reported That black Americans generally receive lower treatment than their counterparts.
Apple cider vinegar does not recognize any of this. The series is centered on an omnipresent white online wellness community which understands both influencers and their subscribers, but this world is so much larger and more complex. And given the experiences of many women and other non -white people in the doctor’s office, it is not difficult to imagine that some may really choose to take into account the advice of influencers that look more like them and that they may be able to refer. “I think it happens quite often,” says Cresci. She works to welcome this reality by leading to awareness and speaking of it with her students. “This is part of the study program so that medical students discover these different social determinants of health and how to communicate with patients and how to do good interviews with patients.”
But it also came with challenges. For example, CRESCI is the main researcher of a study examining why black Americans have a higher rate of colon cancer. Although it is often wrongly presumed that this is due not to seek access to preventive care, its study examines the diet and the microbiome as motor factors. But he doesn’t have enough black registrants.
“We had some women who registered, who said:” Oh, you are not going to bring men to register “,” said Cresci. “They said:” Unless it benefits them directly, they will not participate. “A large part is this problem of confidence and this problem of confidence.”
How influencers use a lack of confidence – and how doctors can recover it
Apple cider vinegar reflects reality that the space of influencer of well-being also has several problems with regard to confidence and understanding. The fact that Gibson was able to build such important and dedicated follow -up on the basis of so many lies shows how desperate people who believed her were for a kind of answer – and in some cases, how naive they were.
“She just called on people,” said Cresci. “She was a good actress. Throughout the story, her mother said that she did it for attention. She was really good to be able to light her tears. »»
Anyone who has paid a little attention to how the fragility of women was armed through history knows that false tears are crucial to arouse sympathy and, thereafter, belief. In a pivotal moment in Apple cider vinegarBeauty throws herself on the floor during a party in her own house and pretends to have a crisis just before her blanket is about to be blown. The real manipulation and the pity of people was essential to the beautiful game. For health professionals, the treatment of their patients is dangerously manipulated or knowing that they are looking for the influencers’ advice is a situation in the tightrope. CRESCI tries to assess the learning and communication style of each patient, understanding that they came to it to see if the improvement of their diet could help them manage a health problem.
“I see people with a lot of gastrointestinal problems. And the diet is known to be a way to help manage this. So they will tell me that they do something and I will point them out why it is probably not the best thing to do. “”
Cresci describes this as an approach based on evidence.
“Once they understood what’s going on with them,” she says, “then they can understand why what they are doing is counterproductive.”
When patients evoke influencers of well-being with her, Cresci advises you to search for the person who offers health advice. “Look at their references,” suggests Cresci. “Everyone can be called a nutritionist. It is not an official certified license. The registered dietitists, on the other hand, require four years of undergraduate work, two years for a master’s program, one year more than one internship, months of preparation and spending the CDR and additional time exam on a coordinated diploma program and obtaining a license in their state, if necessary.
Cresci’s advice may seem basic, but, as she says, anyone could write a book and claim to be a nutritionist. “Even if someone says he’s a doctor, he can try to sell his agenda,” said Cresci. “It may not be based on evidence, or they take a little truth and develop.”
The patient or the individual then tries to search for a health professional, and largely on social networks where there are no checks and counterweights – and all kinds of supplements are announced and sold without real evidence that he works. Food and Drug Administration regulates the safety of supplements as well as food, not as medicines. “Many things are not monitored,” says Cresci. “People can just buy them on the shelf. There is no guardian there.
She adds: “It’s frightening because, what can you trust?”
This question could be asked both to influencers and doctors.