Summary: Don't use the internet for self-diagnosis. If you want to learn more about your condition after consultation with a doctor, I suggest you try to find it in proper scientific literature. To authors: Remember that many non-experts read your abstracts, and can potentially lead people dangerously astray.
Have you ever had an itch on your arm, a headache or a weird dream and googled it find out whats going on? Take a
look when you google itch + arm: forums, commercials, and pop-ups fill the empty space of the even more empty advice. As a result, you can go crazy self-diagnosing yourself on the internet. For example, I had a rash some years ago, and I googled rash + lower arms. The stuff that popped up made me fear that I had caught a terrible disease and would soon not be able to leave the house due to my future hideousness. I would definitely not be able to eat pasta. Luckily I talked to a skin doctor who pointed out that all the mosquitoes that were biting me the day before might have had something to do with it. I'm fine now!
Of course, this is just everyday post-90's stuff that nerve-wrecks like me get mixed up in. But how does web-surfing fit in when there is something wrong with you?
And how do scientific papers fit in to all this?
If something isn't right, there are fair chances are that your doctor will pick it up. But sometimes you will feel the need to do some research on your own. For instance, my Dad was about to have back surgery, and had found so much relevant information online that he could have a very meaningful discussion with his surgeon,
which likely improved the patient-doctor relation and maybe even the quality of the work.
But finding relevant info is not easy (as my itchy googling examplifies). Relevant, scientific info, is often reported in scientific literature, in big medical journals like
The Lancet,
NEJM, or hundreds of other "smaller" ones. The reason you can trust the quality of such sources are that the work is critically reviewed by experts, and fake reports are seldom and very often caught by the experts who read the journal.
But remember that these papers will most often not fit your (likely common) case; It is seldom that top journals report curing an itch by not scratching, a little cream and just waiting it out. Therefore, this exercise might just add paranoia to your worried, scratchy self. But, like in my Dad's case, having checked some serious sources might keep your doctor on the ball.
However, to some, searching scientific literature have had more damaging consequences than a little edginess before your doctor's appointment. For example, there are a lot of courageous people who are fighting cancer, and will do whatever it takes to get well. I have seen internet forums where fighters of cancer discuss prototype drugs that have been reported in scientific literature, and how they have spent tens of thousands of dollars on self-treatment using prototype drugs. However, it is extremely important to point out that, even though a synthetic or natural compound shows promise in the lab, it is definitely not considered to be safe, at least before an FDA approval. For example, scientific literature describes the Hedgehog inhibitor cyclopamine as a prototype which several drugs are based upon, but can be extremely harmful to use, especially if one is pregnant. There are unfortunately several examples of infants who have been born with severe deformations because of the mother's intake of cyclopamine during pregnancy.
Before internet, the reading of scientific material by non-experts was not a "problem", because they did not have access to the papers or the paper's abstract. But now that everyone has this access to a certain degree,
I believe it would often be wise to include a sentence or two in the abstract, describing to the non-expert reader what the practical relevance of the study is, and eventually a guidance/warning regarding the use and interpretation of the information. For example, the description of a rare study of itching should emphasize the rarity. A description of a pathway inhibitor such as cyclopamine (which is relatively easy to get a hold of) could state that the compound is dangerous to humans in its present form.
Of course, a lot of scientist's would say, "give me a break", but guess what? People read your work.
