Inspired or frightened by health info you just saw on social media? Try this first.

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Social media can be a great place to catch up with friends, follow favorite celebrities and watch adorable pygmy hippos. But many people also go there for health advice, and few have seen the implications of that from more angles than Dr. Mikhail Varshavski.

"Doctor Mike" has a huge following: 13.4 million subscribers to his YouTube channel alone, and millions more on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. He uses those platforms, in part, to weigh in on a seemingly endless supply of health-related videos, where the topics can range from silly to seriously wrong.

He's also a primary care physician in New Jersey. It's when he's in that role, seeing patients, that the power of those videos becomes personal. A question influenced by social media comes up "almost every visit," Varshavski said. Whether it's a decision about vaccinations or the effects of an online diet gone bad, he can see "some sort of tentacle" from social media reaching in.

What's more concerning are the people who are not coming in to see him because of social media, he said, "because they have been fed misinformation that scares them away."

Although research on health and social media moves much slower than trends on the platforms themselves, their influence is clear.

The view count for videos on TikTok alone is in the billions. In a nationally representative survey of more than 4,000 adults conducted by polling and market research company YouGov and the website Healthline in September 2024, 52% of those asked said they had learned about health matters from social media, as compared with 34% who learned from their doctor and 30% who visited a health information site.

In that survey, 67% of members of "Gen Z" – defined as those born between 1997 and 2012 – who tried a health approach, trend or product in the prior year learned about it from social media, as compared to 32% of baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964.

Not everything related to all that influence is negative, said Dr. Katherine Chretien, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore who has studied social media in medicine.

Social media can provide sound health information, said Chretien, who also is associate dean for medical student affairs and director of medical student wellness. It's particularly good at helping people with specific conditions connect with others for support.

"But you have to be careful," she said.

Here are tips Chretien and Varshavski offered for making the best use of health information on social media.

Wait a second

"Before you do anything, you have to pause," Varshavski said. "Just take a breath."

That breath can help you stay calm and prevent a rash decision. "It's very easy to see something, be frightened by it, be excited by it and reflexively share it," amplifying a potentially inaccurate message, he said.

Keep in mind that algorithms – coding that determines the content in your social media feeds – aren't necessarily tuned to deliver the most up-to-date or accurate information, he said. "So a lot of times, you'll get served information that is quite extreme, heavy on the opinion, low on the fact. And as a result, what you'll end up with is a skewed, incorrect view of what steps need to be taken for your health and what you can do to actually improve your health, or what kind of doctor you need to see."

As part of a campaign against misinformation, the World Health Organization recommends steps such as looking to official sources; reading to the end of a story instead of relying just on the headline; and understanding that "if something sounds unbelievable, it very well might be."

Check them out

After you take that breath, Varshavski said, ask questions about the person sharing the information. Two crucial ones are: Is this person trained in the field they're talking about? And do they have a financial incentive to lead you one way or another?

Chretien said that checking out your source is important. "If it's information that would cause someone to do something that would affect their health, I would make sure you know who's talking."

Be wary of people promoting products, she said. "I'd always be a little bit cautious about anyone who's trying to sell anything." A quick search can tell you whether their claims are backed by articles from reputable medical journals or whether someone claiming to be a doctor is licensed by a state medical board, she said.

Asked how "Doctor Mike" handles potential conflicts, Sam Bowers, the show's managing editor and producer, said that Varshavski turns down "99% of sponsorship opportunities that come his way. In general, he partners with groups and organizations in which he feels strongly aligned," including companies that sell audiobooks or promote media literacy. "He always makes sure that his disclosures are crystal clear so his viewers are never confused about what is or isn't sponsored."

Understand the fame game

A licensed professional has an incentive to be accurate because mistakes can cost them that license, Varshavski said. "When it's just a random person or a random celebrity influencer giving advice, there is no one to hold liable."

That person might mean well, and humans are wired to trust information from familiar faces, he said. "But when it comes to health advice, you want to go against that reflex and instead think about: Where does the liability fall? Is this person an expert? How much experience do they have working in that field?"

Leave room for doubt

Science sometimes involves uncertainty, but "major organizations work by consensus, where it's not one expert's opinion that we're relying on," Varshavski said.

When advice is rooted in consensus opinions, "you're going to have a more nuanced, more thorough overview of whatever medical question you're seeking an answer to." But if you're following someone "who speaks in absolutes with utmost certainty without the correct credentials, you're going to end up in a scenario where you're getting tricked by misinformation," he said.

As some of Chretien's research has shown, confirming a source's credentials isn't always easy, and Varshavski agreed that the process can be a lot of work. So, for people who don't feel equipped to evaluate claims themselves, he has an alternative.

Ask your doctor

"What I tell my patients is: Pause, screenshot it, and bring it to me as your primary care provider so that we can discuss the truth, the myth, the potential misinformation that could live there," Varshavski said.

He said that unlike some doctors, he's a fan of patients who look things up online – "as long as it's preparation for our visit as opposed to replacing that visit. I don't think a social media search should ever be used in lieu of a proper conversation between a patient and a doctor."

Sometimes he might not know the answer, he said. "But it presents a learning opportunity that I think could improve the doctor-patient relationship."

While you're there, Chretien suggested, ask your doctor to recommend their own favorite social media accounts for health information.

Advice for professionals

To help spread accurate information, Chretien encourages doctors themselves to be active on social media, if they are comfortable speaking publicly. "One of our ethical obligations as physicians is not just to our individual patients, but also to the public and improving community health, too." Doctors can help their cause by making their credentials clear and by linking to research from reputable journals.

Varshavski said that real experts' reluctance to take part in social media may be a root of the problem. Some were afraid of posting on social media because it was deemed unprofessional, he said, "and as a result, we created these areas where there were no good experts fact-checking the flood of information that was coming at people."

When they find quality information, health care professionals need to support it, he said. Legitimate sources will put out accurate content only to have people scroll right past it. "So give them a like, give them a comment," he said.

Varshavski said he understands the pull of the fast, easy answers that social media can provide. "Reflexively, as humans, when something happens to us, to our health, to our loved ones' health, we get worried, and we want to seek answers quickly."

But more needs to be done to understand how social media platforms deliver those answers, he said. It's hard for health information to be both educational and entertaining, he said, and "at the end of the day, these platforms are a mirror. They're a mirror of us, what we click on, what we want to watch."