Dietary misconceptions in cancer: Moving away from TikTok (8 March 2024)

Summary

This Medscape article looks at misconceptions about the impact of diet on cancer progression that are being spread on social media platforms such as TikTok. Examples of these ideas include the idea that you can 'starve' cancer by cutting out carbohydrates, or that an alkaline diet will stop cancer by neutralising the acid environment around a tumour. The author, John Kerr, asks whether there should be a rallying call for cancer health professionals to do more to "push these scientifically illiterate concepts away." He suggests, "Rather than just shrugging our shoulders, perhaps we should be thinking more about it?"