Making sense of contradicting health and medical advice

Making sense of contradicting health and medical advice

The most frustrating aspect of doing your own research on health and medicine is that half of what is said appears to contradict the other half. Every study contradicts another study. One health guru disagrees with the next health guru.

But there are two positive considerations.

First, it is often the case that two apparently opposing opinions are each largely correct. It is just that one opinion will work for one person and the opposing opinion will work for another. Both opinions make good points backed by some evidence. The issue tends to be that one expert will think that their treatment or protocol or diet or advice works for everyone on all occasions. Health and medicine rarely work this way. One man's medicine is another man's poison.

A problem with any expert is that he or she is invested in his or her profession being the "correct" profession and having the answers to all things health. Doctors have spent a decade or more learning to prescribe pharmaceutical drugs. They need the answer to your health problem to be pharmaceutical drugs, otherwise they have wasted their lives. Likewise, a naturopath needs the answer to be a natural solution whereby the patient leads a more healthy lifestyle, and a health guru who is an expert on a particular vitamin or mineral is excited about the solution to your illness being a high dose of that vitamin or mineral. We best take the approach that we might learn something from each of these people, and that each offers a solution that might or might not work for us.