In recent years, we live in an online world of social media and receive misinformation or fake news including COVID related health and immune boost as (google/WhatsApp/Facebook)!! Therefore, An online informational environment that defined as “infosphere”
Journal of Frontiers in Medicine
185 webpages returned from a Google search on “boost immunity”
Classified them by typology (blogs, commercial, government, no-profit, news, professional, scientific journals)
• Studies indicate that people often visit only the first websites presented in a SERP
• Large presence of commercial websites, representing 30% of the whole SERP (Search engine result page).
• Google tends to rank commercial websites low, as none of them appears in the top 10 hits, giving more visibility to news websites
• commercial webpages also ranked lowest in HIQ (health information quality) criteria such as the JAMA score and the HONcode (Health on the net).
HIQ (health information quality) or HONcode (Health on the net). This is an authority to verify and validation of publishing information on the internet!
Most of the boosters mentioned are not incorporated in any medical guidelines
Marketing of supplements is not subject to the same level of evidence-based medicine required to market a medicinal product as long as the claim is not addressing specific diseases.
For instance, the European Food Standard Authority (EFSA) approved the claim that vitamin C “contributes to the maintenance of the normal function of the immune system”. how it became so popular in this field and in the public understanding of science. This does not seem to reflect clinical evidence (29) or research activity in terms of scientific publication.
Scientific searching tool: PubMed for the term “immunity” on 31/1/2019 returned approx. 450thousand (453867) publications. Adding the term “vitamin C” returned just 306 papers (0.07%) on immunity based information.
Comparison:
Immunity and “interferon” 9% (immune cells) of database retrieved
Immunity and “vaccine” 13.7%
Immunity and “antioxidant” 2.1%
Immunity and “diet” 1.5%
Immunity and “vitamin D” 0.29%.
Natural therapies can be used as complementary or alternative medicine, in addition to vaccination, or as an alternative to vaccination.
Public health websites, educational websites, health portals, and professional organizations should specifically mention that vaccines “boost immunity” against infectious disease in their websites otherwise, and vaccines, would not be found after a search on this topic.
Search on boosting immunity returns commercially biased webpages promoting the use and sales of supplements.
The ranking of webpages by Google gives more visibility to professional websites and news while no commercial website was ranked high, none of them being in the top ten ranking.
None of the webpages in the search provided negative information about vaccines.
Therefore, eating a balanced diet, getting sufficient sleep, exercising regularly, and reducing one’s stress levels are well known to be strategies for maintaining health but providing misinformation making it a more potent marketing tool than actual scientific facts.
About Channel and Myself:
The nature of food which consists of engineering, biological, and physical sciences to understand scientific aspects of food physiology, food chemistry, food microbiology, food processing, food engineering, molecular gastronomy, quality control, sensory science, food & human nutrition and ultimately health & healthy lifestyle. Foodi ‘N’ formation Science= [Food] [Foodie] [Information] [Food Formation] [Science] is focus to deliver various day-to-day food habits, scientific and traditional knowledge through education, scientific evidences and research articles as key tools to solve questions. Hey, I’m Mohamed Anis! I under graduated in Biotechnology, post-graduated in Food Science and Nutrition. Right now I’m in the final stage of my PhD from one of leading food research institute in India. I’m so passionate about food, food, food and food! Therefore, I wish to explore “Foodi’N’formation” to this beautiful world!
