Ask HN: How reliable is WebMD?

13 points by assafmo 8y ago ↗ HN

When reading about general stuff (like sugar or diet), not looking for simptoms?

5 comments

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It has 18000 results just for weight loss, and if you look at different diets for weight loss, they are conflicting, so I wouldn't trust it.

I think PubMed is still the best thing we've got: read medical publications directly, even those are not clear, but at least closer to the data source.

assafmo 8y ago ↗

Thanks!

bimboop 8y ago ↗

PubMed Health (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/), MEDLINE Plus (https://medlineplus.gov/), UpToDate Basics (https://www.uptodate.com/contents/table-of-contents/patient-...) all better than WebMD. I am a medical librarian.

assafmo 8y ago ↗

Thanks! I'll have a look

onuralp 8y ago ↗

According to this study[0] on the diagnostic (and triage) accuracy of online symptom checkers (including WebMD among others), the reliability is a coin toss.

[0] http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h3480/