
Ask HN: How reliable is WebMD? - assafmo
When reading about general stuff (like sugar or diet), not looking for simptoms?
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xiphias
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.

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assafmo
Thanks!

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

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assafmo
Thanks! I'll have a look

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onuralp
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/](http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h3480/)

