Diabetes is one of the most challenging chronic health conditions in 21th century. Diabetes-related problems need proper patient education, and social media plays a role to disseminate information. The aim of our study was to evaluate the quality of medical information presented in social network.
We studied 20 Russians top popular influencers, based on those who had more than 100,000 followers in Instagram social media and who had hashtags #diabetes, #diabetic_nutrition.
We found that 14 out of 20 of the blogs (20%) could not be considered credible sources of diabetes management information. These blogs have unrelieble and potentially harmful recommendations like "fruits are undoubtedly products that lower blood sugar" or such kind of not evidence-based information: “The main savior for diabetics is cinnamon. The combination of polyphenols and magnesium mimics the effects of insulin, making sugar levels drop significantly. Garlic is another very useful supplement that makes the pancreas secrete double-acting insulin.”
Social media influencers blogs are not credible resources for diabetes management. Popularity and impact of social media in the context of the diabetes epidemic suggests all influencers should be required to meet accepted scientifically or medically justified criteria for the provision of diabetes management advice online.