August 07, 2025
2 min learn
Key takeaways:
- Many individuals use social media to go looking health-related content material on-line.
- Forty % of the highest movies on TikTok about ldl cholesterol had been deemed inaccurate.
BOSTON — A lot of the health-related content material about ldl cholesterol on social media, particularly TikTok, is inaccurate, in response to analysis offered on the American Society for Preventive Cardiology Congress on CVD Prevention.
On account of rising use of social media to seek for health-related content material, researchers carried out a examine that appeared on the prime movies on TikTok utilizing the search phrases #ldl cholesterol and #highcholesterol.
“Our examine highlights the extent of cholesterol-related misinformation on TikTok — over 40% of the top-viewed movies had been inaccurate and greater than a 3rd had been doubtlessly dangerous,” Khush M. Kharidia, MD, a third-year inside medication resident at UT Southwestern, informed Healio. “These findings underscore how a lot deceptive content material sufferers encounter on-line.”
High quality, accuracy of cholesterol-related content material on TikTok
It’s estimated that 40% of individuals use social media to go looking health-related content material on-line, together with TikTok, which has 1 billion customers around the globe, Kharidia stated through the presentation.
Nonetheless, “the accuracy and reliability of this data is unknown,” Kharidia stated.
In August 2024, the researchers curated the highest cholesterol-related movies upon looking out #ldl cholesterol and #highcholesterol on a brand new TikTok account.
The 211 movies chosen for the examine had greater than 90 million views.
Kharidia and colleagues analyzed video engagement, targets of the video (eg, instructional or promotional), well being profit, accuracy and high quality. Every video was manually graded by two unbiased reviewers, one in every of whom was a doctor. Any discrepancies had been adjudicated by an skilled preventive heart specialist, Kharidia stated.
One-quarter of the movies had been made by physicians, which included 12% made by cardiologists. The remainder of the movies had been made by lay creators (47%) or different well being care professionals (32%).
Kharidia stated there was no vital distinction in engagement metrics by creator kind, however there was a development towards much less engagement for movies made by doctor and cardiology content material creators.
“For instance, cardiologists, on common, had 80,000 views per video whereas lay people had greater than half 1,000,000,” Kharidia stated through the presentation.
Weight-reduction plan was essentially the most mentioned matter, adopted by drugs. Train was the least mentioned matter.
Movies made by physicians tended to be extra instructional in nature, whereas movies by nonphysicians tended to concentrate on dietary recommendation and private experiences.
The researchers deemed excessive video understandability throughout the board, and no distinction by creator kind.
“Movies that had been created by lay people or different well being care professionals tended to be extra inaccurate and tended to have higher potential for hurt,” Kharidia stated through the presentation. “That being stated, movies by cardiologists and physicians had been in no way good; there was a considerable portion of cardiologists and different physicians who did have inaccuracies within the movies that we analyzed.”
The researchers acknowledged limitations of the present examine, together with the dynamic nature of TikTok and its algorithm, subjectivity within the rating techniques used and the shortcoming to translate these knowledge into real-world outcomes.
Want for evidence-based content material
“The implications and the findings of this examine are clear: Misinformation about ldl cholesterol is widespread on TikTok, and whereas physician-created content material tends to carry out higher, it doesn’t essentially obtain extra engagement,” Kharidia stated through the presentation.
For well being care professionals who look after sufferers who’re lively on social media, “we hope this not solely empowers clinicians to raised educate their sufferers but additionally encourages them to take a extra lively position in producing and selling evidence-based content material.
“By partaking with platforms like TikTok, we might help curb misinformation and promote public well being,” Kharidia informed Healio.
Sources/Disclosures
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Kharidia Ok. Oral summary shows. Introduced at: American Society for Preventive Cardiology Congress on CVD Prevention; Aug. 1-3, 2025; Boston.
Disclosures:
Kharidia reviews no related monetary disclosures.
