TikTok Diets Are Helping People When Medicine Can’t
Sometimes too much of a good thing is ok.
Photographer: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images
As a species, humans possess a kind of superpower: the ability to survive on a remarkably wide variety of foods, allowing us to thrive everywhere from the Amazon rainforest to the Arctic tundra. Now, thanks to social media, our dietary range is being tested again. TikTok and YouTube have made stars of influencers who tout — often with the help of celebrities — the virtues of various lifestyles from veganism to juicing to subsisting on nothing but meat. Advocates of some of these trends even claim their diets have cured them of serious diseases.
Are any of these extreme diets safe or healthy? Sometimes, for some people, under some circumstances. They can also be risky and are best done under a doctor’s supervision. That’s why physicians should take seriously the possibility that some of these dietary interventions can help people and learn how to guide patients in adopting them safely.