Weird, wacky and wonderful

The internet has led to an explosion of information about cancer. Much of it is accurate and reliable, but some of it is not. When reading stories about cancer on the internet, our ‘top tips’ still apply.

You may see stories about alternative therapies that claim to be a “100 per cent cure for cancer”, but there is usually no scientific evidence to support these promises.

The general rule is that if something sounds to good to be true, it probably is.

There are several websites that offer authoritative scientific advice on complementary and alternative cancer treatments:

• Cancer Research UK’s CancerHelp UK site has information about research into such treatments, and detailed information about a number of specific therapies. There is also advice about how to tell if a website is likely to contain reliable information
• The American Cancer Society (ACS) website also carries information about complementary and alternative treatments for people with cancer
• Quackwatch has very detailed information about ineffective, hoax or potentially dangerous cancer “cures”

Read our other top tips:

• Look at the numbers
• Look for controls
• Understanding risk
• Is the research published? If so, where?
• Who funded it?
• Still early days