How to find the truth in health trends

Here's an example to give you context about how to decipher the truth amongst the trends:
Over the past week or so I have noticed quite a few vegan/health-based articles and blogs talk about how there are numerous benefits to drinking water with 1/2 a lemon every morning. I started feeling like perhaps this is something to add to my routine, especially since I already drink water first thing in the morning to cleanse the toxins my body secreted throughout the night during its nightly fast.
 So this morning I drank a glass of water with 1/2 a squeezed lemon. The results were not as fabulous as other people have apparently experienced. My throat actually burned a bit and I had a little bout of reflux, which I never, ever have. Needless to say, after that experience I decided to do my own research to see what I could find about the real benefits to see if I should keep plowing through it.

Now, if you type it into just plain google, you will find tons of these blogs listing off reasons as to why this new trend is a must. However, if you look into the scientific evidence, based on unbiased studies and not someones personal experience,  you will find it lacking. In fact, the only research I could find to support this as being beneficial was over 30 years old. In the scientific community, we would pretty much consider that outdated, as really anything over 5 years is considered outdated (in grad school, you were lucky if a professor let you use research conducted in the past 10 years). What I did find though, were medical doctors stating that it can actually do more harm than good and cause stomach issues based on more up-to-date unbiased research. Quite different from what I read before, no?

So what am I getting at? I'm not saying don't try the lemon/water for yourself-you may find benefit. What I am saying is do your own research and educate yourself, don't just take someone's word for it. Always throw in a bit of skepticism. This goes for everything. If you don't have access to scholarly websites, start with Google Scholar or search for articles written by experts on non-biased media outlets (random example of bias: finding an article about the benefits of protein powder on a company website that sells protein powder or a website where the sponsor is the company selling the product they're discussing). There are a million health trends out there constantly coming and going (and I would suspect this warm water/lemon trend was probably in 30 years ago when that study was published) and it can be difficult to sift through them all. Sometimes we want to believe something is working when it's really not doing anything at all (placebo effect). Or sometimes if someone we hold in high regard (or someone in a white coat in an advertisement) tells us to do something to gain x y and z benefits, we believe they're really happening when they may not be at all (diet pills work this way a lot of the time, esp the OTC kind...a lot of diet pills are really just placebos). It reminds me of all the remedies that were sold to people in the 19th and turn of the 20th centuries. There were tinctures and cures galore for every ailment imaginable- most of them did nothing at all and were complete scams.

Before I really got into juicing and eliminating processed/refined foods, I did quite a bit of research on the benefits before making my decision. I watched countless documentaries and read countless articles. I had to sift through what was fact and what was opinion and at times it was challenging. The types of documentaries I prefer for information are ones that try to stick to facts and talk about research or different case studies and what the results were instead of interest pieces (most documentaries have some vested interest, but you can find ones that are more about fact than opinion). The Beautiful Truth is a great documentary about Gerson Therapy. Dr. Gerson was a true pioneer in the benefits of raw food, curing patients with cancers, heart disease, polio (before the vaccine was invented), tumors, and a myriad of other terminal illnesses without using one pharmaceutical drug. There is also the Gerson Miracle.

Remember, change takes time. The more prepared you are, the more tools you will have once you take that leap and you will have a better chance for success. And stay skeptical, always.

I hope your week is winding down and your weekend is full of lots of self care,
Jessica

What's something you're doing for yourself this weekend?