Doctors say health anxiety is being fuelled by social media

Detailed summary

Doctors say consumer health tests can encourage people to be more proactive about their health, but they are also leading to increased body monitoring and health anxiety.

GPs say people should talk to a doctor before spending money on these trends.

Ashley Bowden spends a large part of his workday counselling patients for their health anxiety in his regional NSW practice.

"It almost feels as if it's 50 per cent of the patients I see; we end up touching on health anxiety," he said.

"There's certainly a number of patients that have quite severe anxiety around their health."

"I absolutely love talking to patients about what they've seen online … what they're worrying about and what's causing them to spiral," he said.

Psychologist Olivia Loughnan said social media played a "significant" role in triggering health anxiety.

She said algorithms reinforced health-related fears by responding to what users watched, searched for and engaged with.

"Someone who watches a video about the early warning signs of a serious illness, they may subsequently be exposed to more content about related symptoms," Dr Loughnan said.

"It can create the impression that serious illnesses are increasingly common or personally relevant to them."

Opening of the article, excerpted from ABC Science. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.