“I had one patient who saw a TikTok video about doing a colon cleanse, bought something over the counter to do the cleanse, and ended up in our emergency department,” [said] American Gastroenterological Association spokesperson Shazia Siddique, MD ….
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It’s easy to find product promotions on social media that could appeal to patients with gastrointestinal problems. …
On TikTok, the hashtags #guttok and #guthealth show endless videos of influencers promising ways you can ‘eliminate bloating!’ or ‘heal your gut,’ ….
Alex Kresovich, PhD, NORC … and colleagues recently investigated high-engagement social media posts …, assessing their alignment with FDA and Federal Trade Commission oversight. “We wanted to quantify exactly how much promotional content is flying under the radar,” Kresovich said.
Related on the SLP
“The sheer scale and the profound lack of balance were striking,” he said. “We analyzed just 740 high-engagement posts, yet they had already amassed over 57.5 million views.
We found that 80.1% of posts with clear marketing elements (like ‘life-changing’ language or calls to action) lacked any clear sponsorship disclosure.” Furthermore, less than a third (32.3%) of posts touting a drug’s benefits also mentioned potential harms.
