CAN YOU REALLY TRUST DR GOOGLE?

You need to be careful when searching for health advice on the internet

- GEMMA WILCOCK

We've nearly all done it. Worried about a lingering cough or a new rash, we quickly type our symptoms into Google. In fact, most of us will read health advice on the internet, before deciding to see a doctor. This may not be a surprise, given that the average waiting time for a GP appointment is 10 days**.

Every second patient will say to me they've looked at their symptoms on Google,' says clinical GP Dr Hana Patel. 'Often, when people have symptoms that they're worried about, it's natural for them to want an answer straight away."

Some websites even offer a symptom checker - you simply answer some questions, and it tells you what could be causing them. But how reliable are these sites and could they be doing more harm than good?

The risks

IT CAN CAUSE HEALTH ANXIETY

Guilty of frantic scrolling? Self-diagnosing every ache and pain can lead to a condition called cyberchondria, which is health anxiety caused by searching for symptoms online. It's something that's on the rise due the wealth of health information available on the internet, found researchers at Imperial College London. 'Dr Google is very informative but he doesn't put things in the right proportion,' says the study lead Professor Peter Tyrer.

Type something as ambiguous as 'headache' into a search engine and it will likely offer up a range of potential diagnoses - some of diagnoses some of them very worrying.

For example, as you scroll through web pages, a bad headache soon becomes a brain tumour or some other serious condition, rather than a migraine, which can spark a spiral of unwarranted fears.