Surprise, surprise. Another month has passed, and the tainted wellspring of TikTok โmedical knowledgeโ has coughed up yet another pseudoscientific gem reeking of โtrust me broโ energy.
Thankfully, actual doctors and nurses have responded firmly in the interest of public health.
Like a crossover between the medical advice of your Italian great uncle (whatever it is, rub oil on it) and that tinfoil-hatted friend of yours who will never visit the doctor (theyโre just trying to poison us, maaaan), this TikTok trend proposes a solution to strep throat that we all apparently missed: potatoes.
Yeah, forget antibiotics – says a certain woman in a certain TikTok we refuse to link – simply have your child drink the juice of a potato and their strep throat will be gone โwithin hours,โ as it supposedly went with her 14-year-old daughterโs case.
Thankfully, within just days, a smattering of concerned doctors and nurses showed up to refute this extremely lofty claim, and considering whatโs at stake, with very little mincing of words.
โI normally donโt yell, but this type of bad medical advice can harm a child,โ read the caption under the rebuttal video of pediatrician and allergist Dr. Rubin, in which he (loudly) listed the following complications that may result from improperly treated streptococcus infection:
This last issue was labeled soberly by Dr. Rubin as โthe most dreaded of all,โ as it can have detrimental effects on the heart, brain, and joints that could be โlife shortening.โ
Another medical expert, medical toxicology physician Dr. Kelly Johnson-Arbor, brought up a very important point in her comments featured in this Today article covering the dangerous trend: coincidences happen.
In other words, maybe the strep throat really did clear up soon after the potato juice, but strep is often โself-limiting,โ Dr. Johnson-Arbor explained. This in no way means that the potato – which, by the way, does contain some antifungal compounds – actually cleared up the infection.
Thatโs when it clicked for us – this is probably how most of these trends are born. Some undiscerning โhome naturopathโ clamoring for TikTok ideas tries a natural remedy on their kids, encounters this coincidence, and wouldnโt you know, they discover a simple remedy that centuries of medical research missed.
Normally, we have a laugh and shrug these off, but weโre talking about our kids, people. Letโs stick to antibiotics.
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