by Tom Moberly, UK editor
Smart watches, health and fitness apps, and social media have fuelled an explosion in people’s access to health information about themselves and other people. Yet as these innovations serve up ever more individual data, and the reach of influencers and entrepreneurs on social media expands, so the challenges facing health workers accumulate.
With social media awash with inaccurate posts about health, should doctors be wading in to offer medical advice or to correct misinformation? When influencers are pushing iron or testosterone supplementation to their followers (doi:10.1136/bmj-2026-101080 doi:10.1136/bmj-2026-101300), do doctors need to be more active in outlining the risks and benefits? Our feature on “medfluencers” finds doctors arguing the case for engaging directly with influencers on social media, while others warn about the potential regulatory pitfalls (doi:10.1136/bmj-2026-101156). John Dale-Skinner, a medicolegal adviser at the Medical Defence Union, says that he would steer doctors “away from that minefield.”
People understandably want to impose some order on the unfiltered stream of content they are receiving. They may want to explain their experiences in biomedical terms or look for a diagnosis, and at that point they will often find themselves stuck in the thickets between normal physiology and abnormalities that require intervention.
The huge expansion in health information reaches beyond the digital world into individual consultations. What should a doctor say to patients using a menstrual tracking app to understand and manage their mental and physical health (doi:10.1136/bmj-2026-100858)?4 In what circumstances should an NHS GP order tests to monitor patients who are self-treating with medicines bought online? “Reaching the best decision in each case involves trying to balance patient need, safety, fairness, cost to the NHS, and the impact on our workload,” writes Helen Salisbury in her column on this topic (doi:10.1136/bmj-2026-101305). “The thinking itself, and discussion with colleagues, takes time and energy, which are sometimes in short supply in general practice.”
Should doctors then nurture the engagement in individual health that leads someone to spend their own money on an unproven treatment? Matt Morgan argues that, to support patients under siege from purveyors of overdiagnosis and overtreatment, doctors need to improve the way they work to avoid unnecessary medical interventions (doi:10.1136/bmj-2026-101272). “The motivation behind a patient’s purchase of a miracle supplement, or a host of blood tests they hadn’t heard of, was actually good,” he points out. “They simply wanted to look after themselves—and, in many ways, this is exactly what doctors have spent our careers trying to encourage.”
The interest in health fuelled by new technology can then be seen as an opportunity, rather than simply a challenge. Working with patients to avoid unnecessary medical interventions should, Morgan says, “be an alliance, not a lecture: a gentle nudge to redirect effort towards the things that work, whether that’s sleep, movement, blood pressure control, stopping smoking, or evidence based screening.”
SOURCE: BMJ 2026; 395 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2026-101340 (Published 05 November 2026) Cite this as: BMJ 2026;395:e101340.