Functional foods and cancer on Pinterest and PubMed: myths and science.

Aim: This article examines whether social media postings dealing with cancer and so-called 'functional foods' simply reflect a fashionable subject or are based on scientific evidence. Methods: The first step consisted of an analysis of a sample of Pins published on Pinterest. The second consisted of an analysis to determine whether the content of the Pins was based on scientific research. Results: From a set of 507 Pins on cancer, we found 204 that also dealt with food. We selected 75 Pins representing different foods and we identified about 80,000 scientific articles on cancer and food indexed in PubMed. Conclusion: We concluded that material published on Pinterest has some correlation with the scientific literature. Lay abstract: The objective of this study was to identify the correlation between what Pinterest users share about food and cancer, and the scientific evidence on the relationship between cancer and consumption of specific foods. In order to do this, we used PubMed and studied 75 Pins published in Pinterest. We identified about 80,000 scientific articles in PubMed about cancer and those foods posted on Pinterest. We observed that the Pins published in Pinterest have some relation to scientific information despite it not being possible to establish if the correlation with the particular food and cancer involved prevention, cure or treatment.