You shouldn't trust anyone, ever. The average health podcaster has no idea what they are talking about, yet they are quite confident in their (lack of) knowledge.

Probably easy for me to talk since I am a doctor, so I can smell the bullshit, but any person owes it to themselves to verify information. People should get comfortable using pubmed and get educated on how to verify medical information. 

1. Always search for RCTs and Systematic reviews of RCTs, observational studies CANNOT establish a causal link.

2. Always make sure to read the proposed effect size. If the RR of an observational study is 1.2, just ignore it and continue living your life (that's the correlation between LDL and heart disease btw). Anything under 2 is simply not worth your time.

3. Always check who funded and authored the study. I ignore any nutritional study, no matter its supposed quality, published by Loma Linda university because those people have a religious goal with promoting vegetarianism.

4. Don't trust any new drug studies, always wait for at least ~7years before taking any new drug seriously. 7 years is the average time it takes to recall a dangerous drug from the market.

5. Be very skeptical about large effect claims and surrogate markers. I don't care if a diabetic drug improves glycemic control if people die more frequently while taking it or if the mortality rate remains the same.

I recommend reading Malcolm Kendrick's book "Doctoring Data" and "Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime" by P. Gotzsche to learn more. 

It is essential for the person to understand that medical research and medicine in general has been completely corrupted by pharmaceutical companies and governmental regulators. It is better to assume deception while reading a research study than honesty. 

 Would you want to jump on a podcast talking about this? 

I am super interested in knowing more about this and having an open discussion 

 I am truly flattered by your offer, but I am not confident enough for the public spotlight yet.

I recommend contacting dr. Kendrick (the author of the book I recommended), he might be interested in making a video. Ken Berry recently made a nostr account and he might be interested as well.

Personally, I have grown very disillusioned with my profession. All I see is either profiteering off chronic disease while prostituting the profession to big pharma, or overworked colleagues who are just following whatever the guidelines say. Breaking ranks and criticizing dogma is severely punished usually, unless it leads to more drug recommendations.

Always, always remember: Don't trust, verify. 

 Looks like very sound advice. 

Any further tips on specific areas?

(I’m currently looking into hypertension management) 

 I'll just say that the definition for hypertension gets updated to lower and lower values every ~15 years or so. Used to be that a systolic BP of over 140 was considered hypertensive and an indication to treat, but now...

The AHA, which is probably the most corrupt health organization in America, has decided that a BP over 130 is hypertensive and should be treated. As a rule, it is probably best to ignore what the AHA has to say, since it is more of a marketing arm of pharmaceutical companies than a real medical organization. I would treat all the medical doctors working for them as prostitutes.

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a4d5666bff20053c65b7ff2/1516402580757-E1DJ8PAMC10IIPGDO96S/Donors_v3.png?format=1500w 

 Many thanks Vlada. 

UK soon to follow I’d wager, with >130 already rebranded ‘pre high’.