Watching a parent struggle with a serious illness can force people into some incredibly difficult decisions.
This adult child found themselves in that position while trying to help his mother, who has cancer and currently lives in a nursing home.
Since her condition made eating difficult, he gave her access to a food delivery account so she could order whatever sounded appealing at the moment.
For a while, the arrangement worked well.
However, as her health declined, the orders became more frequent and the food stopped making it to her.
Read on to see what he offered his mother instead.
AITA for taking away my sick mom’s access to food delivery?
My mom has cancer and she has been in a nursing home.
Due to the cancer, she either cannot eat or wants to eat one specific thing and the nursing home doesn’t have it. So I hooked her up with my DoorDash account and she could get the food she thought she could eat when she wanted it.
It worked well at first. She would order the food and eat most of it. Sometimes she would get it and realized she couldn’t eat it and that was fine. But her condition has progressed to where she can’t really use a phone well and she sleeps all the time.
Unfortunately, DoorDash has her card on file.
So she will try to order a pizza but click the wrong buttons and get friend chicken or something. She doesn’t have good hand control now and she also doesn’t really know what she is looking at so she just randomly taps and checks out. Then she gets food and doesn’t eat it.
For the last few weeks, she has been sleeping most of the day. She will wake up, order something on DoorDash, and then go right back to sleep. She won’t pick it up herself and she won’t ask any of the staff to get it for her because she just goes right to sleep.
The issue is that my card is connected to the DoorDash. So I am spending a lot of money on food that she does not actually want and she also never receives.
Frustrated, she came up with a new solution.
On one of my visits, I told her I need to take my card info off her DoorDash. And I told her that she can either ask me to bring her food or ask me to place an order for delivery for her and I’ll contact the staff to try to make sure it at least gets to her. If she eats it or not, at least it’s there. She said ok.
Well, she has been texting family members that I cut her off from DoorDash, and she is so hungry.
I’ve had some family members call me out on this. I’ve told them that I am doing the best I can to get her food she will eat but the food she has been ordering has never made it to her or it’s something she doesn’t want or can’t eat.
But multiple family members keep saying that as her child, I need to provide for her when she is sick, and I’ve been really doing my best. I am pushed beyond my limits. I just can’t afford it if she won’t or can’t eat it.
AITA?
Yikes! Maybe her mother misunderstood what she was saying.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who doesn’t want to go to the amusement park with her friend anymore, because the friend can no longer ride most of the attractions.
Let’s check out how the readers over at Reddit feel about what she did here.
Here’s some advice for him.
That would be a good thing to accept.
According to this comment, the complaining family members can pay.
This is nicely worded.
This son is doing everything he can for his mother during an incredibly difficult time.
Let’s not forget that he didn’t take away her access to food. Instead, he came up with a different system because the one they had stopped working.
Meanwhile, it’s very easy for family members to sit back and talk about what they would do differently.
However, if they aren’t the ones paying for the orders, managing the deliveries, and dealing with this situation day after day, then they probably need to take a step back and let him handle it the way he believes is best.

Doctors Are Sharing The Health “Trends” That Are WAY More Dangerous Than Anyone Realizes, And I’m Blocking Every Influencer I Follow
“RN here, taking care of a patient who stopped taking her blood pressure meds and started taking TikTok supplements instead. Her 12-year-old children found her down after a cardiac arrest. She’s now anoxic, and the family is deciding if they want to keep her body alive (her mind is gone) or let her pass naturally.”
Recently, Reddit user Fine-Device-1819 asked, “Doctors of Reddit: What health trend is becoming so common that it’s starting to scare you?” As a hypochondriac, I like to know exactly what danger to avoid — here’s what rising trends doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals are seeing that reveal just how dangerous popular activities, attitudes, and beliefs are.
1. “The sheer number of people under 30 who have intractable cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS). They smoke pot so often that they can’t stop vomiting. A friend of mine works for a GI clinic and says better than 25% of the referrals are for CHS. I audit ED charts, and a surprising number of people have very telling labs. A couple of years ago, I’d see a few people with alcoholism a week with fatty liver throwing enzymes, or folks who had an EGD (throat scope) with distended veins in the throat. Now, every freakin’ shift, I see an ED chart for a 20-nothing who can’t stop barfing. Doc orders labs, and wow, THC levels that would make Cheech or Chong proud. Hey people — put down the bong, quit smoking cones every damn day, and you won’t have stomach/colon problems.”
—u/Med_stromtrooper
2. Relatedly…”I’m a PhD doctor, not medical. But, the casual use of Marijuana: I’ve dealt with four cases so far of THC-induced psychosis. Just because weed is often legal now doesn’t mean it is advisable to take it. Intense use in a subset of the population can sometimes set off permanent psychosis. So far, four out of four of the cases I helped with, which led to hospitalization in psychiatric wards for some months, all recovered within a year. But don’t risk it!”
—u/blarryg
3. “The number of patients who have preventable STDs but who would rather get on medication after getting said STDs/STIs, not caring that the meds are lifelong.”
—u/WesternTell1446
“Came here to say this one. The number of people unwilling to just wear a condom in 2026 is absolutely wild.”
—u/cornisgood13
4. “Vaping. It’s really starting to get common in teens and young adults. We just don’t know what effects they will have. It’s possible we are going to see a lot of Interstitial Lung Disease in 20-30 years, but who knows, honestly.”
—u/Saxdude2016
“Vaping. People honestly think sucking a chemical concoction heated in a cheap plastic canister is ‘healthy’ because it’s not ‘smoking.'”
—u/dbun1
5. Though also…”The whole ‘cigarettes are cool’ wave is coming all over again and hitting the younger demographic especially.”
—u/KiroHorime
6. “Ketamine use in the young leading to serious bladder dysfunction.”
—u/Secure-Suspect7091
“It’s insanely bad in some parts of the UK. My sister has been waiting a couple of years for a kidney transplant, but the waiting list is full of teenagers with ‘ketamine kidney.'”
—u/MLang92
“It affects the filtration rate and can allow far too much liquid to go into your bladder, making you wet yourself and damaging the filtration system of your kidneys. It can also cause your anus to prolapse.
Don’t do ketamine.”
—u/ExplorationGeo
“It damages the kidneys as a side effect of the negative effect it has on the urinary tract. Because of this, long-term ketamine use will eventually cause kidney failure.”
—u/MLang92
“I know someone a decade younger than me who attends some of the same events/festivals I do, she does/did a lot of ket. It’s not uncommon to see her traipsing about the next day, trying to sort things out because she shit or pissed herself in the night. It’s something I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole, unless it was an actual prescribed thing for a hospital procedure, and even then, I would see if there was an alternative. I can’t imagine being in my 20s and dealing with incontinence, especially considering it could have been entirely avoidable.”
—u/d3gu
7. “I work in psychiatry. I have a lot of concerns about teens and young adults. Specifically, the impacts of social media/TikTok, AI, etc., on attention span, overall cognition, independent problem solving, and patience. And helicopter parents. This one is huge. This type of parenting really handicaps the kid long-term. It creates a weird dependency on the parent and prevents individuation, self-sufficiency, and the development of the skills to live a full life. I worry about what the future will look like.”
—u/Ms-Tenenbaum
“Therapist here, it’s getting more severe each year. Developmental delays because of screen time once in elementary, and almost no emotional regulation. Brains grow through adversity and challenges, not being spoon-fed information. Figure out that math problem, sound out that word, and sit with your emotions.”
—u/CannibalAnn
“I’m a nurse, and we’ve been having discussions about this for a while. I don’t envy you guys in mental health. So many people don’t realize the harm they are doing and refuse to even consider the fact that staring at their phone every spare moment, doom scrolling, and chasing that next dopamine hit is actively harming them in multiple ways.”
—u/CrashTestWolf
“Physician and parent here…agree 100%. Between the helicopter parents and tablets, kids these days seem completely incapable. Zero attention span. Zero problem solving. Zero ability to cope without being fed a constant stream of stimuli. There is also this level of apathy that I find really worrisome. I grew up with encyclopedias and libraries, but we would seek out information all the time. My kids have every resource at their fingertips, and if they ask a question I don’t know the answer to, I’ll suggest they look it up online, and they are just like ‘nah’ even though it would take them about five seconds at most.”
—u/sailphish
8. “Physician here. The amount of difficulty to get teenagers/young adults to get information like their vaccine record for forms, family medical history, or just basic steps to succeed in life worries me a lot. Hoping to minimize that with our kids, but it’s an uphill battle.”
—u/ManWithASquareHead
“My hospital implemented tablets as part of a secondary registration process. I can’t even get patients to look up at me to tell me their complaints. At least 10x a day, I have to tell patients to ignore the tablet and talk about their problems in real life. Teenagers and adults think nothing of scrolling TikTok on their phones while I’m trying to have a conversation with them. WTF. These people came to me for help.”
—u/sailphish
“Oh my gosh, so much this. I’m seeing so many young adults in my office who struggle with basic life skills and with incomplete coping skills. So much anxiety and sleep issues. And they always attend with an overinvolved parent, usually the mother, who indulges them and feeds off them. So many are unable to hold down a job or attend school. It’s endemic.”
—u/DrSuperCougarCT
9. “Honestly, the hours people have to work just to survive. You become fatigued and financially stressed, which leads to mental health issues.”
—u/djfrankie74
“It also leads to physical health issues as well. Every year, at least three coworkers on my team are hospitalized. We are all 25-35 years old. Being allowed time to rest is very important.”
—u/wewillwewont
“Hustle culture is the new tobacco for young people.”
—u/JackFisherBooks
10. “Energy drinks as a daily survival tool and people treating three to four hours of sleep like a personality trait is getting kinda scary. Bodies are not meant to run on that combo forever.”
—u/peachydevils
“I did the sleep thing with 4-6 32 oz cups of coffee while working two full-time jobs for six years, trying to pay off lingering debt from divorce years prior. I wrecked my body. Did poor hours again, taking care of a partner with cancer, for almost four years shortly after.
It messed me up badly. Beyond the health issues it caused, I can’t sleep through the night anymore, and my memory is shot. I fall asleep randomly throughout the day. It’s awful.”
—u/Traditional_Fan_2655
“I’ve worked in a few large warehouses, and the entire workforce basically runs on energy drinks and codeine. Literally everyone walking around with energy drinks and supplying each other with painkillers if they run out, all because they are too afraid to take time off for injuries that have happened as a result of working there. ”
—u/blanetrain
“My friend’s wife was a 50-year-old hard-driving career woman who drank at least two five-hour energy drinks a day. She had a stroke 15 years ago and has not recovered the ability to do much. Practically brain dead…Such a shock.”
—u/OahuJames
11. “I had a discussion on a related topic with my GP. He had added a PSA check to my labs and didn’t want to ‘scare me’ into thinking he suspected prostate cancer. Then out of nowhere, he mentioned that he had a lot of older patients who were refusing to get routine cancer checks like colonoscopies or endoscopies (or PSA level checks). But the justification wasn’t that they didn’t want the procedures. It was that they didn’t want to spend money on treatment because they needed to leave it to their kids and grandkids. In essence, boomers are refusing to even *check* for cancer because they don’t want to spend money on treatment, because their kids and grandkids are struggling financially. Someone in the hospice industry is going to figure out how to capitalize on this trend. I guarantee it.”
—u/hendergle
12. “I work in health tech, and some themes coming through from our analysis of referrals are: 1) Work-related stress. 2) Stress leave attributed to the workplace. 3) High blood pressure, increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and risk of stroke, also attributed to workplace stress or sedentary lifestyle. 4) Turns out that employers telling workers to ‘do more with less,’ coupled with hybrid or fully remote work, as well as the general fear around the current job market, has led to intense stress and burnout, and the physiological and psychological impacts are brewing right now.”
—u/W2ttsy
13. “The number of younger people showing up with preventable health issues from being sedentary is way higher than most people realize. Sitting all day is becoming the new smoking in terms of long-term damage.”
—u/mallowkisses
“It’s going to get so bad as we all get older, too. Just about everyone should be weight training to some degree if you want to vastly improve your quality of life when you’re older. Like practically every single health marker that we can measure improves with increased muscle mass. Walking and cardio are great too, and a good starting point. But it can’t be understated how important resistance training is.”
—u/ManOLead
14. “GLP-1 drugs. I do have to add the typical ‘I’m not a doctor,’ but I am an ER nurse. Don’t get me wrong, GLP-1 drugs are a life-changer for people with diabetes, and people who are obese and have difficulty controlling cravings. However, lately it has been very common to see people come in with intractable abdominal pain. In these cases, the story is typically, ‘my friend has been taking this for a while, and they let me try it to see if I would like it.'”
“For these drugs, you need to start at a low dose, something like 0.25mg, and titrate slowly to 0.5mg, a month later, and maybe a month until the next titration. What we are seeing is people who have NEVER taken these meds starting at a mid-tier dose like 0.5mg or 0.75mg, and over the next day or two, they develop the worst abdominal pain and constipation. We take their history, do everything to rule out the differentials such as pancreatitis, cholelithiasis, and gastroenteritis.
The pain from taking a higher-than-starting dose is difficult to treat. You feel like you are dying, but we can only give so much morphine; Toradol doesn’t do shit, unless we sedate you, you’re going to be in excruciating pain.
I will say I know plenty of people who have had zero issues with GLP-1 drugs, who have both taken it for diabetes control and weight loss. Just don’t take anybody else’s medication.
—u/perpulstuph
“I’m a nurse for inpatient eating disorders, and the Ozempademic/social media are literally KILLING PEOPLE. Bodies are not a trend!!! Ceasing eating/drinking fluids leads to deadly electrolyte shifts, gastrointestinal paralysis, and more. We had a patient recently die of sepsis in her 20s after an intestinal torsion due to her gastroparesis. Please don’t go down this path, people.”
—u/croneofarc
“I’m an inpatient pediatric nurse. Had my first kid ‘OD’ on his parents’ weight loss injections. He started stealing them because a girl he liked said he was too ‘fat.’ His pediatrician ended up prescribing him one after his hospitalization. Poor guy wasn’t even big.”
—u/RectalBenzo
15. “Less and less insurance companies/employers covering GLP-1s. Compounding is okay if you really do your research, but people resorting to gray market is downright frightening.”
—u/User_Name_Is_Stupid
16. “Nitrous Oxide abuse is getting more and more common and can be really bad.”
—u/forne104
“I picked up a patient in the ambulance a little bit ago who huffed some nitrous oxide and had really bad second-degree chemical burns in her mouth. It had swollen up her vocal cords to the point where she couldn’t talk just before we got there.
It resolved enough that we didn’t have to sedate/paralyze and intubate, and she was able to maintain her own airway, but the lower right side of her face was numb and drooping. We made the hour-long drive down to the only burn center in town, just for us to roll into the hospital and have her get mad at the wait time. She hopped off the stretcher, refused care, and left.
I hope she went back and got some help because if she didn’t, there’s a decent chance she’s dead.”
—u/youy23
“Just took care of a patient who abused nitrous oxide, and they were suffering from some pretty bad nerve issues in their legs. They described it as if their legs were always asleep.”
—u/InfamousDinosaur
“This happened to me. Nitrous causes B12 deficiency, which is crucial for nervous system function. Extended use causes neuropathy. At the height of my use, my entire lower body, from just below the nipple line and down to my feet, was in a constant state of numb tingling. I had difficulty walking, because it’s hard to walk when you can’t feel your feet. I am just over two years clean now, and most of my nerve function has returned. The bottoms of my feet will forever be kinda numb, though.
Also experienced SEVERE cognitive decline during heavy use. Was unable to follow even the simplest conversation. If someone spoke to me, I would often be confused and take several seconds to formulate a response. This is highly out of character for me, who in general would be considered well spoken and intelligent.”
—u/Sufficient_Snowman
17. “Freebirthing is on the rise because ‘the body knows what to do’ (Really? Is that why maternal/infant deaths were so high in the good old days?). Most get away with it, but every now and then, you get a dead or seriously ill baby and mother. ‘Oh, we’re worried about the cascade of medical interventions that might happen if we get monitored in labor.’ Well, congrats, your obstructed labor and sepsis means we’re going to suggest them all so you don’t die.”
—u/Crimmeny
“As a paramedic, I cannot understand why people think it’s fine to deliver at home without a midwife.
I wouldn’t even be comfortable delivering at home in general. Midwives are incredibly competent and capable, but I would still want to be somewhere that could do things like an emergency C-section if need be.”
—u/phoenix25
18. “E-scooters and E-bikes are quickly becoming one of the top reasons for a visit to the ER. They go too fast, and people ride them irresponsibly on the sidewalk instead of in the street, as most laws require. I work downtown, where E-scooters are prevalent, and I’ve seen a bunch of collisions between riders and pedestrians. Most have been fairly benign, with a couple of scrapes. However, a few have been really bad with one, or both, being knocked unconscious and several broken bones.”
—u/Tangboy50000
“We see at least three e-scooter-related injuries per day, some equivalent of regular bike injuries, but most are post-op fractures of femurs/tibias. Some don’t make it into their two-week post-op because they are still in the ICU…so yeah, e-scooters are hazardous.”
—u/ohKilo13
“E-scooter accidents are now the leading cause of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) in children admitted to the pediatric neurosurgical center at Children’s Health Ireland, Temple Street. This is despite the fact that it is illegal for children under 16 to use e-scooters on public roads.”
—u/ZxZxchoc
“I work in the ER, and one of our most common trauma activations outside of old people falling is young people crashing their e-bike or e-scooter. And some of those people come in really fucked-up. Broken bones, faces looking like they got jumped, etc. All because they hit a small pothole or rock or something going 30+mph.”
—u/closerupper
19. “Black market injected peptides.”
—u/NanoGyoza
“I saw a post recently from someone insisting he was going to cure his wife’s autoimmune disease with peptides from the internet. He said her meds were no longer working (an unfortunate reality of being on medications for life), but it turned out she was only taking the meds when she felt bad, which isn’t how the meds he mentioned work.”
—u/nezzthecatlady
20. “Everyone buying the $500 vitamin supplements that do nothing.”
—u/ConsortFromTOS
“The supplement thing gets me, too. I see people at my gym downing eight different powders and pills, and they couldn’t tell you what half of them actually do. A friend was spending $200 a month on gut health stuff that turned out to be mostly magnesium and sugar.”
—u/SpencerMcM
21. “Influencer medicine…What I cannot fathom is how readily people trust ‘I’m oBsEsSeD with this XYZ,’ ‘My hair/skin/sleep has never been betterrrrr,’ delivered in a haze of vocal fry by someone with a financial incentive, whose last obsession was 15 minutes ago and whose next one is already on deck being negotiated.”
“We routinely struggle to convince people with large, independently funded, multicentre, double-blind trials involving thousands of participants. As if all they hear is one person’s recommendation. Psychologists have known for decades that vivid stories are more persuasive than statistics, and that confidence often masquerades as competence. We are wired for anecdotes, not evidence. And for those who forego their logical brains, it can be absolutely exhausting to attempt to challenge their literally baseless, pointless belief system.
The growing rejection of the scientific method is deeply troubling. Science is not a belief system. It is a process designed to find the truth, test it, challenge it, replicate it, and keep testing it again.
A civilization that loses faith in that process is not progressing. It is drifting back toward the dark ages, one influencer recommendation at a time, with their cancel culture and attacks on science being no different that past inquisitions.”
—u/Doc911
22. “I swear, if I see one more patient coming in with liver failure from ‘parasite cleanses’ they bought on TikTok, I’m gonna lose my mind.”
—u/One_Muffin4677
“RN here, taking care of a patient who stopped taking her blood pressure meds and started taking TikTok supplements instead.
Her 12-year-old children found her down after a cardiac arrest. She’s now anoxic, and the family is deciding if they want to keep her body alive (her mind is gone) or let her pass naturally.”
—u/saint_annie
23. “I work in healthcare — the number of people self-diagnosing serious conditions from TikTok is genuinely concerning. I had someone come in convinced they had DID (dissociative identity disorder) because they saw a video about it; it turned out to be sleep deprivation.”
—u/idleport
“People self-diagnosing and treating mental health conditions based on TikTok videos. I’m seeing patients stop prescribed meds or start dangerous supplements because a 60-second clip told them to. The placebo effect wears off, but the real damage doesn’t.
—u/iksett
24. Similarly…”Patients using ChatGPT to pre-diagnose themselves before the appointment. Bringing in pages of printed conversations discussing their medical info with AI and then asking for the specific meds ‘recommended’ to them, and then not believing actual medical professionals and their opinions.”
—u/17q21
25. “The belief that everything can be cured by (insert trendy thing here). Don’t need to eat right, I’ll take a vitamin. Don’t need to exercise; I can just get a GLP-1. Don’t need to address the underlying issues; I can just get testosterone injections. Add in the peptide trend (there’s a reason that most never got past trials), and the black-market anabolics (do you really know if the injectable you got is what you think it is?), and then dumping your history into ChatGPT and doing whatever it says, regardless of what it is.”
—u/Flaxmoore
26. “Family doc here. General distrust of medicine. I recommend starting a statin to reduce cholesterol and lower heart attack/stroke risk? ‘Oh, I read online statins cause cancer, I’ll just try to eat better, doc.’ (Spoiler: they never do.) I recommend getting pneumonia/shingles vaccines now that you’re over 50? ‘I don’t trust that stuff, do you know what they put in them?’ Then in the same breath, they’ll ask for a GLP-1 but not want to actually make any lifestyle changes.”
—u/DrSwol
“GI doc. General distrust of medicine is it for me, too.
The number of times I have to explain that, *no,* despite XYZ influencer saying XYZ study found that your Crohn’s is caused by your diet, *IT IS NOT,*’ is only rising. Second place is explaining that you need a legitimate treatment protocol for your colon cancer/Crohn’s/etc because it is a disease, not because I’m *hiding* some secret ‘natural cure’ from you. I promise.”
—u/PussyCyclone
“Erosion of public trust in medical professionals. It’s coming from a lot of sources, but Sick-Tok, other social media, pretty much every news source, and of course, our fearless government leaders are spreading misinformation way too fast to overcome by educating our patients, and vilifying doctors along the way. It makes it impossible to build a therapeutic relationship and counsel patients effectively about their health because they either don’t trust us, think they know better than we do because they asked ChatGPT, or both.”
—u/bebeling
27. “I’m running into a distrust of the safety of radiation in radiology/imaging. People are refusing routine X-rays and CT scans for fear of the radiation. But they’re not afraid of the disease I suspect they have, which is why I ordered the scan in the first place.”
—u/Odd-Scientist-2529
28. “Parents are refusing vitamin K shots for newborns, putting babies at risk for dangerous bleeding. It seems to get lumped in with vaccine refusal.”
—u/arkady_scoresby
“Got to see my first newborn death from this a few weeks ago. Massive head bleed. Family then proceeds to get their church and everyone they know involved ‘praying for a miracle.'”
—u/StatelyTree
“I see these patients decades later, if they survive, when they need care for residual neurologic conditions related to brain bleed (epilepsy, headache, motor deficits, and so on).”
—u/arkady_scoresby
“Especially nice after the mother had an epidural. ‘I don’t want my baby getting shots!’ Is there a word for dumb irony?”
—u/Dakaf
29. “Pediatrics resident here. I see a concerning number of vaccine-preventable illnesses. Rotavirus (this is an oral vaccine, not even a poke) and pertussis are becoming increasingly common. I’ve had the same conversation about vaccinations with so many of these parents, and I’m met with the same pretentious smile and stare. They just wait for me to finish and then spew some nonsense about what they know of vaccines. Oftentimes, they are incredibly rude about it, too. Some parents have responded very positively, though. Sometimes it’s genuine fear and lack of information that led to that decision, and at the end of the day, they are trying to look out for the health of their child (as am I).”
“When I sense one of the types that I know won’t listen to a word I say, I’ve begun to just start with a ‘this is a vaccine-preventable illness. Is there anything I can say that might change your mind about getting your child vaccinated?’ Most of the time, they just say ‘No.’
We are at a point that people are unwilling to listen to evidence. They’ve made their ‘informed’ decision based on ‘research’ they’ve done online, and are unwilling to hear anything that contradicts it. Not even the fact that their kid could be admitted for days to weeks on end is going to sway their opinion.
It’s absolutely mind-boggling to me the way some of their minds work. Feels like they’re putting their pride over their own children’s health.”
—u/TheNickIntheNorth
“I had to treat a case of fucking diphtheria not long ago. Diphtheria has been gone for so long that they didn’t even really teach it to us at med school, beyond ‘this used to be a big deal but you’ll probably never see it’. Fuck anti-vaxxers. I don’t care so much if their choices only harm them, but when their kids are dying, it pisses me off so much.”
—u/PM_Me_A_Tittypic
“What drives me absolutely wild is that these parents think they’re making an informed choice for their own family in a vacuum. They completely forget that their unvaccinated kid is a walking vector who can kill the newborn in the waiting room who is literally too young to get their MMR shot yet.”
—u/Resident_Banana_3638
30. “Anti-vax is now becoming anti-medication. There are people in the heart attack groups I’m part of that are actively trying to get people to stop taking their meds. It’s absolutely bonkers.”
—u/travellerw
“Saying ‘I’m not a pill person.’ I come across this a lot lately.
I’m a vascular surgeon. A lot of the ‘pills’ I’m recommending are for chronic disease processes, so I usually just nod my head and shrug in that situation…
But when someone comes in with acute limb ischemia and will require lifelong anticoagulation, I really have no other option than to discuss with them that they could:
–Have a catastrophic stroke if this were an embolus from the heart
–Lose a fuckin arm or a leg because they ‘aren’t a pill person’
–Any other myriad of complications as a result of arterial thrombosis.”
—u/lethalred
‘I don’t want to be reliant on pills for the rest of my life or become addicted.’ Are you addicted to toothpaste? Water? Shoes?”
—u/mooonbro
31. “Distrust and conspiracy theories surrounding psychology and psychiatry. I think a lot of people forget that these people are also doctors. Social media has done a great job of making people feel like they are capable of pathologizing. The amount of misinformation I’ve seen thrown around all under the guise of ‘mental health’ awareness is concerning. The worst part is that those who actually want help are becoming more hesitant because there’s a growing stigma around diagnosis when oftentimes those diagnoses aren’t from professionals but from social media sites that overgeneralize conditions/disorders/symptoms/etc. We’ve seen what happens when medicine gets politicized during the COVID epidemic, but now it’s happening to psychology. ”
—u/Stevesegallbladder
32. “The trivialization of psychiatric diagnosis, especially in kids, no child can be energetic or curious or show particular interest in anything at all without getting slapped with an autism or ADHD diagnosis and receiving amphetamines as treatment that’ll have terrible effects on their developing brain. Don’t get me wrong, autism and ADHD are VERY real disorders and must be treated accordingly but social media and misinformation, not to mention the many underqualified professionals meddling on that field without proper knowledge (the many so called bahaviour/neuroscience ‘specialists’ sonpopular on social media) about them completely muddled-up the diagnosis criteria and what we see a lot is completely healthy kids being medicated for being…kids.”
—u/KiroHorime
“I am a Ph.D. psychologist who works in primary care. Everyone thinks they have ADHD while simultaneously they dont sleep enough, have untreated trauma, abuse substances, etc. These things need to be dealt with *first*.”
—u/350
“People blaming everything on ADHD because they watched some TikTok videos and think they have it too, and that it explains everything wrong in their life.”
—u/Expert-Buffalo8517
“The ADHD thing is debilitating for people who actually have it and are genuinely harmed by it. It’s not a cute quirky manic pixie dream girl thing where you get free stimulants forever!”
—u/romero0705
33. “Med student here. The number of people that take some sort of supplement, and don’t even think to mention it to their doctor when asked about any medication they use regularly, is wild. It may not be medication per se (it’s often the exact opposite), but it can definitely have a big impact on your health, and your doctor should know about it!”
—u/Informal-Trainer-899
“True story: a friend of mine was hospitalized for full-body edema. The doctors were stumped, and he lay there getting sicker; he was a healthy young man in his prime. It took his dad getting bored enough to read the package of licorice tea he was drinking, to work out that 12 cups of that day would have mad side effects, including edema. He’s fine now.”
—u/fairiestoldmeto
“I’m a nurse; I think there’s not enough public education on interactions for medicines. St John’s Wort, for example, is just a flower but interacts with so many medicines. Same with grapefruit. So sometimes I think the public genuinely doesn’t know/understand that it’s important to disclose all of this stuff.”
—u/habitual_citizen
34. “I’m a family doc, and frankly, the thing that scares me the most that’s cropped up quite significantly (in my patient population, at least) is people using online services to get prescription meds then not telling me or any of their other doctors. I’ve had patients tell me they only take the blood pressure med I give them, then later find out they’re also on testosterone, viagra, Ozempic, and all kinds of other stuff. Makes giving any medical advice really tough when I’m not certain what someone is on.”
—u/drewmana
“Years ago, my family encouraged me to go on an appetite suppressant to help me lose weight. They said it was easy and I could get it from a doctor online. The doctor was in Utah, and I was in California at the time. He had no way to measure my vitals and just prescribed it to me.
A few weeks later, I went to see a doctor in person because I was concerned about symptoms that she would ultimately diagnose as Type 2 Diabetes. I also had massive hypertension that needed to be addressed, and she said the appetite suppressant was making it worse.
People, go see doctors in person. Tell them everything you’re taking. Be honest with them about your symptoms. And don’t be afraid of bad news because doing nothing will get you worse news.”
—u/cribsaw
36. “Not a doctor, but a nurse. Carnivore diet. I just can’t with this anymore. People only eat meat, and their cholesterol goes through the roof. They refuse to change their diet or take cholesterol medications. Wild.”
—u/DeadlyKitten1992
37. “Testosterone. I’m starting to think every guy will end up on roids now.”
—u/Expert-Buffalo8517
“I have been seeing lots of younger men with DVTs (venous blood clots) and strokes (arterial brain clots) who are on Testosterone replacement therapy. Also had a 38-year-old man that had a prostate over three times the size of normal after taking Testosterone. The guy could barely pee on his own! There are some significant side effects to this stuff!”
—u/rpctaco1984
“Testosterone/steroid use is rampant now among physically ‘fit’ men. It often doesn’t put you in good shape because your muscles are so out of proportion with your cardio fitness. Sure, you can lift like 250 pounds once, but you can’t run a mile.
Seems to be a cosmetic drug rather than about actual fitness.”
—u/nmw6
38. “Dentist here: the number of people refusing to use fluoride toothpaste because it ’causes cavities’ is a real big health thing promoted by influencers. Also, oil pulling — yeah, right. That will heal your dead pulp and treat the enormous cyst you have on the root. Also, blaming your poor hygiene on genetics. No, miss, just buy a fucking toothbrush.”
—u/Danz0r99
“I’m a dentist and have worked in both rural areas and urban areas.
When I see kids whose parents refuse fluoride because of some woo-woo science (and there’s more and more of them) and X-rays, and the kids end up needing treatment under general anesthetic to pull multiple teeth out, I feel like screaming.
It’s not like they are improving their diet, or even making the kids brush better.
This is happening more in urban areas.
Most of my patients in smaller towns/rural areas are so much more aware of the benefits of both fluoride and regular checkups and X-rays, because they have experienced firsthand how both have improved dental health in just one generation.”
—u/purplprism
39. “Antibiotic resistance, and how casually people are accelerating it. Taking antibiotics for viral infections (they do nothing — antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses). Stopping the course the moment you feel better instead of finishing it. Sharing leftover strips with family members. Every time you do this, you’re selectively killing the weaker bacteria and letting the stronger ones survive and multiply. We’re steadily losing drugs that used to be frontline treatments, and the pipeline for new antibiotics is nearly empty because it’s not profitable to develop them. The WHO flagged this as one of the biggest global health threats. Nobody treats it like the emergency it is because the consequences are slow and invisible — until one day a routine infection becomes untreatable.”
—u/Priyansh7xYT
40. “Primary care is drifting from real primary care and more into aesthetics. So many PCPs have signs on their offices offering Botox injections, vitamin infusions, etc.”
—u/riburn3
41. “My sister is a doctor in the Netherlands, specialized in stomach and intestinal problems. Here, there is a trend for young women who claim to have stomach issues to go to Spain for super experimental operations where they get their organs reorganized. It is not proven to work, and it causes other, more complicated problems. She has had several young women who had done surgeries abroad come back with really bad problems because of it.”
“Another problem is extreme diets doing damage to the intestinal system, especially diets where people only eat one type of food for so-called health reasons.
Lastly, the unchecked usage of these peptides for almost everything. Boys as young as 12 are using hormones for muscle growth and testosterone because some American guy told them on YouTube to do it.”
—u/balletje2017
42. “Absolute lack of knowledge on how to cook or do any type of basic food preparation…we’re now seeing an adult generation whose parents and grandparents didn’t cook anything ever. I’m NOT talking about underprivileged people, I’m talking educated middle-class people who genuinely have never bought salad ingredients and assembled them into a salad.”
—u/ClassicNebula1081
“And then nobody is taught food safety, so it’s like ‘why do I shit my guts out whenever I cook?’ and it’s because you left it on the counter for six hours and also used your raw chicken cutting board for the salad. ”
—u/LuxTheSarcastic
43. “Deep tanning is back in fashion with teens.”
—u/Main-Listen-6210
44. And…”The anti-sunscreen trend. I suspect we’ll see a massive rise in skin cancer cases in the coming years.”
—u/Simply_Epic
“Not a doctor, but I live in a sunny area, every year when I get a skin checkup, my response that I do use sunscreen, yields a bigger sigh of relief.
I had to ask if they were joking this past year because it was so animated, and they explained that it’s becoming more and more common to believe that prolonged sun exposure is a good thing.”
—u/ialwaysdissapointed
45. “Young girls starting a skin care regimen at like 9/10 years old. Using chemicals and cleaners that are damaging their skin.”
—u/dunwerking
“SPF is never a bad idea at any age, but please god, take the retinol away from the elementary schoolers.”
—u/LuxTheSarcastic
46. “Nicotine patches on children!!!! I’ve been sounding the alarm on this in the UK for months, but a growing number of parents of children with ADHD and autism are using nicotine patches as a ‘cure.’ There are hundreds of Facebook groups led by a chiropractor who popularised this insidious treatment.”
—u/VelvetDreamers
47. And finally…”It isn’t a health trend, but a trend in the sense that it’s more common, my uncle has said he’s seeing more signs of physical child abuse in his job now than he has in the last eight years he’s been a GP.”
—u/JinxXedOmens
“I do infant mortality review, and yesterday I just commented about how I’m starting to see more neglect and possible abuse cases! I’ve had cases where families had multiple babies dying, where they should have lost custody after the first. Resources are just getting strangled, and helper workers like myself are struggling with a lot right now. It’s hard to try and move the world for your work and then be fearful you aren’t essential enough to keep the job.”
—u/motherclucker19
“I read about how this trend would happen as more people were forced to have babies due to changing laws around abortion. Whether or not one believes in the right to abort, the fact remains that if someone who doesn’t want a kid is forced to have a kid, they won’t automatically become a good parent. There will be more abuse and more neglect.”
—u/Nemophilista
Are you a medical professional? What dangerous trends are you seeing? Let us know in the comments below or via this anonymous form.

Thousands of men with prostate cancer in England will be offered a more precise form of radiotherapy that cuts treatment time by up to 75 per cent, based on the results of a trial led by The Institute of Cancer Research, London and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.
The PACE-B trial showed that stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) – also known as stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) – which is more powerful and targeted than standard external radiotherapy, can effectively treat many small, low-risk prostate cancers in just five hospital visits, rather than 20.
Now, all 48 NHS radiotherapy centres in England will begin offering this five-session SBRT treatment to eligible men within the next three months.
Who is SABR for?
NHS England has approved SBRT for men in England with early-stage prostate cancer that hasn’t grown outside the prostate, and that has a low or medium risk of growing or spreading.
NHS England’s modelling suggests that around 3,500 men with this type of early-stage low or medium-risk prostate cancer will choose the new treatment over standard radiotherapy each year.
Power and precision
SBRT combines the power of multiple tiny, intense energy beams aimed at a tumour from different angles. These beams converge over the tumour, delivering a very high dose of radiation to cancer cells while minimising the impact on healthy cells.
Because of its pinpoint accuracy, SBRT is especially suitable for treating small, well-defined cancers. If a cancer has begun to grow or spread, standard radiotherapy is usually a better option, as its wider beams can kill cancer cells outside the tumour.
The PACE-B trial, which was managed by the Clinical Trials and Statistics Unit at the ICR, tested whether five sessions of SBRT radiotherapy in a fortnight are as effective for treating low-risk, localised prostate cancer as 20 sessions of standard intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) delivered Monday to Friday for four weeks.
The phase III international randomised trial found that both treatments worked equally well, keeping cancer under control in moth patients.
Keeping cancer under control
Five years after entering the study, cancer remained under control, with no recurrence or worsening, in 96 per cent of patients who had SBRT compared to 95 per cent of patients who had conventional radiation.
Side effects were low in both groups. At five years post-treatment, 5.5 per cent of patients who received SBRT experienced grade 2 or higher side effects affecting the genital or urinary organs, compared to 3.2 per cent in the conventional group. Only one person in each group experienced grade 2 or higher gastrointestinal side effects. Grade 2 side effects can be bothersome, and may affect daily activity, but they require little to no medical treatment.
Because it only takes a quarter of the sessions required for standard radiotherapy, SBRT puts much less strain on people and the health service. If, as NHS England estimates, 1 in 5 eligible men choose it over standard radiotherapy, an extra 50,000 prostate cancer treatment appointments could be made available each year.
‘A game-changer’
Professor Emma Hall, Director of the Clinical Trials and Statistics Unit at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, which managed the PACE-B trial, said:
“I am delighted to see that SBRT, offering patients treatment in just five doses rather than 20, is now being recommended by the NHS. Treating patients in a fraction of the time is a game-changer – they can spend less time in hospital and travelling to appointments, whilst still receiving highly effective treatment.”
Professor Nicholas van As, Consultant Clinical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, Professor in Precision Prostate Radiotherapy at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and Chief Investigator of the PACE-B trial, said:
“We are delighted that eligible prostate cancer patients across England will now be able to benefit from this treatment following NHS England’s announcement.
“The news demonstrates the value of clinical research in improving cancer care. At The Royal Marsden and the ICR, we are focused on developing smarter, better and kinder treatments for patients across the UK and around the world.
“The PACE-B trial was designed to answer an important question: can we safely deliver prostate radiotherapy in far fewer treatment sessions without compromising outcomes? The results showed that we can. Delivering treatment in just five sessions was as safe and effective as conventional radiotherapy, while significantly reducing the burden of treatment for patients. The findings helped establish the evidence base for wider adoption of the treatment and have informed clinical practice internationally.”
Professor Peter Johnson, NHS National Clinical Director for Cancer, said:
“This technology lets us focus a powerful and precise beam of radiotherapy directly onto the cancer, limiting the damage to healthy cells. And the fact it can be delivered in 15 fewer doses will help men get back to living their lives far more quickly.”
Banner image: IMRT radiotherapy machine. SBRT can be delivered on a Cyberknife or standard radiotherapy machines.

Experts have issued a warning to anyone who takes the drug metformin.
The drug is prescribed to around 120 million people around the world, and is mostly used to treat Type 2 Diabetes, as well as being prescribed as a preventative measure for the condition, as it helps the body to process blood sugar when insulin is low.
Metformin is also prescribed to people who are struggling with their fertility due to polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
But now a warning has been issued to people in the UK who use the medication ahead of predictions about the weather.
This is because the UK has been forecast to experience a heatwave over the coming days.
Like a number of medications, metformin can make patients using it more susceptible to the effects of extreme heat.
The Met Office has issued an amber warning, beginning on June 22 and running through until June 25 covering the South of England and parts of Wales.
In the warning, the office warned that people who are ‘vulnerable’ to heat should take extra precautions to mitigate the effects of the heat.
Metformin is one of a few common medications which can increase vulnerability to extreme heat, with another also being beta blockers, which are taken by millions across the UK.
Studies have indicated that metformin can increase the risk of dehydration, as well as making earlier signs more difficult to spot.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency told The Mirror: “Blood pressure medicines such as ACE inhibitors, beta-blockers, or calcium channel blockers can also make it harder for your body to regulate temperature, especially during sudden hot spells.”
Some mental health medications, most notably selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, such as sertraline, citalopram, and fluoxetine, all of which are commonly prescribed for mental health conditions, can also increase vulnerability to heat.
UK officials have warned the forecast heatwave could have a ‘widespread impact’.
In the warning, they also add: “The wider population are likely to experience some adverse health effects including sunburn or heat exhaustion and other heat related illnesses.”
According to the Met Office, parts of the UK are set to move into the high 20s over the coming days, with London at 28C, Birmingham at 29C, and Liverpool at 29C, though with some cloud over.
Meanwhile, Cardiff is predicted to tip over into the 30s, reaching 31C, and with a warning put in place.

Artificial intelligence most likely saved Louie Quiros’s life.
Mr. Quiros, a 45-year-old caregiver and security guard, showed up at a Queens emergency room in February 2025. For the past four days, he said, he had been coughing up blood and finding it harder and harder to breathe.
His heart was beating fast, and he wasn’t getting much air to his lungs, but a chest X-ray showed no abnormalities. He also had an electrocardiogram, or ECG, a common test that records the heart’s electrical activity. It was abnormal but showed nothing that would lead to a clear diagnosis. It indicated he might have coronary heart disease — rare in someone his age. But, as it turned out, that was not his problem.
The emergency room doctors learned Mr. Quiros had been exposed to wildfire smoke on a recent visit to California and sent him home with asthma medicine and an inhaler.
Luckily for Mr. Quiros, that emergency room is part of NewYork-Presbyterian’s medical system. Researchers were analyzing all electrocardiograms done on patients in that medical system with an A.I. program, EchoNext, to see if it could find patterns in the scans indicating damage to the heart — patterns a human would not detect.
It’s part of a clinical trial evaluating the A.I. program, which was developed there by Dr. Pierre Elias, medical director of A.I. and cardiologist at NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and his colleagues. Dr. Elias says EchoNext reads an ECG less than 10 minutes after it is performed, and that they analyze nearly 500,000 ECGs a year. Dr. Elias has started a company, Pathway Labs, to market it.
An Improved System: A crackdown on problems with fairness and safety is achieving results, including a big drop in the number of sick patients being passed over for transplants.
Skipped Over in Line: The sickest patients are supposed to get priority for lifesaving transplants. But more and more, they are being skipped.
Bungled Organ Retrievals: Potential donors endured rushed or premature attempts to remove their organs. Some were gasping, crying or showing other signs of life.
Courting Overseas Patients: Despite an organ shortage, some U.S. hospitals seek out international patients, who pay as much as $2 million for a transplant. In recent years, patients from abroad have typically received organs faster than U.S. patients.
Pig Organ Transplants: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given the green light to two biotechnology companies for clinical trials that will transplant organs from genetically modified pigs into people with kidney failure.
EchoNext found evidence of possible severe heart damage in Mr. Quiros’s electrocardiogram. The team called him back to the hospital one week later for an echocardiogram, a scan that shows the beating heart. What they found was dire. His heart was beating so feebly that just 10 percent of its blood was pumped out with each contraction. At the same time, his mitral valve was leaking blood back into his heart.
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