Avaliação de remédios caseiros compartilhados em mídias sociais na remissão do câncer: uma revisão de escopo

Abstract

Cancer is a complex and challenging disease that affects millions of people worldwide, and its treatment involves several approaches aimed at disease remission. Social media has extensively addressed the topic of cancer, comprehensively and with unlimited reach, such as information on home remedies that can supposedly cure the disease. However, although home remedies are widely used as a form of self-medication, scientific evidence to support their effectiveness is limited. Given this, this review aimed to gather and synthesize evidence on the effectiveness of foods widely advertised on social media as home remedies for cancer. In an initial primary study, a search was carried out for the ten home remedies with the highest number of views on social media (TikTok and YouTube) suggested for curing cancer. In a secondary study, a scope review was carried out in which scientific evidence was selected to prove the effectiveness of these 10 home remedies, from databases such as Medline via PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Scopus, Web of Science and BVS/LILACS. With four studies included, the analysis of these data showed that foods used in oral interventions in mice with induced cancer showed promising results, indicating the potential of these extracts in the treatment of cancer. This study contributes to the real understanding of the therapeutic potential of home remedies in the context of cancer, highlighting the importance of deepening clinical research in this field to validate and translate these results for therapeutic applications in human patients.