by Joelle Steele

Where do you get your information? If you’re like most people these days, you turn to the Internet for the answers to your questions. But, there are some serious drawbacks to researching online, because most people can’t tell whether or not the information on a site is accurate. Being a critical thinker will help you navigate fact from fiction on the Internet. 

With the exception of a very few news sites, the majority of all online informational sites generally have no editorial oversight at all on the articles they publish. Their articles are mere window-dressing. These sites exist solely to either sell their own products, or to make money for the website owner via ads posted throughout the site. The ads can be pay-per-click, affiliate ads, paid ad space, or any number of other money-making advertising schemes. 

These online informational articles usually consist of opinions and theories adapted from the latest headlines and are sensationalized to attract the most attention and get people to visit. The articles may be written by people who can string words together coherently and sound very convincing and authentic in the process, but they rarely stand up to deeper scrutiny.

Here’s an example of a website for a popular product advertised on TV and online. It’s purchased by people who suffer from symptoms of cognitive decline, which includes poor memory, problems concentrating, and problems processing information. The product is called Prevagen and it’s made by Quincy Bioscience. Its key ingredient is a protein called apoaequorin, which is derived from a certain kind of jellyfish, and which the manufacturer states has been clinically tested.

On Prevagen’s website, they claim that after many years of research and development, their non-prescription product was released in 2007 and demonstrated the ability to improve memory and cognitive function in people with mild cognitive impairment. Prevagen retails for $60-$70 per bottle of 30 tablets – a one-month supply. They state that Prevagen was named the #1 Pharmacist Recommended Memory Support Brand in 2020. In Pharmacy Times, a leading publication for pharmacists, a survey by the magazine found that Prevagen was the top recommended brand, with 73% of pharmacists recommending it to their almost 2 million customers each month.

What do you think after you read all these things about Prevagen? Sounds like a very reliable product, doesn’t it? Well, not really. First, there is nothing that explains their “many years” of research and development or their “clinical testing.” There is only one study, the Madison Memory Study performed for Quincy Bioscience. The study was performed about seven years after the release of the product and the study report is dated August 2016. There were only 218 participants aged 40 to 91 in the study, of which 211 completed the study, which compared the effects of the apoaequorin to a placebo. Only 105 people got Prevagen and the others got the placebo. So we’re really talking about a study of 105 people taking Prevagen.

And second, what about those pharmacist recommendations? What does that really tell you? It tells you that pharmacists want to sell $60 bottles of Prevagen, that’s what. In 2017, the Federal Trade Commission, an independent government agency, along with the State of New York, filed a complaint against Quincy Bioscience saying it made false claims about the product. The judge ruled on behalf of Quincy Bioscience, and the Federal Trade Commission and State of New York filed an appeal in 2018 which was just denied in 2019.

There are quite a few articles published online by entities such as Harvard Medical School, which state that Prevagen has not been adequately studied, that there is no scientific proof that the jellyfish ingredient is capable of working on the brain, and that their advertising is fraudulent. This is a strong indicator that experts in cognitive impairment are looking for hard scientific evidence that Prevagen really works and that those who take it and say it works aren’t just improving due to a placebo effect in which they get better simply because they believe Prevagen works.

This is just one example of the kinds of problems that occur when you research online and take things at face value instead of digging a little deeper to get at the truth. Think long and hard about everything you read and who wrote it. Then keep on digging a little deeper until you have all the facts. And once you have all the facts, you’ll be on your way to thinking critically about any subject you research.