Don't listen to Covid-19 health advice from Gwyneth Paltrow, warns expert
If you want health advice, especially about Covid-19, it's best to ask a doctor. Listening to celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow probably isn't the smartest thing to do, especially since an NHS expert has debunked her 'treatment'.
Prof Stephen Powis, the national medical director of NHS England, has advised people not to follow Paltrow's methods as they were "really not the solutions we'd recommend".
Paltrow, an American actor, has been in a number of movies, including Iron Man, Shakespeare in Love and Avengers: Endgame, but she has become more popularly known for her out there healthcare and wellness advice. She owns a company called Goop that sells, among other things, a $75 candle that smells like her nether regions, $155 t-shirts and a $195 'sculpting bar' for your face.
She is also known for popularising phrases like "conscious uncoupling" when she and husband Christ Martin of Coldplay broke up.
Paltrow also writes blogs on the Goop website and recently wrote one about "healing" herself after having Covid-19. In it, she said contracting the virus had left her with "some long-tail fatigue and brain fog" and that a "functional medicine practitioner Dr Will Cole" had recommended "intuitive fasting".
According to Dr Cole, intuitive fasting is like intermittent fasting but gives you "the ability to take control of [y]our hunger". Paltrow said in her blog that she was on a "keto and plant-based but flexible" diet with no sugar or alcohol.
But Dr Powis of the NHS warned that we need to take long Covid seriously and apply serious science. "All influencers who use social media have a duty of responsibility and a duty of care around that," he said.
“Like the virus, misinformation carries across borders and it mutates and it evolves. So I think YouTube and other social media platforms have a real responsibility and opportunity here.”
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