For a very long time, celebrity influencers have been promoting different types of health products, but they are not effective all the time. As such, Kim Kardashian caught the attention of medical professionals as she claimed a $2,500 MRI can predict cancer years before it happens.
Cancer Predicting MRI
According to Mail Online, Kim Kardashian has become the subject of criticism from medical experts for promoting a full-body MRI. She called the technology "life saving" in her Instagram post, but phycisians warn against it.
The 42-year-old posted on Instagram about an MRI scan from Prenuvo, saying that it had the ability to detect cancer and aneurysms among other diseases even before symptoms start to show. Her post had gained close to three million likes.
This was not the first time Kim Kardashian was called out on her promotions of different health trends that were expensive and had limited evidence. Her previous health-related promotions include immunity teas, vitamin IV therapy, and other forms of spiritual healing.
Dr. Stuart Fischer, a New York internal medicine physician, expressed his concerns about the promotion of MRIs. He said that it wasn't an appropriate screening tool to find potential emergent conditions.
Predicting Tool
Dr. Fischer clarified that an MRI is not a screening tool and was joined by other professionals who shared the same sentiments. Dr. Tyler Black, a Canadian psychiatrist, and pharmacologist, took to Twitter to share how the scans that Kim Kardashian was promoting, the Prenuvo scans, weren't studied in any clinical trials.
The Canadian psychiatrist warned of how the screening of asymptomatic people, especially with imaging leads, could result in more false positives instead of true positives, causing more damage.
Dr. Black criticized the technology even more, saying they were part of a type of "vulture medicine movement" that wanted to take advantage of healthy people by extracting their money while pretending to give more information to patients.
This was also because of a personal experience with MRIs, with Dr. Black sharing how he had to live through a year of worry and tests all because of how an MRI gave him a false positive regarding lung findings.
Fear of Cancer
Dr. Black shared how he had to worry about finding cancer; and although he received later clarification of findings being benign, he had to go through the experience of suffering. He shared how he suffered every night trying to sleep while different tests had their own individual risks.
As noted by NBC Chicago, the American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPM), said that they don't recommend that people without any symptoms should get a whole-body scan. They also highlighted how it wasn't routinely practiced screening procedure.
Dr. Fischer highlighted how preventative MRIs don't show a lot of diseases considered on the rise. As such, these include diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, high cholesterol, and hypertension.
According to Business Insider, experts are questioning the effectiveness of the Prenuvo MRIs. During the report, Prenuvo hasn't been able to publish any studies that found how their scans were capable of finding diseases early.
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