Skepticism, Science & Pseudoscience

..............For example, in her 2014 book “The Kind Mama,” Alicia Silverstone wrote about eating placenta pills, “I got to the point that my husband said, ‘Did you have your happy pills today?’ And I was really sad when they were gone. It really helped me.”

And, Caulfield points out, social media allows celebrities to channel health advice to their fans in a way that feels more conversational and tangible. Kim Kardashian, for example, has posted repeatedly about placenta pills on Twitter and Instagram, including a photo of a glass canning jar full of pills labeled “Kim, Your Amazing Placenta.”

When it comes to health, Caulfield recommends mostly ignoring celebrities and pop culture.

“What you really want to wait for is a body of evidence,” he said. “Look for trusted sources of information that aggregate the science. That’s what you want. You don’t want sources that hype a single study, you don’t want to take advice from a celebrity, you don’t want to use anecdotes and narratives as evidence.”