According to a recent poll conducted by Harris Interactive, about 98 million American adults use the Internet to find health-related information. That number has grown from 54 million in 1998 and continues to increase.

But what kind of information are these health information-seekers finding? Will the information help them or will it hurt them? How can the good information be separated from the bad or downright dangerous information? If you conduct an Internet search for sugars, for example, you are likely to find thousands of documents. It can be overwhelming, frustrating, and difficult to find exactly what you are looking for. And, faced with all these materials, how can you know which ones are useful? We hope this article will help you figure it out.

Where to Begin:
Most Internet users begin their search for information by accessing one of the more popular Internet search engines, like Yahoo!, Excite, or Alta Vista. How do these search engines work? How do they rank the sites found in a search?

Before we begin, let’s explain the difference between search engines and directories. Search engines, (e.g. HotBot and Excite), will automatically scan the Internet for World Wide Web pages that match the search terms. They then index or catalog these pages when you conduct an Internet search. Search engines base their findings on key words placed in Web pages they scan. Some search engines use link popularity as part of their ranking method, which means that the more external links there are to a site, the higher in the search results the page will appear. Directories, (e.g. Yahoo!) maintain information in categories and sub-categories that can be browsed. Directories generally depend on people to maintain their listings. Staff persons visit and evaluate Web sites and then place these sites in subject categories or sub-categories in the directory. In addition, there are also hybrid search engines that are directories that can also be searched using keywords and meta search engines that search many different directories and search engines in one search.

Listed below are some of the most popular search engines, directories, hybrids and meta search engines and how they find the information you need:

Yahoo: (Yahoo.com)—Yahoo! is the Web’s most popular directory and has a well-deserved reputation for helping people find information easily. The secret to Yahoo’s! success is the human factor. It is the largest human-compiled guide to the Web, employing about 150 editors who visit and evaluate Web sites, and then organize them into subject-based categories and sub-categories. Yahoo! has over 1 million sites listed and is the oldest major Web site directory, launched in late 1994.

LookSmart: (LookSmart.com)—LookSmart is also a human-compiled directory of Web sites. In addition to being a stand-alone service, LookSmart provides directory results to MicroSoft network (MSN) Search, Excite and many other partners. LookSmart launched independently in October 1996, was backed by Reader’s Digest for about a year, and then LookSmart bought back complete control of the service.

Lycos: (Lycos.com)—Lycos started out as a search engine, relying on listings that came from scanning the Web. In April 1999, it shifted to a directory model similar to Yahoo!. In October 1998, Lycos acquired the competing HotBot search engine, which continues to be run separately.

AltaVista: (Altavista.com)—Founded in 1995, AltaVista is consistently one of the largest search engines on the Web, in terms of pages indexed. Its comprehensive coverage and wide range of power-searching commands make it a particular favorite among researchers. It also offers a number of features designed to appeal to basic users, such as “Ask AltaVista” results, which come from Ask Jeeves (see below).

Ask Jeeves: (Ask.com)—Ask Jeeves is a human-powered search service that aims to direct you to the exact page that answers your question. If it fails to find a match within its own database, then it will provide matching Web pages from various search engines. Some results from Ask Jeeves also appear within AltaVista. Ask Jeeves was incorporated in 1996 with a public launching in April 1997.

Excite: (Excite.com)—Excite is one of the more popular search services on the Web. It offers a fairly large index and integrates non-Web material such as company information and sports scores into its results, when appropriate. Excite was launched in late 1995 and grew quickly in prominence.

Northern Light: (Northernlight.com)—Northern Light features a large index of Web sites, along with the ability to cluster related Web documents by topic. Northern Light also has a set of “special collection” documents from thousands of sources, including newswires, magazines and databases. Searching these documents is free, but there is a charge of up to $4 each to view them. Northern Light opened to general use in August 1997.

Dogpile: (dogpile.com)—Created in 1996 and acquired by InfoSpace, Inc. in 1999, dogpile is a meta search engine searching more than a dozen of the Web’s directories and search engines at once, returning comprehensive search results sorted by topic and source and checked for duplicates.

Still Can’t Find What You’re Looking For?
You’ve searched and searched and you still can’t find the nutrition and health information you want. Try looking on health-related Web sites like Tufts University Nutrition Navigator or the IFIC Foundation Website, ific.org. Listed below are some of the more well known health-related sites:

Tufts University Nutrition Navigator: (navigator.tufts.edu)—Tufts University Nutrition Navigator is the first online rating and review guide that solves the two major problems Web users have when seeking nutrition information: how to quickly find information best suited to their needs and whether to trust the information they find there. The Tufts University Nutrition Navigator is designed to help you sort through the large volume of nutrition information on the Internet and find accurate, useful nutrition information you can trust. Websites are reviewed by Tufts nutritionists, who apply rating and evaluation criteria developed by the Tufts University Nutrition Navigator Advisory Board, a prestigious panel of leading U.S. and Canadian nutrition experts. Site reviews are updated quarterly to ensure that ratings take into account the ever-changing Internet and nutrition environments.

WebMD: (webmd.com)—WebMD serves all aspects of the healthcare industry, from consumers to medical professionals featuring some of the best healthcare information available anywhere. In addition, WebMD is up-to-date with breaking health news, allows users to ask experts questions during live chat events, post comments on message boards and provides directories of physicians. WebMD works in cooperation with over 70 partners including News Corporation, UnitedHealth Group, Merck Medco, HEALTHSOUTH, Microsoft, Intel and CNN.

Mayo Health Oasis from Mayo Clinic: (mayohealth.org)—The Mayo Clinic Health Oasis is a source of reliable health information from the Mayo Clinic. Directed by a team of Mayo physicians, scientists, writers and educators, the site is updated each weekday to provide the most relevant health information. The Health Oasis is a natural extension of Mayo’s long-standing commitment to provide health education to patients and the general public. The breadth and depth of Mayo’s expertise ensure up-to-date information on a wide variety of medical topics.

IFIC Foundation Online: (ific.org)—Completely renovated and totally redesigned, the new IFIC Foundation Web site is now on-line and ready for your use. You can customize the site with news and information just for you and receive site updates via e-mail. In addition, the IFIC Foundation’s bimonthly newsletter, Food Insight, is also available via e-mail. The IFIC Foundation Web site will continue to provide you with the credible, science-based information you have always counted on, plus a lot more. Be sure to visit IFIC.ORG, and don’t forget to change your bookmarks.

In addition, several government sites provide excellent health-related information. Among them:

Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition (FDA): (vm.cfsan.fda.gov)—The Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition is one of six centers within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The center promotes and protects the public health and economic interest, by ensuring that:

• food is safe, nutritious and wholesome, and cosmetics are safe.
• food and cosmetics are honestly, accurately and informatively labeled.

To achieve these goals, the center strives to be a leader in food safety, protect consumers from economic fraud, promote sound nutrition, and encourage innovation.

Healthfinder®: (healthfinder.gov)—Healthfinder®, developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is a free gateway to reliable consumer health and human services information. Healthfinder® can lead you to selected online publications, clearinghouses, databases, Web sites, and support and self-help groups, as well as the government agencies and not-for-profit organizations that produce reliable information for the public. Launched in April 1997, Healthfinder® served Internet users over 1.7 million times in its first year online; in 1999, the site received 94 million hits and 4,549,810 visits!

Now What?
The above health sites can guide you to accurate information but you need to incorporate certain principles to be sure you are getting sound information. Having found thousands of documents, it’s difficult to know what information is reliable and what is questionable. As you look, keep in mind the following:

• Be reasonable. Don’t believe everything you read. Maintain a healthy skepticism. Watch out for buzzwords like “poison” and “conspiracy.”
• Beware of “never.” Science is rarely absolute. Think twice about advice to “never eat this,” or “never do that.”
• Be cautious of anecdotes. One individual’s personal story and word-of-mouth reporting does not qualify as scientific evidence. Is the information you found based on reports published in leading medical journals? Are there references? If there are no references, the information may be based on opinion and not fact.
• Look at the source of the information. Professional organizations such as The American Dietetic Association or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are more likely to have credible, reliable information than an unknown person or group of people or a single issue site.
• Check the dates. As they say, “old news is no news.” Make sure the information is up-to-date. Unless Web sites are continually updated with the latest facts and findings, what you find may not be current.
• Check it out. Discuss Internet nutrition and health advice with your doctor, a registered dietitian or other health professional to be sure it is accurate and appropriate for your needs.

Currently there are no quality standards for statements posted on the Internet. A mixed blessing of the Web is that anyone with a computer and a modem can have a Web page and post whatever information he or she wants. According to a recent Reuters Health article, the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission, known as URAC, announced that it has appointed an advisory committee of representatives from groups such as the Internet Healthcare Coalition, Hi-Ethics and the American Medical Association to begin developing standards for accrediting health Web sites. The goal is to help Web users make informed choices. Until URAC or some other credible group develops a mechanism for evaluating health information on the Internet, common sense and a second opinion still rule the day.