IQ Fifty Plus Guide

Health and Well-Being

Using the Internet to Research Health Conditions

Want to research a specific illness or condition? Find out more about a prescription drug or an herbal supplement? Learn how to better manage the stress in your life? Find caregiver resources to help you care for a parent? These omnibus sites offer the place to start for sound information and thousands of resources.

Medline Plus, an omnibus site from the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, offers a wealth of information on health and wellness as well as hundreds of diseases and conditions. Check out prescription and over-the-counter drug information.

familydoctor.org—consumer health information produced by the American Association of Family Physicians. Solid information on health conditions, treatments and drugs among other topics in clear, easy-to-use format.

Healthfinder.gov, a service of the National Health Information Service of the Department of Health and Human Services, provides a web portal for health information including an A to Z library of health conditions, information on health topics organized by interest groups, health news, information on health issues and organizations, and links to other sites that have been evaluated.

NIHSeniorHealth.gov There’s that word again, but the site provides a quick place to check out information on health conditions that tend to be associated with age, such as Alzheimers, hearing loss, diabetes, and breast, prostate and colon cancers. The site was developed by the National Institute on Aging, the National Medical Library, and the National Institutes of Health.

Among top privately sponsored websites that provide consumer information on health matters and medical conditions, we recommend mayoclinc.com from the Mayo Clinic and intelihealth.com, sponsored by Aetna, and featuring Consumer Health Information from Harvard Medical School. A number of consumers also like the resources provided by WebMd.com.

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, one of the National Institutes of Health, provides information on alternative medicine treatments and research among other resources. Of particular interest may be the thorough reports on specific dietary and herbal supplements and on specific treatments. NCCAM’s mission is “exploring complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science, training complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) researchers, and disseminating authoritative information to the public and professionals.”

HerbMed.org provides evidence-based information on numerous herbs and plants used for health. This database is a project of the Alternative Medicine Foundation which describes its mission as “providing consumers and professionals with responsible, evidence-based information on the integration of alternative and conventional medicine.”

IQ links to sites provided by a variety of sources. We review sites for credibility and reliability, but IQ, of course, can't control advertising and other links on these sites. We advise ignoring pop-up ads, links to sales of products or services, and the like.