Abstract
Magazines have traditionally been an effective medium for delivering health media messages to large populations or specific groups. In this retrospective cross-sectional study, we evaluated nine issues from 2016 publications of American men's health-related magazines (Men's Health and Men's Fitness) to evaluate their recommendations and determine their validity by examining corresponding evidence found in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. We extracted health recommendations (n = 161) from both magazines and independently searched and evaluated evidence addressing the recommendations. We could find at least a case study or higher quality evidence addressing only 42% of the 161 recommendations (80 recommendations from Men's Health and 81 recommendations from Men's Fitness). For recommendations from Men's Health, evidence supported approximately 23% of the 80 recommendations, while evidence was unclear, nonexistent, or contradictory for approximately 77% of the recommendations. For recommendations from Men's Fitness, evidence supported approximately 25% of the 81 recommendations, while evidence was unclear, nonexistent, or contradictory for approximately 75% of the recommendations. The majority of recommendations made in men's health-related magazines appear to lack credible peer-reviewed evidence; therefore, patients should discuss such recommendations with health-care providers before implementing.