While scrolling through the popular website Pinterest, you’re likely to find a number of home remedies for various illnesses. They may be juices said to cure bladder infections or potions purported to kill cancer. But can you really believe these claims, even if they’ve been shared thousands of times?

Some of the remedies may seem legitimate, but many have no scientific evidence to back their claims. In fact, the suggested cures may cause more harm than good. For instance, there are remedies recommended for bladder infections, but without proper treatment through antibiotics, these infections can lead to serious kidney problems.

The website BuzzFeed News recently spent a month examining Pinterest and found more than a dozen health-related items making wildly exaggerated or false claims. Making matters more concerning is all of these pins had been shared repeatedly. One pin, supposedly from a retired pharmacist, made the bogus claim that alkaline water kills cancer. It had been saved to more than 16,000 Pinterest boards.

BuzzFeed said when it contacted Pinterest about these items, the company removed some of them. A Pinterest representative said the site is curated by millions of people and it relies on users to report problems with content. Pinterest said it will take action on items that spread misleading medical information that could lead to serious harm, such as claims of curing diseases that the medical community considers to be incurable.

See something on Pinterest that you don’t know if you should believe? You can do some detective work on your own, but it’s always wise to ask your doctor to help sort fact from fiction.