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Study – Your Facebook profile can indicate if you have a medical condition

CNN – “In a new study, researchers were able to predict 21 types of medical conditions — ranging from pregnancy to skin disorders — by analyzing people’s Facebook profiles. Facebook status updates were “particularly effective at predicting diabetes and mental health conditions including anxiety, depression and psychoses,” the study found. The study will be published June 19 in PLOS One, a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal published since 2006 “People’s personality, mental state, and health behaviors are all reflected in their social media and all have tremendous impact on health,” the study said. To conduct the study, researchers linked consenting patients’ electronic medical records with their social media. In total, they looked at 949,530 Facebook status updates across 999 participants whose posts were longer than 500 words. The researchers identified language that likely indicated the characteristic behavior or symptoms of certain diagnoses…”

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