Antibiotics for Pink Eye May Prolong the Infection

Ingestible Sensors That Monitor Vital Signs

Researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital are developing a small ingestible battery that runs on the fluids in your stomach. The battery could power sensors that would stay in your gastrointestinal tract to monitor vital signs or deliver medications. The new power source would be safer than conventional batteries, which can self-discharge, undergoing chemical reactions that reduce their stored charge and decrease their shelf life. The new device worked continuously for an average of 6.1 days in pigs’ GI tracts, as opposed to delivering only short bursts of power, as earlier versions did. In a University of Michigan study of more than 340,000 pink eye patients over a 14-year period, 58 percent filled a prescription for antibiotic eye drops, while 20 percent received an antibiotic-steroid combo. But many cases of pink eye are caused by viral infections or allergies that antibiotics won’t help, the study’s authors noted, and antibiotic-steroid combos can prolong or exacerbate certain types of viral infections, including pink eye. So why do doctors keep prescribing them? It can be difficult to differentiate between bacterial, viral, and allergic conjunctivitis. Plus, patients are often unaware of the harmful effects of antibiotics, mistakenly believing they are necessary. In fact, some mild cases of pink eye could resolve within 7 to 14 days without medication.

Facebook Users Live Longer

A 2016 study found that the average Facebook user is about 12 percent less likely to die in a given year than someone who doesn’t use the site— and that people who accepted the most friend requests lived the longest. This doesn’t mean you should say sayonara to all your non-virtual friends. According to the study, interacting on Facebook seems to be healthy only when it is used to maintain real-life relationships: The online activities that correlate with reduced mortality (such as posting photos) also indicate an offline social life.

Celiac Disease Could Be Caused by a Virus

Reoviruses commonly infect people, although they usually don’t cause symptoms. But researchers have found that certain types of reovirus infections trigger an immune response that may lead to celiac disease. The study also revealed that celiac patients produced much higher levels of antibodies against the reovirus compared with people without the disease. More research needs to be done, but in the future, a vaccine against reoviruses may be able to prevent children from developing celiac disease and other autoimmune disorders.