TikTok Blamed For Teen Girls Suddenly Developing Tics

The Wall Street Journal: Teen Girls Are Developing Tics. Doctors Say TikTok Could Be A Factor
Teenage girls across the globe have been showing up at doctors’ offices with tics—physical jerking movements and verbal outbursts—since the start of the pandemic. Movement-disorder doctors were stumped at first. Girls with tics are rare, and these teens had an unusually high number of them, which had developed suddenly. After months of studying the patients and consulting with one another, experts at top pediatric hospitals in the U.S., Canada, Australia and the U.K. discovered that most of the girls had something in common: TikTok. (Jargon, 10/16)

In other public health news —

Axios: Study Finds Hello Heart Digital Therapeutic Helps Control Hypertension 
An internet-connected blood pressure cuff and smartphone app helped patients control hypertension over time, a new study finds. The research — the longest and largest published study looking at how a digital therapeutic can help patients remotely manage hypertension — provides meaningful evidence that the devices can be used to control long-term lifestyle diseases at home. (Walsh, 10/16)

Fox News: We May Not Need 10,000 Daily Steps For Long Life, Studies Suggest
Adults likely need at least 7,000 steps daily or should play sports for more than 2.5 hours every week to maximize longevity, according to two large-scale studies. The first study, published in JAMA Network Open last month, followed over 2,000 middle-aged men and women for over 10 years. When the participants first joined the study, they wore a monitor that tracked their steps consecutively over one week. Researchers found that those who took more than 7,000 steps daily cut their mortality risk by 50-70% compared to those who took fewer steps. (Sudhakar, 10/16)

The New York Times: A Racial Disparity In Schizophrenia Diagnoses In Nursing Homes
The share of American nursing home residents who are recorded as having schizophrenia has soared over the past decade. As The New York Times reported last month, the change is driven in part by a surge of questionable diagnoses. A 2012 government effort to reduce unnecessary antipsychotic drug use in nursing homes included an exemption for residents with schizophrenia. Since then, the diagnoses have grown by 70 percent. Experts say some facilities are using the schizophrenia loophole to continue sedating dementia patients instead of providing the more costly, staff-intensive care that regulators are trying to promote. (Gebeloff, 10/15)

The CT Mirror: Wet Summer Raises Risk Of Mosquito-Borne Illnesses In October
With mosquito levels at the highest in 20 years, three mosquito-borne illnesses are most dangerous to humans in October after being passed from birds to mosquitoes over the summer months. This year, the first report of Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) occurred Sept. 23 in mosquitoes trapped in Voluntown, in southeastern Connecticut, as part of the state’s surveillance program. EEE is rare but kills one-third of those who catch it, according to the state Department of Public Health. (Woodside, 10/16)

The New York Times: Should You Get A Microbiome Test?
How do I know if my gut microbiome is healthy? Is there a test I can take to see what’s going on? A growing number of companies offer tests that provide a glimpse into our gut microbiome, the community of trillions of microbes that live in our digestive tract. Scientists increasingly recognize that these microorganisms play a crucial role in our health, influencing everything from how successfully we age or fight off infections to our risks of developing obesity, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. (O'Connor, 10/13)

Also —

AP: Bill Clinton Released From Southern California Hospital 
Bill Clinton was released Sunday from the Southern California hospital where he had been treated for an infection. The former president was released around 8 a.m. from the University of California Irvine Medical Center. ... An aide to the former president said Clinton had a urological infection that spread to his bloodstream, but he is on the mend and never went into septic shock, a potentially life-threatening condition. (10/17)