Wednesday, February 26, 2025

 

Influencers promoting ‘overwhelmingly’ misleading information about medical tests on social media



University of Sydney





Influencers are promoting “overwhelmingly” misleading information about medical tests on Instagram and TikTok, according to a global University of Sydney-led study published today in JAMA Network Open. 

Researchers analysed almost 1000 posts about five controversial medical screening tests that had been promoted by social media influencers to almost 200 million followers. They found most posts had no reference to scientific evidence, were promotional, had explicit financial interests and failed to mention potential harms. 

The tests included full-body MRI scans; genetic testing claiming to identify early signs of 50 cancers; blood tests for testosterone levels; the anti-mullerian hormone (AMH) test which surveys a woman’s egg count; and the gut microbiome test. Experts say these tests have limited evidence of benefit in healthy people and could lead to overdiagnosis and overuse.  
 
“The vast majority of these posts were overwhelmingly misleading,” said Dr Brooke Nickel, who led the research from the Faculty of Medicine and Health’s School of Public Health.  

“They are being promoted under the guise of early screening, as a way to take control of your own health. The problem is they are unnecessary for most people and, in some cases, the science backing their efficacy is shaky,” Dr Nickel said.  

The study found 85 percent of the posts did not mention any test downsides or risks. “These tests carry the potential for healthy people to receive unnecessary diagnoses, which could lead to unnecessary medical treatments or impact mental health,” Dr Nickel said.  

“One example is the ‘egg timer’ or AMH test. It is being heavily marketed to women by influencers as a way of measuring fertility, but experts do not consider it to be reliable. There is the concern that a low result discovered outside the context of a specific medical issue may drive some women to unnecessary, costly fertility interventions,” she said. 

“Another example is the testosterone test, often marketed to men using fearmongering tactics to then promote testosterone supplements which claim to enhance masculinity and sexual performance. This is risky as the long-term safety of testosterone replacement therapy on cardiovascular health and mortality is still unknown. 

“One of the underlying themes being used by influencers promoting these tests is that knowledge is power, but most information is cherry picked. When it comes to health, getting the full picture is so important, and half-truths are often lies.” 

Among the 982 posts on Instagram and TikTok: 

  • 87 percent mentioned benefits of the tests, yet only 15 percent mentioned potential harms; 

  • Only 6 percent mentioned the risk of overdiagnosis or overtreatment; 

  • Only 6 percent mentioned scientific evidence, while 34 percent used personal anecdotes to promote the test; 

  • 68 percent of influencers and other account holders had financial interests in promoting the test (e.g. partnership, collaboration, sponsorship or selling for own profit in some way). 

Co-researcher Dr Ray Moynihan, an Honorary Assistant Professor at Bond University, said: “These findings suggest social media is an open sewer of medical misinformation.  

“This is a public health crisis that exacerbates overdiagnosis and threatens the sustainability of health systems.”  

A detailed analysis of the results found that posts from medical doctors, posts mentioning scientific evidence, and posts from influencers with no financial interest in the tests, tended to be more balanced overall.  

The research group is currently investigating ways to better regulate this type of misleading medical information on social media. 

“Given that social media platforms like Instagram are moving away from fact-checking their content, the need for stronger regulation to prevent misleading medical information has gained urgency,” said Dr Josh Zadro, senior researcher and co-author from the University of Sydney. 
 
5 common controversial tests in Instagram and TikTok posts  

Test 

Benefits and Harms  

Full-body MRI scan 

Claimed to test for up to 500 conditions, yet no evidence of benefit for healthy people, while real dangers exist of unnecessary diagnoses and overtreatment. 

Multi-cancer early detection tests 

Claimed to screen for more than 50 cancers, yet clinical trials are still under way. As yet, there is no evidence that benefits of screening healthy populations will outweigh harms of unnecessary cancer diagnoses. 

AMH or “egg-timer” test  

While beneficial for certain women, this test is falsely promoted to healthy women as a test for fertility, with concerns results can lead to unnecessary, costly fertility treatments. 

Gut microbiome test 

Test promises “wellness” via early detection of many conditions – from flatulence to depression – without good evidence of benefit, alongside concerns that test results could lead to medical overuse, causing harm and waste. 

Testosterone test  

No evidence of benefit for testing healthy men, yet danger of overuse of treatments; long-term safety of testosterone therapy, in relation to adverse cardiovascular events and early death, has not yet been established. 


Declaration

Brooke Nickel and Emma Grundtvig Gram are current members of the International Scientific Committee of Preventing Overdiagnosis. Brooke Nickel, Tessa Copp and Joshua Zadro are funded through an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Emerging Leader Research Fellowship (1194108, 2009419, and 1194105).The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication. 

 

What can theoretical physics teach us about knitting?




Penn physicist Randall Kamien, visiting scholar Lauren Niu, and collaborator Geneviève Dion of Drexel bring unprecedented levels of predictability to the ancient practice of knitting by developing a mathematical model that could be used to create a new c


University of Pennsylvania

The Belly button 

image: 

A close-up of a self-folding knitted fabric, demonstrating how specific stitch patterns—knits and purls—encode geometric rules that dictate the material’s three-dimensional shape. Researchers from Penn and Drexel have developed a mathematical model that predicts these folding behaviors, opening new possibilities for programmable textiles in fields ranging from soft robotics to deployable structures.

view more 

Credit: (Image: Courtesy of Lauren Niu)




The practice of purposely looping thread to create intricate knit garments and blankets has existed for millennia. Though its precise origins have been lost to history, artifacts like a pair of wool socks from ancient Egypt suggest it dates back as early as the 3rd to 5th century CE. Yet, for all its long-standing ubiquity, the physics behind knitting remains surprisingly elusive.

“Knitting is one of those weird, seemingly simple but deceptively complex things we take for granted,” says theoretical physicist and visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, Lauren Niu, who recently took up the craft as a means to study how “geometry influences the mechanical properties and behavior of materials.”

Despite centuries of accumulated knowledge, predicting how a particular knit pattern will behave remains difficult—even with modern digital tools and automated knitting machines. “It’s been around for so long, but we don’t really know how it works,” Niu notes. “We rely on intuition and trial and error, but translating that into precise, predictive science is a challenge.”

These experimental knitted structures showcase how stitch patterns can be engineered to create self-folding and shape-morphing textiles. On the left, a variety of stitch motifs demonstrate different programmed curvatures in a scarf-like garment, while the right displays a take on an eerie, mask-like appearance, showcasing how controlled stitch arrangements can create complex three-dimensional forms. (Image: Courtesy of Lauren Niu)

In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of ScienceNiu and her mentors Randall Kamien of Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences and Geneviève Dion of the Center for Functional Fabrics at Drexel University have presented a model that seeks to decode the ancient practice of knitting by ascribing a mathematical language to the stitches in knits and purls.

“The beautiful thing about Lauren’s approach is that it doesn’t just describe what’s happening—it predicts it,” says Kamien. “We’re taking the tools we use to study everything from gravity to soap bubbles and applying them to knitting. And, remarkably, it works.”

Dion, drawing from her experience as a textile researcher and garment designer, views this work as a crucial convergence of scientific theory and practical design applications. “Right now, fabric design relies on experience, experimentation, and intuition,” she says. “If we can apply predictive models to textiles, we open the door to fabrics with precise, engineered properties—whether it’s self-folding medical materials, reconfigurable structures for soft robotics, or garments that adapt to the body in new ways.”

Decoding knitting, one stitch at a time

To build their model, Niu borrowed mathematical techniques from an unexpected source: general relativity, the theory used to describe the warping of space and time. While relativity explains how gravity bends space-time, the researchers applied similar geometric principles to explain how the looping paths of yarn create curvature in knitted fabrics.

RELATED

“It started with the simple observation that knit fabrics curl in specific ways,” Niu says. “Think of when you cut the sleeves off a T-shirt, and it curls up; that usually means it’s made with only knit stitches. Purls just curl in the other direction.”

However, when knits and purls are combined, “that’s when the magic happens,” Dion says. “You get these incredible self-folding structures that can be soft and flexible but also structured and resilient.”

Niu explains that knitting, at its core, is a method of transforming a one-dimensional strand of yarn into a structured, flexible two-dimensional sheet, which can then fold itself into complex three-dimensional shapes. The researchers realized that this transformation could be described mathematically using the same principles that govern how surfaces curve in space.

Instead of seeing a knitted fabric as just a collection of interlocking loops, the team treated it as a continuous surface with an intrinsic curvature determined by the arrangement of stitches. By applying the formalism used to describe how materials bend and stretch—known as elasticity theory—they built an energetic model that simulates the forces acting on the loops of yarn and predicts how a piece of fabric will deform in space.

“The key insight was recognizing that knitting operates like a programmable material,” Kamien says. “By controlling the stitch pattern—just knits and purls—you can essentially encode instructions for how the fabric will behave once it comes off the needles. That’s why a scarf, a sock, and a sweater can all come from the same kind of yarn but behave so differently.”

Their simulations revealed that the mechanical properties of knitted fabrics often depend more on stitch geometry than on the material itself. Whether the yarn was wool, cotton, or synthetic, the fabric’s tendency to curl, pleat, or expand followed universal geometric rules. This suggests that knitting is governed by fundamental mathematical principles—ones that could be harnessed to design materials with precise, tunable behaviors.

Where knitting meets origami

Niu explains that the work fits into the larger focus of Kamien’s group, particularly its research on kirigami, the art of cutting paper to create complex, foldable structures.

“Kirigami, much like knitting, is an example of how geometry can be used to encode mechanical properties into a material,” she says.

The team’s previous work has explored how strategically placed cuts in a sheet can cause it to morph into specific three-dimensional shapes when stretched. The insights from knitting take this idea further, showing that a material’s internal structure—not just its cuts—can dictate how it folds and unfolds.

“The parallels between knitting and kirigami are striking,” Kamien says. “In kirigami, you add cuts; in knitting, you add loops. But in both cases, you’re programming geometry directly into the material so that it shapes itself without requiring extra inputs like heat, hinges, or reinforcements.”

Dion coined a new term for this approach: knitogami™—a fusion of knitting and origami that captures the idea of self-folding textiles. “We call it knitogami because it extends the principles of origami into a soft, fabric-based medium,” she explains. “Instead of relying on folds and creases in paper, we’re using the inherent elasticity and structure of knitted loops to create dynamic, shape-shifting materials.”

By mapping out these rules, the team developed a framework that could be used to create programmable textiles—fabrics that shape themselves without requiring external forces like heat or manual pleating.

“If we can predict how a piece of fabric will shape itself just by changing the stitch pattern, we can start designing textiles with built-in functionality,” Dion says. “This could lead to garments that adapt to movement, medical textiles that mold to the body, or even large-scale deployable structures that assemble themselves.”

The next steps

Looking ahead, the team hopes to refine their model to incorporate even more complex stitch patterns and fabric behaviors.

“Right now, we’re focused on fundamental stitches—knits and purls—but the real world of knitting is much richer,” Niu says. “The goal is to take this mathematical approach and expand it to include cables, lace, and other advanced techniques that knitters have developed over centuries.”

Randall Kamien is the Vicki and William Abrams Professor in the Natural Sciences in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

Lauren Niu is senior research scientist at the Center for Functional Fabrics at Drexel University and a visiting postdoctoral researcher at Penn Arts & Sciences.

Geneviève Dion is a professor in the Department of Design at the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design and Founding Director of the Center for Functional Fabrics at Drexel University.

This research was supported by the Simons Foundation, the Kaufman Foundation, the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America, Inc. (Transaction HQ00342190016), the Air Force Research Laboratory (FA8650-20-2-5506), and NextFlex, as well as the U.S. Army DEVCOM–Soldier Center.

 

Aston University microbiologist calls for public vigilance and urgent action on the danger of raw sewage in UK seas


Aston University



  • Dr Jonathan Cox writes in Microbiology about the pathogens in raw sewage and the “significant” danger to public health when it ends up in the sea
  • He contracted a lung infection in 2024, likely from exposure to raw sewage in the sea where he had been swimming
  • He urges people to check for sewage reports before heading to the beach and calls for investment to improve infrastructure.

Aston University microbiologist Dr Jonathan Cox has written an article for the journal Microbiology on the dangers posed by raw sewage in the seas around the UK.

Sewage contains lots of microorganisms harmful to human health, causing gastrointestinal, respiratory and skin infections. People can become infected through ingestion, inhalation or contact with contaminated water. Vulnerable groups, including older people, those with a compromised immune system (such as organ transplant patients) and pregnant women are particularly at risk. Sewage pollution can also affect marine life.

The dumping of raw sewage is happening more often around the UK coastline, with some water companies responsible for up to 200 discharges of raw sewage into the sea each year. The risks hit home for Dr Cox when, in spring 2024, he contracted a type of bacterial pneumonia following a swim in the sea that was likely connected to an incident of sewage dumping in the area, recorded by the charity Surfers Against Sewage just hours before he took to the water.

As frightening as this sounds, Dr Cox does not advise staying out of the water, but checking water quality before visiting a beach. Surfers Against Sewage has developed the Safer Seas and Rivers Service (SSRS), online and as an app, which shows where there have been recent sewage discharges.

The government has promised stricter regulations, and advanced sewage treatment technologies are available, but urgent investment is required to protect public health and the UK’s coastal waters.

Dr Cox concludes:

“Whilst we’re waiting for the improved management, innovation and investment that is required to solve the issue and save our seaside, don’t bury your head in the sand regarding water quality. Check before you swim. Afterall, prevention is always better than cure.”

The Microbiology Society, which publishes the journal Microbiology, said:

“As a membership charity and a not-for-profit publisher, the Microbiology Society is proud to publish articles written by our members, like this one, which draw attention to important topics impacting public health and a range of other subjects. These articles demonstrate how microbiologists are involved in addressing challenges that vary from urgent problems demanding immediate solutions, such as new and emerging diseases, through to long-term issues, like antimicrobial drug resistance, food security and environmental sustainability.”

Read the full article, ‘SOS – save our seaside! The microbiological risks to human health of raw sewage in our coastal waters’, in Microbiology.