Your contact lenses are probably disgusting
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Wearing contact lenses could harm eye bacteria, according to a new study by researchers at New York University's Langone Medical Center.
"Our research clearly shows that putting a foreign object, such as a contact lens, on the eye is not a neutral act," senior researcher Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, PhD said in a news release.
The study, which Time reports was presented at the annual meeting for the American Society for Microbiology, compared colonies of living bacteria in lens-wearers and non-wearers. Those who wore contact lenses had bacteria similar to that of bacteria typically found on skin, perhaps because finger skin bacteria gets transferred to lenses when people handle them.
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The sample size is quite small — 20 people — and researchers say there's more work left to be done before they could suggest changes to eye care.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.
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