Facebook posts could help doctors spot alcoholism, diabetes or depression.

As time consuming as Facebook can be sometimes, a new study suggests what you post could offer a window into your health. The language used in Facebook posts could be helpful in predicting diseases and mental health disorders, according to research from Penn Medicine and Stony Brook University. The study, published Monday in the journal PLOS ONE, suggested that social media posts could be monitored like physical symptoms. Researchers found that the use of the words "drink" and "bottle" were predictive of alcohol abuse. While that one might seem obvious, the study also found that people who most often mentioned God and pray were 15 times more likely to have diabetes than those who used them less.  For some medical conditions, predictions based on Facebook posts were significantly more accurate than those from demographics alone, the study found. However, Facebook and demographic information combined were more accurate at predicting conditions than just social media posts alone.