Body 2.0 — Continuous Monitoring of the Human Body

Singularity Hub has a story about the development of technology that will some day allow for the constant, real-time monitoring of your medical status, and they take a look at current technological advances to that end. Quoting: "Did you ever stop to think how silly and also how dangerous it is to live our lives with absolutely no monitoring of our body's medical status? Years from now people will look back and find it unbelievable that heart attacks, strokes, hormone imbalances, sugar levels, and hundreds of other bodily vital signs and malfunctions were not being continuously anticipated and monitored by medical implants. ... The huge amounts of data that would be accumulated from hundreds of thousands of continuously monitored people would be nothing short of a revolution for medical research and analysis. This data could be harvested to understand the minute by minute changes in body chemistry that occur in response to medication, stress, infection, and so on. As an example, the daily fluctuations in hormone levels of hundreds of thousands of individuals could be tracked and charted 24/7 to determine a baseline from which abnormalities and patterns could be extracted. The possibilities are enormous."

Comments

No

[seanadams.com]

Did you ever stop to think how silly and also how dangerous it is to live our lives with absolutely no monitoring of our body's medical status?

I think it's silly how people constantly try to eliminate every imaginable element of risk from their lives instead of just getting out there and living it. I find the idea of having my physiology constantly monitored by a computer about as attractive as living in a big plastic bubble. But hey if what you want out of modern medicine is to be protected by layer after layer of prophylactics so you can feel safe, by all means go for it.

Re:No

[kraemate]

Yes why dont we all stop using hospitals as well.
If its your day to die its your day to die.
Asking for some-one's help to save your life is for sissies.

I can monitor my laptop's fan speed all day long, but cant do so for my heart, which is /much/ more important than a replaceable gadget.

Re:No

[Jurily]

I find the idea of having my physiology constantly monitored by a computer about as attractive as living in a big plastic bubble.

I have an immune system designed for just that purpose. Oh, and it actually does something when it finds something.

Re:No

[commodore64_love]

>>>a threat to public health and forceful measures to protect US from YOU

Japan already has mandatory diets for those with BMI>30. When the government gives you taxpayer-supported healthcare, the government also has the right to run your life. Just the same as when Congress hands money to the States, and attaches all kinds of requirements, such as raising the drinking age from 18 to 21.

Of course the States have the option to refuse Congressional money, and leave the drinking age at 18. Unfortunately the citizens do not have a similar right - citizens are expected to fall into line according to the Tyrants... er, politicians' wishes. "Go on a diet!" "Yes sir."

Re:No

[seanadams.com]

I can imagine a future society where your attitude would be considered a threat to public health and forceful measures to protect US from YOU.

Gosh yes, imagine a world where it's illegal to ride a bike unless you are wearing a proper helmet approved by a government designated regulatory agency, or to drive your car without wearing your seatbelt, or to smoke a cigarette or a joint in the privacy of your own home. Or where you're required by the state to buy overpriced insurance whether you want it or not. Where the state disciplines you for disciplining your kid, where restaurants are forbidden from serving certain tasty yet unhealthy ingredients, where every product and every place of business is clearly labeled concerning the possible risks of cancer. Oh, heaven forfend that this might spiral into such lunacy!

Re:No

[clarkkent09]

You can't "take charge of your health". Sure, living a healthy lifestyle reduces the risks of many health problems but there are plenty where your genes count far more than your lifestyle. In many of the most serious diseases (such as many cancers and heart problems) family history is the primary factor. Of course accidents can happen too.

Re:No

[Bobb9000]

I'm glad someone in this thread isn't being ridiculous. I would love to be able to have a constant readout of my body's status. While you can determine some things using your own senses, there's nothing like a computer for precisely doing dull, repetitive tasks, like checking your pulse or taking your blood pressure.

While there are obvious privacy issues here, new technology doesn't have to always produce net evil results. I would have thought people on a tech board would understand that. If devices like this were built to only report results using a method that's sure to be noticed, and stupid governments don't pass laws mandating the results be given to the government, this would be an incredible tool not only for medical diagnosis, but also for learning to better control your body.

And before anyone starts yapping about how governments are always stupid and will always take your freedom, so we'd be better off not having this tech, I just have to say: grow up. Governments are masses of people, not monolithic freedom vampires, and if you seriously think that you can have no impact on the course of government, you don't deserve the freedoms a lot of people have worked hard and sacrificed for over the years. If you don't like the current state of government (and there's plenty not to like), then get genuinely politically active, instead of just anonymously whining on the internet.

Sorry, /rant.

Re:No

[clarkkent09]

Still, continuous monitoring of your heart rate is far more useful. You could have a serious heart condition and your pulse will still look normal in most random tests. When it starts to show abnormalities is when you want to be alerted and that's what an implant would do.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, let's see here.

Bike helmets make you MORE likely to be hit by a car, because the drivers of the cars will subconsciously assume you're a better biker and give you less room to manuever.

It is the freedom of the individual to choose what they ingest, be it tobacco, peyote or cyanide. The individual has the right to determine the associated benefits and risks of what they ingest. The same argument applies to food. I have the choice to eat soy and lentils 24/7, and I also have the choice to eat deep-fried garbage. It is my responsibility and my right to balance my own enjoyment of eating food and the associated risks to my health - such risks, I should mention, increase drastically in a governmentally enforced, monopolistic industrial food production system.

Let's say I live on a 30th floor apartment, because of the massive overpopulation we've got going on. My 3 year old kid has picked up a habit of climbing up the window screen with forks whenever it's opened. Am I going to patiently explain to him basic Newtonian physics, and emphasize the risks of what he's doing? No. He will not understand that. I will likely spank him, so he associates that negative experience with his actions, even if it results in some hostility towards me. It is again, my right to choose how to discipline my child based on the circumstances of the situation. The government cannot legislate this sensibly.

Now as per your "clearly labeling" products that have an alleged risk for cancer, this is a more subtle scam. If the government decides to overemphasize the carcinogenic properties of some product, requiring labels on the product such that the consumers will be 'informed' of the drastic risk involved in buying the product, then the consumers are already being conditioned to accept the notion of taxes on this product, due to the evil they now perceive in the producers of it. You might claim that Arizona iced tea is carcinogenic, but you'd have to prove it by either establishing one of the ingredients as carcinogenic, or identifying an unknown carcinogenic ingredient. But you will not do that. You will trust the government to do that. Hence, the government has the power to determine what products (aka, what businesses) are dangerous and levy taxes on the 'dangerous' ones, for your own safety.

Are you more concerned about cancer, or the government robbing your livelihood?

Re:No

[pthreadunixman]

I hate it when people quote Heisenberg out of context.

Re:No

[lyml]

You mean beating children is not illegal in your country? Wow, what kind of third world country is that?

Re:No

[caluml]

But that's the sort of misidentification than implanted RFID tags, and tattooed numbers on the skin will prevent? Can't you see the benefits?

Re:No

[Money for Nothin']

You believe you have an impact on government? Then you're numerically- and politically-naive, at best (so, I will guess you are a college student).

Voting is individually-irrational -- even if it is collectively the least-bad political option yet-devised (it beats dictatorship in its ability to deliver human freedom and modern societal outcomes).

Take a hypothetical voting population of 100 people - you are 1 of that 100. Assume 51% voter turnout.

Of the 51 people voting, assume 26 voted Republican, 24 voted Democrat, and your vote is not yet cast. What is your vote?

Answer: it doesn't matter. If you vote Democrat, you still lose: 26 (R) votes out-numbers 25 (D) votes -- Republicans win. And if you vote Republican (27 vs 24), the Republicans still win, but by a larger margin.

So, the election outcome is identical -- regardless of how, or even *whether*, you voted.

The logic is the same with any democratic election, only with much bigger numbers.

Thus, the only scenario in which your individual vote makes *any* difference is the practically-impossible tie-breaker case: e.g. voting population = 50, 25 vote (R), 24 vote (D), and you choose to vote (D) results in a tie, rather than a Democratic loss. (And we know from the 2000 how this case turns-out in U.S. Presidential elections, in practice: 9 unelected judges in the U.S. Supreme Court decide who becomes President, instead of you or the rest of the nation.)

As the saying goes, "democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner." Democracy, in short, is mobocracy. Government *does* seek to abolish freedom, under any political party's guidance (Republican, Democrat, even Libertarian); it is always a question of "freedom for (and from) whom, and freedom in what form?"

Personally, I'm ambivalent about this continuous monitoring. It has great potential for bettering human health, but also great potential for abuse, not only by government, but criminals and businesses too...

Re:No

[speedtux]

Japan already has mandatory diets for those with BMI>30. When the government gives you taxpayer-supported healthcare, the government also has the right to run your life.

Well, I can't find anything corroborating those claims. But assuming they are true, most likely, there aren't "mandatory diets" but simply either/or choices: either you go on a diet or you lose your government health care. And that's something I'd fully support: if you refuse reasonable treatments, then your health insurance shouldn't be required to pay for your further treatments. It's just like your car insurance isn't required to pay if you deliberately crash your car.

We've got along well enough without

[thetoadwarrior]

I'm not sure the constant worry about the fluctuating read-out would help people.

Besides that's one more system to be abused and used as an excuse to exclude you from something.

Re:We've got along well enough without

[DigiShaman]

Why not?

Our servers and networks have continuous monitoring. Sure, sometimes you get some strange read-outs and "spikes" in the data but overall you can track trends and be on the lookout for pending disasters.

So while we got along well enough without continuous monitoring, imagine how much better we could be with it.

Re:We've got along well enough without

[Dhalka226]

The difference is that in most cases, the person keeping an eye on all those server and network monitors is actually trained. At the very least, they have enough technical knowledge about the subjects in hand that they can make an educated decision as to whether it's worth waking the grumpy sysadmin to come down to the office or whether the problem can wait until morning.

This is more likely to be read by a bunch of amateurs concerned by any fluctuation in any reading, and then running to their "sysadmin" twice a week to see what's wrong when the answer is that nothing is wrong; sometimes things just fluctuate. Not only is that going to annoy, distract and potentially overwhelm doctors, but it's going to flood their offices with pointless appointments and have a much greater chance of squeezing out somebody who legitimately needs to be there.

It kind of reminds me of Dr. House from the tv show: He hates full body scans, because he says you'll always find a half dozen unrelated things wrong with the patient that now you have to treat and you're likely no closer to figuring out what their actual problem was. All other concerns aside, this is very likely going to be the same thing.

I've wondered that

[jmnugent]

..for a pretty long time actually. I dont want it because I'm some kind of hypochondriac, I just think it would be cool to be able to monitor my daily rhythms. After a while you'd get an idea of what a baseline reading for any normal day was,.. and knowing that information would make you better informed about how your eating/drinking/drug use/whatever affects your body. Better yet,.. when you go to see the doctor, he can look back through your prior week or two of diagnostics and it might help him figure out whats wrong. Imagine trying to troubleshoot a computer where you had no Log files or any historical data. Possible? yes. Faster and better fixes when you have historical data?.. absolutely. (and it could help you catch something small before it becomes a bigger problem)

Our body has a monitoring system built in

[hwyhobo]

Did you ever stop to think how silly and also how dangerous it is to live our lives with absolutely no monitoring of our body's medical status?

Actually, our bodies provide lots of feedback. It's just that we are never taught how to listen to those signals. It's usually after the injury occurs that we learn to listen on our own. You would be amazed how well many diabetics can tell their sugar level at any given moment. It doesn't take more than a month of measuring to learn that. I know I may sound heretical on a geek board, but I would consider that skill more vital to many people than calculus.

Re:Our body has a monitoring system built in

[khallow]

The problem is that our bodies don't provide that feedback to anyone else. And people infamously either pay too little or too much attention to those signals.

Can be counterproductive

[sphealey]

> "Did you ever stop to think how silly and also how dangerous
> it is to live our lives with absolutely no monitoring of our
> body's medical status?

One thing you find as you get older and start having more tests, particularly if you have a doctor that likes to keep up with the latest research, is that each test you have for a specific parameter will also return results on 8-10 other parameters - that's just the way med labs are set up. And of those 8-10 parameters neither your doctor nor you intended to test at least one will be out-of-limits for your sex/age/weight/height. A little research in the latest medical data (by your doctor) or you (on the Internet) will quickly reveal that having parameter 7 out-of-limit can lead to immediate doom. Or not - the research is inconclusive.

So what do you do now? As I said every time you have a test you are going to come back with at least 1, and maybe more, new things to be concerned about. Should you start some sort of treatment for that out-of-limit condition? What side effects should you accept for treating something that was causing you no problems? What new conditions will be revealed every year when you are tested for the consequences of taking the treatment for the last revealed problem?

I saw in the WSJ about a year ago that the FDA was getting ready to approve 5 new reactive protein tests. Well, the c-reactive-protein test has been of some benefit in diagnosing early-stage heart disease. Maybe. Or maybe it has just increased sales of Lipitor(tm); no one is sure. What about these 5 new proteins? Should we all be tested for them? Why?

sPh

Re:Can be counterproductive

[lyml]

After all, I have a 0.056% chance per year of getting lung cancer (169,400 cases per year, 300 million US citizens, easy math).

In other news shooting yourself in the face only increases chance of death by 0.1% per year. (6 million cases per year, 6 billion people in the world, easy math)

Dangerous

[thethibs]

Given that the state is responsible for the cost of your health care, getting the chip won't be voluntary. Needless to say, if the monitors detected something life-threatening, they'd have to be able to send someone to help you; that means they also have to know where you are.

We know where you are, we can read all your bio-signs, and we are mandated to protect our investment in health care. Don't run so fast. Keep it down to one orgasm. Put down that cigarette. That's your last coffee for today. Sound silly? Remember when we were silly to suggest they'd be banning smoking in bars next?

Yah--we really look forward to having our chips installed. Am I the only one who would prefer a long painful death?

Re:Useless and redundant

[bretticus]

What? We can do an EKG and measure troponin and sometimes not know for certain whether someone had a heart attack. Many people have atypical presentations, especially women. You also have things like "chest pain" that are actually reflux, or the person could be having an anxiety attack. Sure, you may know something is wrong, but not necessarily how serious -- just take Natasha Richardson.

...and will be used against you

[AliasMarlowe]

"There are cannabinoids in your bloodstream. The SWAT team has been alerted. Please wait for them to arrive and beat you up."

OR:
"Your blood alcohol level is above the legal limit. A police officer is on the way. Please stop your vehicle immediately and wait to be arrested."
And it would do this even if you were driving on your own private road, or driving a tractor on your own land (hint: DUI rules apply only on public roads, parking lots, etc.).

WTF?

[wurp]

I fail to see how monitoring my body automatically and being informed when my lifestyle leads to risk of serious ill health is "constantly try to eliminate every imaginable element of risk".

I put on a wrist strap, forget about it, and then I get a notice every few months that I need more exercise, or I need to cut out saturated fats. Or, I even get a couple of notices daily to tell me to go eat a banana to maintain a blood sugar level that will keep me feeling good.

That sounds pretty damn good to me. Most adults are killed by cancer or heart disease, and most cancer and heart disease are curable if caught early. It sounds to me like a system only an idiot would turn down.

Seriously, if you live the way you're proposing, you would ride your motorcycle helmet-less back & forth to work every day, dine on bacon cheeseburgers and chili cheese fries, and only ever exercise if it was fun. I'm all for your right to live that way, but I refuse to let your snide commentary on people who choose to put a little work into living happy, long lives stand without refutation.

(Note: this commentary is really directed as much at moderators as at the parent. A +5 Insightful comment naturally gets a more visceral reaction than the same comment at 2.)

Ignorance != Bliss

[aricusmaximus]

It's infuriating to see the the semi-luddite rantings of the parent post got modded insightful. Makes me wonder why I even read Slashdot anymore.

Clearly the parent poster believes that monitoring devices are for ninnies and the weak. I assume that he follows his logic to it's logical conclusion and

- carefully disables all monitoring and warning devices on all/any vehicles he drives - after all engine check lights are for sissies!
- removes any and all air quality detectors (smoke/carbon monoxide/radon) from his homes (not to mention any security systems)
- if a sysadmin, avoids the use of any and all alterts, alarms, and carefully avoids the instalation of monitoring systems

The fact is that if this was about managing a server farm or a commercial jetliner instead of a person's body there wouldn't be a doubt in anyone's mind that recieving timely accurate information about system health and integrity is a *good* thing.

Ignorance is *not* bliss, and having more information doesn't mean that you necessarily turn into a hypochondriac. It *does* mean you have the knowledge to make responsible, informed choices -- and/or not to.

Pre-emptive monitoring for signs of heart attacks and strokes are no joking matter and detecting these early on mean the difference between mild and serious, life-altering damage or death. But apparently ignorance will be bliss for the parent poster until the "surprise" stroke, adult-onset-diabetes, heart-attack, or too-late cancer diagnosis.

The body monitors its own status.

[dpbsmith]

"Did you ever stop to think how silly and also how dangerous it is to live our lives with absolutely no monitoring of our body's medical status?"

The body monitors its own status continously and constantly takes corrective actions. The process is called homeostasis, a word invented by Walter B. Cannon in the 1930s although the concept is much older.

You might as well say:

"Did you ever stop to think how silly and dangerous it is to live our lives with absolutely nothing monitoring our posture to keep us from falling over?"

"Did you ever stop to think how silly and dangerous it is to walk around with absolutely no electrodes on our chests to keep our hearts beating?"

"Did you ever stop to think how silly and dangerous it is to walk around with absolutely no portable diathermy machine to hold our body temperature at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit?"

This is not to say that canes and electronic pacemakers... and, for all I know, portable diathermy machines... might not be helpful to some people, but the body has a great capacity to take care of itself without medical intervention.