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Study Shows Wearable Sensors Can Tell When You Are Getting Sick (phys.org)
skids quotes a report from Phys.Org: Wearable sensors that monitor heart rate, activity, skin temperature and other variables can reveal a lot about what is going on inside a person, including the onset of infection, inflammation and even insulin resistance, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Altogether, the team collected nearly 2 billion measurements from 60 people, including continuous data from each participant's wearable biosensor devices and periodic data from laboratory tests of their blood chemistry, gene expression and other measures. Participants wore between one and eight commercially available activity monitors and other monitors that collected more than 250,000 measurements a day. The team collected data on weight; heart rate; oxygen in the blood; skin temperature; activity, including sleep, steps, walking, biking and running; calories expended; acceleration; and even exposure to gamma rays and X-rays. "We want to study people at an individual level," said Michael Snyder, PhD, professor and chair of genetics. "We have more sensors on our cars than we have on human beings," said Snyder. In the future, he said, he expects the situation will be reversed and people will have more sensors than cars do.
Slashdot reader skids adds: "IT security being in the state it is, will we face the same decision about our actual lives that we already face about our social lives/identities: either risk very real hazards of misuse of your personal data, or get left behind?
Slashdot reader skids adds: "IT security being in the state it is, will we face the same decision about our actual lives that we already face about our social lives/identities: either risk very real hazards of misuse of your personal data, or get left behind?
From scanning the paper briefly is that those are people who would be really thrilled if they had actually discovered something useful and they hope this can lead to important new work, presumably with them being asked to follow up on it. It's almost like a marketing piece. "It is possible that the use of wearables will lead to false alarms and overdiagnosis of disease. The number of false alarms will depend upon the threshold that is set, which can be personalized." It doesn't say how it could be personalized, which sounds critical for a claim like that. "Overall, we envision that these devices could be particularly powerful for individuals who are responsible for the health of others (i.e., parents and caregivers), and perhaps also for those who have historically limited health care access, including groups with low income and/or remote geography." We didn't really check with these people, but we're sure it could work for them, and them, and also them!
I hope I'm wrong, and that someone more knowledgeable here can confirm this was good research. Because if not, it would be downright irresponsible to suggest burdening people with sensors for an outcome that could be not just not useful but possibly harmful. That would fall under "academic prostitution". Again I'm hoping this is just my ignorance and laziness to read the article carefully.