Vim & Vigor - Winter 2012 - North Mississippi - (Page 21)

chemical signatures for diseases such as lung, breast and prostate cancers. “While quite provocative, this clearly needs considerably more validation,” Topol writes in his book, which also describes another breakthrough technology called the IntelliCap, being developed by Philips Research. It’s an electronic pill, complete with sensors, a tiny computer and a wireless transmitter, that patients would swallow. It “can be wirelessly activated to release a drug at a particular site in the gastrointestinal tract,” Topol writes. “We’ll soon see whether wireless technologies can improve [drug] compliance and outcomes for patients.” WHAT’S NEXT: Kraft predicts we soon will be living with embedded sensors throughout many aspects of our lives. “One of the things that’s going to happen in the future is the concept of sensors everywhere,” he says. “Your fridge will know how many times you opened it at 3 in the morning. Your bathroom scale will be able to tweet your weight or put it on Facebook. Social pressure can be powerful, right? So if you declare that you’re going to lose weight, your technology can be a bit of a monitor, and it can give you an edge to staying on your diet. Or it can be something simple like having your kids brush their teeth. If you could put a little sensor on their toothbrush, you could tell if they really brushed for two minutes or for only 20 seconds.” WHAT’S NEXT: Kraft predicts a day will come when a warning light about your health ﬂashes on your smartphone where you track your diet, exercise, blood pressure and blood glucose levels. “A lot of diseases are detected late,” Kraft says. “What if your vital signs detect early that you’re running into heart trouble?” There’s an App for That Need a little help to stay motivated on the way to achieving your health and fitness goals? There’s not only an app for that; there are more than 20,000 smartphone apps relating to health and medicine to choose from, says Daniel Kraft, M.D., executive director of the FutureMed program at Singularity University in Silicon Valley. “Right now some of the very popular apps help you track and optimize your wellness,” he says. Here are four examples of some of the hottest apps and consumer medical monitors: • RunKeeper (runkeeper.com). On a smartphone with GPS and an accelerometer, this app can graphically display data showing the time you’ve run, distance, velocity and the route taken. • Fitbit (fitbit.com). This wireless pedometer records each step you take to encourage you to take the recommended 10,000 steps per day. • Bodybugg and BodyMedia (bodybugg.com and bodymedia.com). These devices can connect to your smartphone to provide data on how many calories you’ve burned throughout the day. SMARTPHONES: HEALTH IS CALLING WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW: Smartphones are transforming nearly everything we do. Now they are merging with other technologies that might make it possible for them to save our lives. One example is AliveCor, which captures a patient’s real-time heart rhythm through a smartphone. The gadget makes it possible to perform a do-it-yourself electrocardiogram by placing one ﬁnger from each hand on each of its two sensors that record your heart rhythm. “Using this device, an individual with palpitations, lightheadedness, or faintness can use his or her phone to acquire heart rhythm data and send it directly to a physician for interpretation,” Topol writes. But that’s not all. Other smartphone tools can track your blood sugar levels or keep tabs on your blood pressure. With an app and a blood pressure cuff that connects to your smartphone, “it makes you want to take your blood pressure a lot more often because it’s so much fun,” he adds. “This is exciting because we have 70 million Americans with high blood pressure in this country, half of whom do not have it under adequate control. The potential impact here is quite profound.” Hear Daniel Kraft, M.D., innovator and executive director of FutureMed, speak about the future of medicine and the new tools and apps that will change everything. To see the video, go to ted.com/speakers/ daniel_kraft.html, then click “Medicine’s future? There’s an app for that” on the right-hand side. Explore the Future of Medicine VIDEO Vim & Vigor · WI NTER 2012 21 http://www.runkeeper.com http://www.fitbit.com http://www.bodybugg.com http://www.bodymedia.com http://www.ted.com/speakers/daniel_kraft.html http://www.ted.com/speakers/daniel_kraft.html

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vim & Vigor - Winter 2012 - North Mississippi

Vim & Vigor - Winter 2012 - North Mississippi
Contents
Opening Thoughts
Bundles of Joy
A Sigh of Relief
Because I Said So!
What’s Wrong with This Picture?
The Future Is Now
Everyday Hero
What Does 200 Calories Look Like?
Johnny Be Good
In the Driver’s Seat
We’ve Got Your Back
Bank on Your Health
Virtual Health
Contact Us!
Take Control of Your Diabetes
Life After a Loss
Taking Flight
Catch the Spirit

Vim & Vigor - Winter 2012 - North Mississippi