Wellness and technology, the quantified self movement

Before you part with your money, I would ask what you expect to get out of the test?

Just because you don't have one particular mutation in one particular gene they test for that predisposes people to a certain condition, doesn't mean you're off the hook for that condition, especially for complex diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's.

From a cancer perspective I suppose the most benefit that you might get out of a test like this is to potentially go for early screening for a particular type of cancer (although this, itself is also debatable).

In general we know that lifestyle changes such as eating right, exercise, and not smoking are good for you, do you really need to spend more money to reiterate that?

I don't know how much this would cost, it's probably (certainly) decreasing.

This Bloomberg reporter chronicles his $12,000 genome sequencing
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-06/my-dna-results-spur-alzheimer-s-anxiety-at-12-000-cost.html

and news from the Personal Genome Project is here
http://www.personalgenomes.org/news.html

In general we know that lifestyle changes such as eating right, exercise, and not smoking are good for you, do you really need to spend more money to reiterate that?

Greatest health intervention ever:
eat more fruit and veg, do more exercise, stop inhaling burning plants.

In general we know that lifestyle changes such as ride a bike ride a bike ride a bike ride a bike drink coffee ride a bike ride a bike ride a bike drink beer ride a bike ride a bike..., do you really need to spend more money to reiterate that?

No we all know that

In general we know that lifestyle changes such as eating right, exercise, and not smoking are good for you, do you really need to spend more money to reiterate that?

Again, that question can be levelled at anyone using Strava, Fitbit, etc, etc. But yet people still feel a personal benefit, for focusing their exercise, or mitigating risks, or motivating themselves, such that they are prepared to measure and apply learning from the outcome of such measurements. Which is what the thread is about.

Never heard of 23andme.
Very interesting Clive sheers for the info.
I myself will neither be taking a test nor taking up health/life insurance at any time in the near future. But it's good to know these things :)

Gut feelings: the future of psychiatry may be inside your stomach

http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/21/4595712/gut-feelings-the-future-of-psychiatry-may-be-inside-your-stomach

There are apparently lawsuits in the US against Nike for the Nike Power Band. Apparently fat people bought them and thought they were burning more calories than they actually were as they waved their wrists around. Having expended so many calories they felt entitled to eat as much as they could and, much to their surprise were still fat.

My wife gave me a Nike Fuel band for Christmas. Cycling did not really record anything on it as my wrist stayed fairly still. I suspect that vigorous masturbation might have scored more points than a 160k ride.It died when I inadvertently swam with it on.

After all those nights in alone 'training', I was wondering why I was still fat. I'll join the 'suit.

Whilst I've only had a cursory look at the 23andme website, I am concerned that seems to be a lack of counselling associated with the results. When I studied the ethical aspects of genetics and biotechnology, a vital tenet of such genetic testing was that participants were supported by counselling. To simply tell someone "You have a y% increased risk of developing " can be a huge psychological blow.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/21/bowflex-boost-fitness-band/

Which is a personal opinion and anecdote, but the courts are very much out on this, as are others. Whether or not it encourages reckless cycling is impossible to quantify given the lack of data pre-Strava, but it's certainly the opinion of enough pundits, bystanders, those involved in incidents, that it may have encouraged more reckless behaviour.

I think it's one of those things that given enough time, we'll have more of a clue. But certainly whilst we can't say it does, we also can't say it doesn't.
Going back a few hours to the Strava questions. It is probably true that we do not yet have enough data to prove that Strava encourages more reckless behaviour.
What Strava does do is to encourage people to go faster [I don't do Strava so tell me if I have got this wrong]. Going faster doesn't necessarily increase the risk of crashing, I doubt if it would decrease that risk.
It seems very likely that the physical/medical consequences or any crash are likely to increase with speed. Where a crash involves hitting a solid body the consequences are likely to increase with the force of impact which increases with the square of speed.
So if you go twice as fast and crash the force of impact will be four times higher. Or with Strava you are encouraged to go 10% faster the force of impact will be 21% higher. That is enough to change a minor injury into a major one, or a major injury into a fatality.

Going faster doesn't necessarily increase the risk of crashing, I doubt if it would decrease that risk. ...

That is enough to change a minor injury into a major one, or a major injury into a fatality.

While the severity of of the outcome of a crash may increase at higher speeds, likelihood of crashing could decrease dependent on the skills of the rider. if they have good bike control, are communicating well with others, they can use use the speed to integrate into the traffic stream most of the time. Lowering risk.

This is reminiscent of a paper written by Sim Bamford (CTUK's founder) that I showed you last year Velocio about http://www.sim.me.uk/neural/JournalArticles/Bamford2012IJMC.pdf

One technique involves plugging into some tech that learns how you think and respond to the world and over a period of time the tech would have the same memories as you eventually your mind/soul will exist in you and the substrate so you continue after you die

Have a read of a short story by Greg Egan called The Jewel..... it talks of having a neural implant at birth that then learns the behavior of the person / stores memories etc, so at adulthood, the "jewel" takes over the running of the body and the brain is discarded, eliminating any possibility of degenerative illness and cognitive decline.

Gut feelings: the future of psychiatry may be inside your stomach

http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/21/4595712/gut-feelings-the-future-of-psychiatry-may-be-inside-your-stomach

That is really, really interesting David and potentially very useful.

Going back a few hours to the Strava questions. It is probably true that we do not yet have enough data to prove that Strava encourages more reckless behaviour.
What Strava does do is to encourage people to go faster [I don't do Strava so tell me if I have got this wrong]. Going faster doesn't necessarily increase the risk of crashing, I doubt if it would decrease that risk.
It seems very likely that the physical/medical consequences or any crash are likely to increase with speed. Where a crash involves hitting a solid body the consequences are likely to increase with the force of impact which increases with the square of speed.
So if you go twice as fast and crash the force of impact will be four times higher. Or with Strava you are encouraged to go 10% faster the force of impact will be 21% higher. That is enough to change a minor injury into a major one, or a major injury into a fatality.

I don't use Strava.

That said, I am not sure I understand how it would make people more reckless.

If I ride down New North Road at 4:30am, I will ride faster than if I ride down the same stretch at 8:30am. Thus, when riding at 8:30 I know I won't break any records. Riding fast down New North Road at 4:30am is not reckless and I would do it with or without Strava. If there is unex-pected trafffic, I can come back and try another day.

If I try and climb Box Hill as fast as I can, I am hardly likely to do it recklessly. If there is danger, i will come back and try it another day.

I was concerned at one stage that obsessive types might see the achievement of Stava records as an incentive to dope. It now appears that there are easier and safer ways to cheat, either using some software that automatically discounts your time (see CW last week) or by using mortorised transport. Better still is that a number of pros downloaded their times for the London Surrey Classic to Strava thus making the achievement of record breaking segments anywhere on route neigh on impossible for weekend Strava warriors.

I get my KOMs in my 3.0TDi A6 Avant Quattro S-Line. Cervelo R5 on the roof rack.

I don't even take my bike in the car when I set KOMs now. Less weight, more aero. #win Anyway, Strava thread for ethics >>

One of the main problems I see with this self monitoring is there is no standard system for recording this stuff. There are multitudes of calorie counters, loads of ride and run logging systems, training peaks and stuff for power meter users. What would be 'fully sick mate' is a standard like ANT+ that specifies additional stuff like weight and calories in, etc. Maybe ANT+FAT or something :)

It must be annoying having to use a bunch of different sites to monitor a bunch of different gadgets. That's what I'm saying.

This kind of thing: http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2010/02/tanita-bc-1000-scale-review-in-depth.html

"Weight Scale ANT+

1) You stepped on scale and it measured your weight
2) It then transmitted it to the FR-60
3A) It’s now automatically transmitted to Garmin Connect
3B) It’s now automatically available to the Tanita Healthy Edge Software"

But it would be great if it could all be brought together in a Health Dashboard thingie. (I'll get right on it.. )

What's a KOM?

King Of the Mountain, or in Strava terms, the fastest rider over a particular segment. Strava thread.

Ah OK.
I don't think that thread is for me to be honest :)

It won't be if it descends into cycle trainers talking about risk and mitigating risk. Then it'll descend into helmets and taking the lane.

I really wonder what the point of collecting all this data is. I mean, yay we can collect all this data. But what are we going to do with it?

Are you hoping to do some sort of datamining? You'll probably have to take into account the population of people being surveyed will be wealthy, interested, etc. Not indicative of the whole population.

It's an interesting amusment to collect data for comparison, if there isn't a way to pool data and analyse properly.

#killjoy

While the severity of of the outcome of a crash may increase at higher speeds, likelihood of crashing could decrease dependent on the skills of the rider. if they have good bike control, are communicating well with others, they can use use the speed to integrate into the traffic stream most of the time. Lowering risk.
Sure, the likelihood of crashing may well be dependent on 'skills' but but at any skill level an increase in speed exponentially increases the force of impact in a crash.

See!???