Cool Technology To Improve Your Health

April 19, 2010

Interview with Thomas Goetz, author of the book The Decision Tree: Taking Control of Your Health in the New Era of Personalized Medicine

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Mike Carruthers:
Technology is changing the way people monitor their health in some very exciting ways.

Thomas Goetz:
Look at Nike - Nike Plus is the phenomenon that you stick a little sensor in your shoe, you go on a jog and it tracks - not only how far you’re going and how fast you’re going, but it also calculates how many calories you’re burning.

Thomas Goetz, Executive Editor of Wired Magazine and author of the book The Decision Tree...

And that all gets uploaded to the website automatically so you’re able to track your exercise and your progress towards various goals that you can set. And millions of people, I think almost 10 million people have bought and are using the Nike Plus system.

There are some other really cool devises that can keep you motivated and monitor your health very closely.

There’s this great one called Fit Bit, you clip it onto your belt and it monitors your cadence, your calories burned and it also you can wear it at night and it measures your sleep quality with a device that costs less than $100.

Online community websites like; Patientslikeme.com are bringing people together who are fighting the same illness. And there’s another interesting site called Lifemath.net…

And Lifemath.net you input your age, your weight, and it’ll automatically calculate a few simple easy-to-do things that will extend your life. And it’s done by some researchers at Harvard Medical School and it’s a really good way to get an idea of how personalized medicine is actually going to be about data and not drugs.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here