Total Recall - C. Gordon Bell [45]
My loathing of batteries keeps me from using my BodyBugg most of the time. But really, I should know from experience not to skip any biomonitoring. I used to wear a Polar strap around my chest when I bicycled so I could get just the right amount of exercise. Regrettably, I didn’t wear it during a biking trip in the hilly region around the French Riviera in April 1996. I was not fully recovered from the flu, but didn’t realize that would matter. After a day of biking and a lovely dinner, I awoke with a severe pain that I attributed to “heartburn.” In fact, it was a heart attack that needed immediate attention. I had overexerted myself. By not wearing the Polar strap, I’d left myself in the dark. The consequence—a blowout of part of my 1983 double bypass—was revealed in a stress test several months later.
We are only beginning to imagine what can be tracked with implanted sensors. Combined with wearable sensors, in-home sensors, and ever cheaper, more accessible laboratory tests, a whole new universe of quantitative health is dawning.
GETTING HEALTHIER
This chapter opened with a story about my doctor relying on his memory to gauge my improvement. But doctors aren’t the only ones with imperfect memories and filtered perception. Patients don’t hear half of what they are told by their physicians, even when especially important information is discussed. I believe it would be very useful to record these sessions with our physicians to aid our memories in these times of stress.
Just remembering to take your pills is a problem. People usually don’t forget painkillers, because pain is a potent motivator, and its own reminder. But overall, patients only take about half the medications prescribed to them. Have you ever taken your medications until you start to feel better, then quit taking them days or weeks before completing their course? Have you ever left your doctor’s office all revved and psyched up to eat a healthier diet, start exercising, or floss daily only to find the new habit lasts but a week?
The good news is that quantitative health can be a shot in the arm for motivating you to take care of yourself.
You are more likely to take your medications if you can see a chart that confirms the value of the medicine. What if you had a chart on your personal Web page showing your cholesterol going down week by week? What if you got quarterly imaging scans of your arteries so you could watch as plaque dissolves from improvements in your diet and exercise regime? What if you could observe your heart and lungs in a series of images, or your vital statistics trending up or down on a chart? Quantitative health data is already being used to motivate patients, and the practice will only expand.
Your personal health record combined with biometric lifelogging can be integrated with your complete e-memory. As with everything else in Total Recall, the more integration, the better. You should be able to find all sorts of informative correlations between your health data and seemingly miscellaneous other facets of your life.
Imagine if your e-memory presented you a chart revealing a high correlation between your entertaining a certain difficult relative and a trifecta of weight gain, poor sleep, and self-imposed social isolation for a week following each of his or her visits. You’d think, Wow, I had no idea it was so bad. Knowing this, and assuming you couldn’t avoid the person by dint of filial duty, you might at the least take pains to manage your exercise, eating, and socializing