Health Technologies: Physical exercise

Showing posts with label Physical exercise. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Sit less, Move more

I am typing this standing in front of my computer. My tall chair is aside.

About a year ago, I realized that I felt better when I stood while working. It turned out I was not alone in this discovery; more and more people are opting for a vertical approach to work, and the benefits are becoming increasingly evident.

We're all familiar with the age-old advice to "eat less and exercise". But this may not be enough. As shown in a recent study, exercise does not counteract the ill effects of sedentary lives, we should keep moving (or at least squatting) throughout the day too. New York Times article about the study (The men who stare at screens) immediately got up-votes from over 100 hackers - those who spend hours staring at screens to code, along with 100+ comments from those staring at screens to read and comment on the news. Stand up while you read this, asked NYT earlier this year. Prolonged sedentarity affects not only cardiovascular and metabolic health, blood clotting, diabetes and cancer. Countless hours of sitting could cause many other ailments reducing the quality of life such as skewed microbial ecology accompanied by strong body odor, diminishing overall quality of life.

Health promotion efforts targeting physical inactivity should emphasize both reducing sedentary activity and increasing regular physical activity for optimal health.

The lead author of the 2010 study says: "Stand up. Pace around your office. Get off the couch and grab a mop or change a light bulb the next time you watch ‘‘Dancing With the Stars.’’ A five-minute stroll is recommended every half hour.

Stand-up desks and treadmill desk were available years ago, a web site just stand was created for office workers who sit long hours each day, but either the desks are not very usable yet, lobbying your boss for a stand-up workstation is still tricky or most people just like sitting too much. Let's hope this will change.

References

Warren TY, Barry V, Hooker SP, Sui X, Church TS, & Blair SN (2010). Sedentary behaviors increase risk of cardiovascular disease mortality in men. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 42 (5), 879-85 PMID: 19996993 DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0b013e3181c3aa7e

Dunstan DW, Barr EL, Healy GN, Salmon J, Shaw JE, Balkau B, Magliano DJ, Cameron AJ, Zimmet PZ, & Owen N (2010). Television viewing time and mortality: the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study (AusDiab). Circulation, 121 (3), 384-91 PMID: 20065160
DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.109.894824

Katzmarzyk PT, Church TS, Craig CL, & Bouchard C (2009). Sitting time and mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 41 (5), 998-1005 PMID: 19346988

DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0b013e3181930355

Healy GN, Dunstan DW, Salmon J, Shaw JE, Zimmet PZ, Owen N. (2008). Television time and continuous metabolic risk in physically active adults. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 40, 639-645.(PMID: 18317383)

Khaw K-T, Wareham N, Bingham S, Welch A, Luben R, et al. (2008) Combined Impact of Health Behaviours and Mortality in Men and Women: The EPIC-Norfolk Prospective Population Study. PLoS Med 5(1): e12. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050012 (PMID: 18184033)

Beasley R, Raymond N, Hill S, Nowitz M, Hughes R. (2003) eThrombosis: the 21st century variant of venous thromboembolism associated with immobility. Eur Respir J. 21(2), 374-6. (PMID: 12608454 )

Aurametrix is developing next-generation systems for Personal Health Management. Better solutions for a healthier world

Additional references post-initial publication:

Gao W, Sanna M, Chen YH, Tsai MK, Wen CP. Occupational Sitting Time, Leisure Physical Activity, and All-Cause and Cardiovascular Disease Mortality. JAMA Network Open. 2024 Jan 2;7(1):e2350680-.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The Benefits of Exercise

Image by mikebaird via Flickr

Execise is good. It can halve your risk of developing many major illnesses (including type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, osteoporosis, cancers - e.g., it protects against bowel cancer; for older women, it may cut breast cancer risk). Benefits of regular exercise include increasing levels of HDL ('good' cholesterol) and reducing high blood pressure. It promotes bone density to protect against osteoporosis, improves sleep, reduces stress and risk of depression and dementia later in life.

Daily Exercise is good for you

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Devices To Keep you Healthy

An armband device that can be worn all day - during workouts, at the office and at home - will calculate all calories you burn. You can connect it to a computer to tabulate your calorie intake versus what you're burning

off. The Exerspy interactive system will pump up your workouts, and could make you healthy - but only if you make healthy choices by yourself.

Another gadget from Philips, DirectLife, will track calories you burn and display your daily progress by green lights - each one makes you 15% closer to your daily 100% activity target. Your overall progress can be monitored on your PC, daily or hourly - after you upload data from Activity Monitor to your PC. Exercise could be fun. Ubisoft's Just Dance game for Wii teaches you dance moves, lets you to compete with up to four players and have a dance party. It monitors your arm

movements increasing your heart rate. The miCoach not only measures your hou eart rate, but gives you real time audio coaching and asks to speed up when you start slacking off. Using a small foot pod you tie into your sneaker, it tracks your speed and distance too, letting to manage the numbers on the Adidas website. You could also keep track of your mileage with the a solar powered odometere, if you like. Another device - Sensewear, an arm band from Bodymedia, enables automated monitoring of calories burned, dietary intake, duration of physical activity and sleep. A USB port allows the patient to periodically upload data from the armband to a website loaded with charts, graphs, and other data that allows both patient and physician to make informed decisions. Device by Toumaz, called Sensium, provides ultra low power monitoring of ECG, temperature, blood glucose and oxygen levels. It can also interface to 3 axis accelerometers, pressure sensors and includes a temp

erature sensor on chip. Sensium Life Pebble streams the data using a wireless datalink over a short range ( ~5m) to a Sensium USB adapter or data logger. Mio Watch (left) measures your heart rate, while other "smart" watches such as Garmin can wirelessly communicate with your scales and body composition monitor. Withing Wifi Scale will even automatically update your weight on Twitter, sending your stats to your computer and your iPhone. A personal calorie management device called Bodybugg measures calorie expenditure. Another pocket-sized piece of technology - Fitbit (also called a pedometer on steroids) - promises to tell you the number of calories burned, steps taken, miles walked, and quality of sleep in addition to the intensity of exercise you’ve had all day.
It also records and stores detailed daily dat

a for a week and summarized daily data for a month. Using the same 3D motion sensing technology as the Nintendo Wii, the creators of the Fitbit hope to turn everyday activities into a fitness game. The gadget uploads your activity stats, including calories burned, wirelessly to the web. You can wear it in your pocket, clipped to your pants, bra or your wrist.

Can it be any easier? Sure, it can. PhiloMetron is creating a bandage-sized smart patch that will also do the usual counting of calories. Besides, at the end of the day it could tell you what to do to make the next day even more successful. It also suggests taking a quick walk when it’s needed, to help things on their way. The patch sends all information collected during the day to your cell phone, by a Bluetooth connection.
Of course, not everyone can make the best food choices. It’d be far easier for most people if you ha d a diet itian to follow you around and tell you what to do. It's such a hassle to have to manually en ter every food... One of possibl e solution is is to use FoodScanner, a new app that scans package bar codes for quick and easy calorie logging.

Device by Toumaz, called Sensium, provides ultra low power monitoring of ECG, temperature, blood glucose and oxygen levels. It can also interface to 3 axis accelerometers, pressure sensors and includes a temperature sensor on chip. Sensium Life Pebble streams the data using a wireless datalink over a short range ( ~5m) to a Sensium USB adapter or data logger. Cardionet system monitors every heartbeat during normal daily activities, for up to 21 days, and detects, records, and transmits event data automatically to the prescribing physician via wireless phone. In a not so far away future, many other bodily functions and environmental influences will be monitored 24x7 - examples are the daily fluctuations in hormone levels and medications taken - proteus_intestible_sensors Proteus ingestible event markers (IEMs, shown on the right) could send ultra-low-power digital signals through the body to a microelectronic receiver that may look like a small bandage style skin patch. The receiver date- and time-stamps, decodes, and records information such as the type of drug, the dose, and the place of manufacturing.

Of course, it's not just food, medications and calories. There is more to health than

measurements of outcomes. Device shown on the right uses ultrasonic sensors to detect how close you are to the screen and remind you to sit up straight - by showing flashing LED lights or chime once when you’re leaning too close to your monitor. To keep it running just plug it into your USB port. You can purchase it for $21.99 from Sourcing Map. (See also PC Gadgets, USB Gadgets, iPosture, UberGizmo; USB Posture Alert Reminder).
You can wear another gudget (shown on the top left) around your neck, and when you start to slouch, it’ll correct you with an audible alarm. Designed in Japan, it sells for $8.43 by DealExtreme.

But what about viruses, bacteria, fungi infections and nasty little mosquitos? Some startups are working on that too. We will only mention the simplest device already on the market - a $5 USB Ultrasonic Mosquito Pest Repeller.
This little device could eliminate the use of pesticides and other harmful bug sprays, although it is still unclear if it actually works.
And what about accidents? What if you can't keep you hands off your cell phone while driving? Driving while distracted (DWD) due to texting would make accidents 23 times more likely, while talking on a cell phone while driving, even hands-free, makes drivers as likely to cause a crash as someone considered legally drunk. A new blocking device can help you to avoid accidents. CellControl plugs into the car computer terminals, links to cell phones via Bluetooth and a downloadable application. When the vehicle is in motion (more than 1mph), the device blocks all incoming and outgoing calls, plus texts and e-mails. You can still call emergency numbers though. Passenger cell phones are not affected.

Aurametrix is developing decision support systems and noninvasive personal monitoring devices to help you evaluate health risks, decide on preventative measures, estimate cost/benefits of performing diagnostic tests. Better tools for a healthier world.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Favorite Exercise Polls & Discussions

Most people exercise by walking or running or use gym machines, bodybuilders favor deads & squats, the rest of us try to do a little while on vacation.