Wellness and technology, the quantified self movement

Anyone used A WHOOP or Oura Ring?

I've been looking into them for sleep tracking as the Garmin is fairly useless when it comes to that.

Don't fancy paying a monthly persciption or wearing another thing on my wrist so thinking Oura is the better option for me. Nice, but pricey.

I don't bother sleep tracking any more. The sleep tracker studies I've heard of typically show that the non-lab-level kit provides quite poor accuracy.

Steve A uses a Whoop though:
https://twitter.com/steve_abraham74/status/1261404628350107649

Not sure your are really going to get good sleep tracking on a wearable at the moment.

I accidentally have an Oura ring. It is /interesting/ but I am not sure I really buy into it. By and large I think you have a decent idea of how you slept in the morning.

It IS interesting, but you are kind of taking it on trust that the numbers are right. Things like resting heartrate match up with where I think the are, but who knows about 'heart rate variability' or 'when you were in deep sleep versus REM''

https://pca.st/episode/94cece0a-f033-43f3-a913-4a3198d4923d

Really great listen that.

The tl/dr on devices from that is there pretty good but it's what you do with the information that matters.

How did you accidentally get one?

That tweet seems to be gone?

Works for me still. Maybe he blocked you? :D

Ha! I deleted my Twitter awhile ago. Think you must have to be logged in to view it.

Interesting case in Greece where a British woman appears to have been killed by her husband who said they had been tied up by burglars who killed her, only police got data off their Fitbits/smart watch that gave her time of death as being hours before he said the attack took place, and that he was moving around when he said he’d been tied up.

Rookie.

Just started with the Zoë programme testing gut health https://joinzoe.com/

Wearing a blood glucose sensor for 2 weeks, getting a Microbiome analysis through stool sample, and a blood test.

Will get a detailed assessment from them about which foods work best and in what combinations.

A bit pricey to join but will be worth it.

If anyone wants a referral to join the study pm me with your email

Yes please. I'm on their waiting list but haven't heard anything yet. How are you finding it so far?

At the start 3rd day from 15.
Great app which guides you through the process
If you send me your email I'll refer you

Done thanks.

I'm curious to know what they can tell you and how accurate it is. Are their testing methods backed by studies? I know a lot of people got into the genome testing stuff but we know so little about that it's basically useless (ie. "you have a thing that says you might get cancer" "Well, no shit sherlock, so does everyone else")

Some background.

people got into the genome testing stuff but we know so little about that it's basically useless

True.
This is different.
This tests your Microbiome, and blood sugar over 15 days. During this period you can experiment with different foods and see on the app your glucose spikes. So as well as being able to figure stuff out for yourself, They'll send you personalised food recommendations

You have 15 days to experiment with different foods but what do you do? Eat normally for 5 and then have two weeks of eating random stuff? Are you going to eat a single food for each meal? Like, what if tomatoes spike your X and you have tomatoes in most meals? The other stuff in those meals could be irrelevant but it'll suggest they're good/bad based on the content of one food, the tomato. One slight ingredient variation in a meal could change the result. Does the data change if you wash a meal down with water vs. not? 15 days isn't a long time to experiment with all the different foods some people would eat.

It sounds very interesting but when people do science on themselves they're rarely rigorous enough with eliminating enough variables to get useful data. I've thought about active glucose monitoring for cycling but I'd need months of data to do anything useful with and even then - how accurate are the sensors and what other things can they be impacted by?

Still curious to see if you can get any useful info from this.

They create a baseline measure once the sensor is calibrated by day 3 where you eat their muffins and fast between them over 2 days.

These muffins are aimed to stress your system with high fat, sugar etc

After that you take a blood sample to test for fat absorption.

They have guided experiments days 8-15 such as eating the same carb like white bread, with various toppings to look at combos that work best for you, ie don't spike your sugar too much.

Will update as I progress.

Sounds like a helluva complex way to sell some muffins.

Indeed, especially at £100+ a muff

https://www.bda.uk.com/resource/commercial-gut-microbiome-testing.html

Seems to suggest we know so little about gut microbiome that we have no idea what "healthy" actually looks like so their idea of normal or baseline may be completely arbitrary and not much helpful at all.