Everything in my medical training has taught me that trying to min-max your vital signs and lab values is absurd and insane if you don’t have any medical problems, but people are going to do it anyway, so I guess I might as well get used to it.

They teach interns never to order any test that won’t change management, and until there are more studies about the health benefits of continuously monitoring vital signs in completely healthy people, I will remain skeptical that the quantified self in absence of a diagnosis is actually helpful.

But getting FDA approval for more people to wear medical-grade monitors will probably make it a lot easier to do these kinds of studies.

There is plenty of data to support monitoring vitals/labs in chronic disease, and the less invasive, the better. Now the only trick is to make sure wearables are actually measuring the thing we want to measure (or a reasonable proxy of it).

(crossposted on Facebook)

Beyond Fitbit: The quest to develop medical-grade wearables • 2015 Dec 18 • Julie Steenhuysen • Reuters