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Smartwatches Know You're Getting a Cold Days Before You Feel Ill

posted by mrpg on Monday November 12 2018, @07:49AM   
from the and-watches-know-you're-getting-old dept.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Smartwatches know you're getting a cold days before you feel ill

Once we had palm-reading, now we have smartwatches. Wearable tech can now detect when you’re about to fall ill, simply by tracking your vital signs.

Michael Snyder at Stanford University in California experienced this first-hand last year. For over a year he had been wearing seven sensors to test their reliability, when suddenly they began to show abnormal readings. Even though he felt fine, the sensors showed that his heart was beating faster than normal, his skin temperature had risen, and the level of oxygen in his blood had dropped.

“That’s what first alerted me that something wasn’t quite right,” says Snyder. He wondered whether he might have caught Lyme disease from a tick during a recent trip to rural Massachusetts.

A mild fever soon followed, and Snyder asked a doctor for the antibiotic doxycycline, which can be used to treat Lyme disease. His symptoms cleared within a day. Subsequent tests confirmed his self-diagnosis.

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Original Submission

• Re:idiots the both of them (Score: 5, Informative) by RS3 on Monday November 12 2018, @01:41PM

  by RS3 (6367) on Monday November 12 2018, @01:41PM (#760900)

  You're far too self-confident.

  https://www.statnews.com/2017/06/28/early-lyme-tests/ [statnews.com]

  In the first three weeks after infection, the test only detects Lyme 29 to 40 percent of the time. (The test is 87 percent accurate once Lyme spreads to the neurological system, and 97 percent accurate for patients who develop Lyme arthritis). The CDC cautions that because the test is not likely to be positive until 4 to 6 weeks after infection, doctors who suspect Lyme based on symptoms should prescribe antibiotics even if the test is negative.

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