By Scott Jung
Medical and health technology journalist and advocate
Scott Jung is a Silicon Valley based medical and health technology journalist and advocate. He currently is a senior editor at Medgadget, one of the world’s most trafficked and linked to medical blogs on the internet. He is a regular contributor for Telemedicine Magazine's "TeleTech" column. Scott has written for companies such as Intel and PUR, covering topics ranging from reviews of the latest consumer wearables to an exploration of Colombia's emerging health technology sector. Most recently, he has been appearing on TWiT.tv’s The New Screen Savers as a semi-regular medical and health technology correspondent. Scott holds a B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Southern California.
The health tracker around your wrist or elsewhere on your body is pretty intelligent. It sees every step you take during the day and gently reminds you if you aren’t taking enough of them. It sees you to sleep and knows if and when you have a restless night. It can calculate the number of calories you burn over the course of a day to help you decide whether or not to feel guilty about that extra slice of pizza you ate for lunch. And higher-priced wearables can monitor your heart rate to help you gauge your exercise intensity while trying to burn off said pizza.
Earlier this year, a story made news when one woman’s Fitbit measured an abnormally high resting heart rate, an observation that led her to discover that she was pregnant. And a 17-year-old high school football player can credit his Apple Watch for quite literally saving his life after it helped him discover that he had rhabdomyolysis, a breakdown of muscle tissue which can lead to vital organ damage if left untreated. While no wearable is able to make a formal medical diagnosis, the data that these sensor-laden wearables collect can be useful in helping to uncover a whole host of other medical conditions that go far beyond simply encouraging healthy habits. Here are five things your wearable device might know that could help you manage your health: