Health and symptom tracker

[Zeta]

I still desperately, desperately, want a comprehensive health (and symptom) tracking system. Doctors can't help me, so I have to help myself, but I want the maximum power available to correlate lifestyle/environmental changes with symptom and (not same thing, of course) health changes. This matter is discussed somewhat tangentially in the thread Web-based Health Marker Tracking & Testing Service, but I think it should have a separate thread (being web-based is an unimportant criterion for me and many others).

 

I'm astonished that such a tracking system doesn't exist. Maybe it does and I haven't found it. (Anyone?) I'm getting ready to pay someone to create one. Shouldn't be a hard programming task. Simple version:

 

- ALL potentially relevant data - what goes into my body - and for that matter mind/soul (elation of a positive social interaction, for ex.) -, what comes out of my body (frequency and consistency of bowel movements, for ex.), how my body is sleeping, how my body is moving, and results of lots of blood tests and the like, goes into, say, a spreadsheet (this, for the easy version = spreadsheet with lots of formulas added in for calculating correlations).

 

- The program allows you to visual the data.

 

- Most important of all, the program can perform basic tests of statistical significance.

 

How frickin' hard can it be to create such a system???

 

Am I really the only want who wants this? Or do lots of people want it but... shit, I don't know, tests of statistical significance are all "owned" in some way (patent-oid or otherwise) and can't be used by anyone except some big company that sells them or a statistical package only to huge institutions???

 

I did some googling and encountered a guy who resolved his Crohn's disease by using big data and health and symptom tracking. Great! I thought. This is the kind of thing I'm looking for. Turns out he did it by "visualizing data". That's so frickin' twentieth. I mean, I want to be able to visualize -- I might notice something important -- but Jesus, that's not nearly as powerful as automated searches for correlations.

 

Example. I concluded at one point that daily garlic consumption was giving me mild IBS symptoms. I was wrong: the problem was massive olive oil consumption. I was thrown off by the short-term effects of garlic (after a few days of eating garlic daily, it causes no problems because my gut adjusts). A program would have seen improvements in symptoms when traveling because of three things: more social interactions, no garlic consumption, and no or little olive oil consumption. Then it could have ruled in or out one or more them by looking at times when I'm not traveling. (I was further thrown off because there were always reasons to go back on garlic when I returned home. But that's a long story.)

 

Anyone???

 

Zeta

[Dean Pomerleau]

Zeta,

 

I sympathize with your plight, and would certainly like to have the sort of health tracking / discovery system you outline. But don't feel nearly as compelling a need for it as you have, given your health challenges. I suspect others here in the CR Society are likely in the same boat as I am - we're generally a pretty healthy bunch and so aren't quite so in need of detailed analytic tools to assess the impact of day-to-day diet & lifestyle changes on our health.

 

I presume you've checked out all the Quantified Self resources that are available, as well as what's offered by patientslikeme.com?

 

--Dean

[Zeta]

Dean, thanks!

 

I've been planning to join Patients Like Me once I gather my data together.

 

There are some good options at the Quantified Self link you give. I still haven't gone through them all, but none I've seen so far tests for correlations.

 

Zeta

[Dean Pomerleau]

Zeta,

 

I just watched this TedXTufts video by Mike Lustgarten on "An evidence-based personalized approach to health". It is a really good video about how he tracks health markers to maximize his longevity. The interesting thing is that he's a post-doc at Tufts, and an active contributor to the CR Society Facebook page. It might be worth you contacting Mike to see what tools he uses or knows about for managing and analyzing health data. He also sounds knowledgeable about whole genome sequencing, so you might probe him on that front as well.

 

Another resource might be Dr. Rhonda Patrick at Foundmyfitness.com. She works with Bruce Ames, and has lots of good content and insights about personalized medicine and health.

 

--Dean