Can Tracking Your Health Metrics Help You Live Longer?
Zahi Fayad practices what he preaches. As a professor of radiology and director of the biomedical engineering and imaging institute at Mount Sinai, Fayad is leading a study investigating how our health data can be put to better use to help us live healthier, and by extension, longer. At his lab in New York City, he recently showed off his current go-to digital health devices (which rotate as new gadgets become available): an Oura Ring and a Garmin watch. He also uses an ECG strap to measure his heart rate every day, and occasionally pops on a continuous glucose monitor to keep track of his glucose levels.
Fayad is convinced that the trend of collecting more health data, on a more continuous basis—which the explosion of wearables made possible—will revolutionize health care. Keeping on top of risk factors for chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity could help not just doctors but all health-conscious consumers identify when these conditions are beginning and potentially avoid them altogether.
Excerpted from Time
