In recent years, there’s been a veritable explosion in the number and type of health monitoring devices available in smartphones and fitness apps.

Your smartphone is likely tracking the number of steps you take, how far and fast you walk, and how many flights of stairs you climb each day. Some phones log sleep, heart rate, how much energy you’re burning, and even “gait health” (how often are both feet on the ground? how even are your steps?). And, of course, nonphone wearables and fitness gadgets are available, such as devices to measure your heart rhythm, blood pressure, or oxygen levels. The accuracy of these devices varies — and, in some instances, your skin tone may make a difference.

Generally, how accurate are health monitors?

I know from my experience with hospital monitoring devices that they aren’t always accurate. False alarms from EKG monitors often send medical staff scurrying into … Read the rest

Body mass index, or BMI, has long been the standard tool for assessing weight status and health risk. A calculation of your size that takes into account your height and weight, BMI is frequently used because it’s a quick, easy, and inexpensive measurement tool. Yet, it lacks any assessment of how much fat a person has or how it’s distributed throughout the body, both of which are key indicators of metabolic health. A recent study published in The BMJ analyzed different measures of body shape — more specifically, of central or abdominal fat — to determine which measures were most predictive of premature death.

Abdominal fat associated with higher risk of death

Researchers in this study analyzed the following measurements of central fatness: waist, hip, and thigh circumference; waist-to-hip ratio; waist-to-height ratio; waist-to-thigh ratio; body adiposity index (which incorporates hip circumference and height); and a body shape index (calculated … Read the rest

Many Americans cannot wait to get the COVID-19 vaccine. They call hotline numbers. They search online for vaccine clinics. They wait for hours in line. Yet, others with ready access to the vaccine have declined it in large numbers. Staff in long-term care facilities were prioritized to receive the vaccine, but many are choosing not to get vaccinated. Why?

Nobody is more familiar with the impact of COVID-19 than staff at nursing homes and assisted living facilities that have been ground zero for the pandemic. Large numbers of residents and staff have contracted the virus. Nearly 40% of the COVID deaths in the US have occurred among residents of these facilities. Over 1,500 nursing home staff have also died from COVID, making nursing home caregiver the most dangerous job in America.

Nonetheless, many long-term care staff continue to refuse the COVID-19 vaccine. In a recent CDC report, nursing … Read the rest

March 11th, 2020 — or was it March 12th, or a few days before or beyond that? Each of us has a date and time etched in our minds when we knew that the COVID-19 pandemic was upon us. Now, the anniversary of that date is fast approaching. What, if anything, do we do to mark it? And how do we convey our thoughts and feelings about this milestone to our grandchildren?

Anyone who has reached grandparenthood has collected anniversaries along the way. There are anniversaries of joyful occasions, and ones that serve as painful reminders of loss. There are the personal anniversaries — the births and deaths of loved ones — and public ones, including 9/11, the moon landing, and (for those of us in our mid-60s and older) the deaths of JFK, RFK, and MLK. For many of us, the upcoming anniversary of the pandemic has elements of … Read the rest

Do all kids spy? Just me? When I was a child, I spent hours snooping in my parents’ nightstands, Granny’s pocketbook, my older brothers’ dresser drawers. I’m not sure what I was looking for, exactly, other than validation of my suspicion that the teenagers and adults in my life were keeping secrets from me.

And no opportunity for sleuthing seemed richer than the twin mirrored medicine cabinets hanging from my parents’ bathroom wall. My mother’s was kind of boring, its glass shelves lined with bottles of aspirin and antacids, plus a dusty jar of jewel-toned bath oil beads. My father’s was a treasure trove — to me, at least. An orthopedic surgeon, he had access to all sorts of paraphernalia with which he stocked his medicine cabinet: syringes, alcohol, sterile gauze, tincture of opium, ACE bandages, gentian violet, and even butazolidin, an injectable anti-inflammatory long off the market for humans, … Read the rest