Category: Health

How old is your dog in human years?

~ Shaun ~ Leave a comment

If there’s one myth that has persisted through the years without much evidence, it’s this: multiply your dog’s age by seven to calculate how old they are in “human years.” In other words, the old adage says, a four-year-old dog is similar in physiological age to a 28-year-old person.

But a new study by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine throws that out the window. Instead, they created a formula that more accurately compares the ages of humans and dogs. The formula is based on the changing patterns of methyl groups in dog and human genomes — how many of these chemical tags and where they’re located — as they age. Since the two species don’t age at the same rate over their lifespans, it turns out it’s not a perfectly linear comparison, as the 1:7 years rule-of-thumb would suggest… More here.

Ignoring the fact that we do not need to know what our dog’s age is in comparison to human years, it is reassuring to know that the way they age is not linear. Nice to know that Murray was 60 (human) years old when he died.

Turning away children

~ Shaun ~ Leave a comment

In one case, a crisis CAMHS team in Wales would not immediately assess the mental health of an actively suicidal child who had been stopped from jumping off a building earlier the same day unless the GP made a written referral. In another, a CAMHS service in eastern England declined to take on a 12-year-old boy found with a ligature in his room because the lack of any marks on his neck meant its referral criteria had not been met… More here.

CAMHS has been like this for many years, I know this from personal experience, and our government has never got close to doing anything about it. They simply do not care because the people in charge have been brought up to never admit any kind of weakness. It’s just so sad and children will die every day because of this.

The Dyson Zone™🤣

~ Shaun ~ Leave a comment

Today, Jake Dyson has unveiled the Dyson Zone™, Dyson’s first step into wearable technology. The Dyson Zone™ is a set of noise cancelling, high fidelity over-ear headphones which simultaneously deliver immersive sound to the ears, and purified airflow to the nose and mouth. The result of over a decade of air quality research and development, the Dyson Zone™ air-purifying headphones simultaneously tackle the urban issues of air quality and noise pollution… More here.

I would buy this…

if it wasn’t likely to be needlessly expensive like all other Dyson products

if it didn’t look completely rediculous

if the £300 Dyson fan we bought (we returned it within the hour) worked better than the £50 normal fan we bought the next day

if our cordless Dyson vacuum cleaner hadn’t broken just after 1 year when the guarantee had expired, and if the subsequent Tax vacuum we bought wasn’t a better performer in every area for a third of the price

and if James Dyson wasn’t a staunch Brexiteer who has much of his production undertaken abroad. I will never buy a Dyson product again.

The Shape Of Walking

~ Shaun ~ Leave a comment

In those early days of the pandemic, classes moved online, and my partner and I no longer spent hours commuting to our respective universities to teach. Instead, we took turns pushing the stroller around our neighborhood. At each intersection we chose our direction based on whichever road seemed more deserted. We zig-zagged down blocks, crossing the street to avoid other people. We sometimes backtracked for the same reason. Our steps created chaotic designs on streets that we once followed in straight lines… More here.

A ‘very’ interesting and well written article. Made me think.

Taking more than 8,000 steps has no added benefits (possibly)

~ Shaun ~ Leave a comment

Walking just 6,000 steps a day could reduce the risk of early death in people over 60, a study has found.

Taking more than 8,000 steps, however, has no added benefit in reducing this risk, according to researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The team analysed data from 15 studies which looked at the effect of daily steps on the mortality rate, from all causes of death, for nearly 50,000 people from four continents… More here.

This ideal step target changes all of the time and the rumour persists that the original 10,000 was only invented by fitness tracker companies for ease of understanding. I would suggest that doing as many as you can without hurting yourself would work best, but what do I know?

Lose the stand ring…

~ Shaun ~ Leave a comment

“That can be a little bit of unnecessary noise,” he says. If you’re in the middle of a project or focused, the buzz to stand up can make you lose focus and even create a little anxiousness to close that ring. And according to Dr. Weinrauch, taking a few steps just for the sake of doing it isn’t going to give that many benefits. What does, however, offer big benefits is making a commitment to daily movement. So, instead of a quick lap around the room then back to the desk, he recommends making sure you’re carving out time to exercise for at least 30 or 45 minutes… More here.

Yep, the stand ring needs to go or at the very least be tweaked so that it is not so annoying. It can easily drive people away from the entire idea of a fitness watch.

Don’t forget Covid

~ Shaun ~ Leave a comment

Daily cases: 67,159 (up by 23,142 from last week)

Hospitalisations: 11,639 (up by 827 from last week)

Deaths: 123 (up by 49 from last week)

The original source is here (scroll down a bit). The fact that there has been nothing happening in the UK that would cause such increases across the board is concerning.

I can only presume that it is waining immunity from the boosters, but even with Ukraine and so many other things happening we really should not take our eye off the ball here. The numbers, especially the hospitalisations and deaths, should not be going up.

Scan your body… soon

~ Shaun ~ Leave a comment

Advanced sensors embedded in the handle are able to scan torso, arms, and legs to give a precise picture of body composition and overall fitness.

Body Scan uses multi-frequency Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) to measure body composition ultra-precisely by distinguishing each body part independently including trunk, arms, and legs to reveal more about localized fat findings, and efficiently spot possible muscle imbalances… More here.

The future of health is creeping into the home and onto the wrist. This is a good thing if it remains in the hands of everyone.

The Movano Ring

~ Shaun ~ Leave a comment

Your ring measures heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep, respiration, temperature, blood oxygen, steps and calories. It can tell you why you slept the way you did, and that your resting heart rate’s higher after a few glasses of wine. It will let you know if your body temperature goes up (so find your partner if you’re trying to conceive!)… More here.

Another product coming soon and I do believe that products like this will catch on one day. The design here is intriguing, it really is.

Unnecessary Smartwatch Alerts

~ Shaun ~ Leave a comment

Getting an alert about a heart rhythm, then, doesn’t help the typical Apple Watch user’s overall health, says study author Josh Pevnick, co-director in the division of informatics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. “It can cause anxiety for people who it identifies, and if there’s no treatment, then you’re maybe not bringing much benefit,” he says… More here.

There is no way to tailor alerts in an exacting way and it is likely that for the majority they will not help them. Getting the balance right between scaring people and helping them is almost impossible.