The Quantified Self meets The Urban Datasexual

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
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Lately, I’ve been writing about the Quantified Self movement on my other site, Heart Sisters. Usually this mention is merely in passing as I’m exploring what separates the average plugged-in person and the Quantified Selfers’ tracking of everything they think, or do, or think about doing.
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Committed (or self-absorbed) Quantified Selfers regularly use their computers, smartphones, electronic gadgets or simply pen and paper to record work, sleep, exercise, diet, mood, sweat, caffeine, memories, social  habits and pretty well anything else that’s trackable in life.  Continue reading →

Who’s running the show in industry-sponsored drug trials?

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
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There is strong evidence that medical researchers’ financial ties to their industry funders may directly influence their published positions in supporting the benefit or downplaying the harm of the products they are “studying”. 

For example, there is often a demonstrated difference between internal drug company documents about the research trial results that they fund, and the articles reporting that research that end up in the medical journals that your doctor reads.  The New England Journal of Medicine has referred to this practice as ‘selective outcome reporting’.

But for the sake of clarity, let’s just call it ‘lying’.   Continue reading →

Dr. Sherry Turkle: “I share, therefore I am”

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
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Dr. Sherry Turkle has interviewed countless people about their plugged-in lives. In her most recent TED talk, the MIT professor and author (Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other) observes that being so pervasively plugged into mobile technology not only changes what we do, but can even change who we are. She notes, for example, that people think nothing of texting during corporate board meetings. They shop and browse and update Facebook during classes and presentations. They sleep with their smartphones. People text at funerals.

People even talk about the important new skill, she says, of learning to make eye contact – while texting.  Continue reading →

The cardiac polypill: why are we still talking about this?

Posted on by Carolyn Thomas
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I have a bone to pick about multi-purpose cleaners. Although the product I bought claims to work on all washable household surfaces including dirty windows, kitchen counters, greasy stovetops or hubcap grime, the truth is that, generally speaking, the product does a mediocre job addressing any one task, and a good job at none of them. As convenient as a multi-purpose product sounds, it simply makes better sense to tailor one’s tools for the task at hand.

Which reminds me: why we are we still talking about this cardiac polypill idea? Granted, I am merely a dull-witted heart attack survivor, but I can’t possibly be the only one feeling ever-so-slightly squirmy about the resurgence of  the polypill. It’s a single pill made up of a combination of other pills to reduce heart disease risk, designed for widespread use by all adults over 55 years of age as well as everyone with existing cardiovascular disease.  And it  just might be the multi-purpose cleaner of cardiology. Continue reading →