Kireev, D., Sel, K., Ibrahim, B., Kumar, N., Akbari, A., Jafari, R., & Akinwande, D. (2022). Continuous cuffless monitoring of arterial blood pressure via graphene bioimpedance tattoos. Nature Nanotechnology. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-022-01145-w
"M-G employees above a certain level were implanted with advanced
microprocessors that monitored mutagen levels in the bloodstream. Gear like that would
get you rolled in Night City, rolled straight into a black clinic."
On an unrelated note, I wish that author's who aren't Gibson would write novels set in Night City. I love Gibson, but often find his stuff hard to follow, and would love an escapist level novel set in a Gibsonian setting.
You may be interested in some of the source books for the Cyberpunk RPG. A lot of the game occurs in Night City, which isn’t exactly Gibson’s but heavily inspired by it. Just about all the books have great narratives to set the tone.
> The device takes its measurements by shooting an electrical current into the skin and then analyzing the body’s response, which is known as bioimpedance. There is a correlation between bioimpedance and changes in blood pressure that has to do with blood volume changes. However, the correlation is not particularly obvious, so the team had to create a machine learning model to analyze the connection to get accurate blood pressure readings.
This makes me curious how accurate, precise, and responsive the readings are. The article didn't mention anything in that regard.
The article said "researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University have developed an electronic tattoo that,..., and deliver continuous blood pressure measurements at an accuracy level exceeding nearly all available options on the market today".
“0.2 ± 4.5 mm Hg for diastolic pressures and 0.2 ± 5.8 mm Hg for systolic pressures, a performance equivalent to Grade A classification” per the Nature abstract linked in the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-022-01145-w
“The device takes its measurements by shooting an electrical current into the skin and then analyzing the body’s response, which is known as bioimpedance. There is a correlation between bioimpedance and changes in blood pressure that has to do with blood volume changes. However, the correlation is not particularly obvious, so the team had to create a machine learning model to analyze the connection to get accurate blood pressure readings.”
Yikes. Sounds like something that would have huge variations depending on the person’s skin type, hydration, age, and a bunch of other factors.
Probably a pipe dream, since it’s a university press release.
You could probably calibrate it to each person, and maybe recalibrate every couple months. Still leaves you with a bunch of factors, but maybe those can be controlled for (measuring skin conductivity in addition to impedance?).
Even if the device would be much less precise than claimed in the paper, it would still be good enough to save the lives of many people.
One can always measure the blood pressure with a classic instrument every few days and recalibrate the tattoo resistance measurement.
What is important is to be able to measure the blood pressure continuously and trigger an alarm whenever it becomes too high or too low.
My mother died a few years ago, precisely because I did not have such a device for continuous blood pressure monitoring. Having her arm compressed was painful and very unpleasant for her, so I could not measure her blood pressure more than once per day.
She had a very dangerous condition, where she needed to take some medication to avoid a too high blood pressure, which could cause a hemorrhagic stroke, while simultaneously taking high quantities of salt and potassium supplements, because she eliminated them too quickly, so in a very short time she could reach a too low sodium/potassium content in the blood, which would trigger severe neurological problems.
It was very difficult to balance the 2 kinds of medication with contrary effects and every day their doses had to be adjusted.
Without continuous blood pressure monitoring, the daily doses could be based only on guesses, taking into account the recent history.
With great efforts, her health state has been kept stable for a couple of years, but then one day, for unknown reasons, she had a sudden fluctuation in the blood pressure, which became double the normal value, so soon she had a fatal stroke.
With continuous blood pressure monitoring, an alarm would have allowed the immediate use of blood pressure lowering medication, which could have prevented the stroke.
Therefore I believe that the development of such devices is very important, despite their shortcomings.
That would be cool but can I ask what makes you think it's something that will ever actually exist? Or do you just mean that regardless of whether or not it ever exists, it's the only thing that would result in you getting a tattoo?
Tattoo pigments are about 1.5 to 2mm under the outer skin. One would need to implant the e-ink spheres at that depth and control it with electric fields over the skin. Pigments would need to be dense enough the image would be visible.
Sounds feasible, but I’m not sure about the toxicity of the e-ink capsules.
I find that my pattern of breathing has a massive effect on my blood pressure. If I slow my breathing, I can have a large drop from 135/60 to 110/60 (my bottom number is always quite low but my top number can go high).
Since discovering this, I’ve seen some articles about how slow exhalation stimulates the vagus nerve which causes a drop in blood pressure, which offers an explanation.
Highly recommend reading James Nestor's Breath [1]. There is an incredible body of breathing modalities from ancient to modern. James does an incredible job of presenting a non-biased journey through it with a dose of humility and a childlike sense of awe. I finally got my Wimhof practice on track after it.
> The device takes its measurements by shooting an electrical current into the skin and then analyzing the body’s response, which is known as bioimpedance.
I thought this would be a passive sensor, but this makes it seem like it's not. Is the electrical current produced "wirelessly" using an electromagnetic field (radio), as in those batteryless sensors? The article makes no comment on how this would work practically.
From what I understood the thing described in article are more or less fancy electrodes. You still need the usual electronics, PCBs and powersource to do the actual measurement. So without developing sufficiently small and flexible electronics, battery, and electrodes for connecting the electronics to the rest of e-tatoo you don't get anything of the promised unobtrusive, continuous measurements. As usual press release is dreaming big when only small fraction of the problem is solved.
What is an electronic tattoo? Based on the phrasing in this article I can't determine if this is a wearable device that magnitizes to some weird tattoo or the device is the "tattoo"
Looks like you're putting a super thin layer of graphene on the skin, here's a tweet I found from one of the people working on this mentioned in the article.
I'm sure parts of the body mod/biohacking community are already working on it. People are already doing things like embedding RFID into their hands.
When I read the headline I thought they had somehow managed to get an actual tattoo to respond to blood pressure changes through the pressure itself, similar to how the cells in Octopi change colour.
What colour is your tattoo? I was hearing that red ink can especially be a source of these kinds of skin problems because of the presence of small amounts of mercury in it [1]
Reminds me I went to a dairy the other week where chipped cows trigger feeding and milking bots for detailed monitoring, dietary microadjustments, etc. I’ll see if there’s info worth posting.
Livestock seems like it would be the place to start with permanent medical data implants, including batteries and a computer.
For any biohackers out there with electronics and sensor skills, there is another easier, cheaper viable way to continuously monitor blood pressure: earlobe
There have been some academic experiments with good results but apparently manufacturers don't believe consumers would accept it. Athletes and elderly sure would.
This sounds fantastic. The blood pressure cuffs are very bothersome for anyone needing to do a 24-hour analysis. My mom did one and it would take a measurement every hour during night time and it was very hard for her to sleep through it. It would be tight enough some times to burst capillaries. And once an hour is a really low resolution.
My personal anecdata, I would like to share: I developed blood pressure problems last year (140-160/85-95). My doc told me I needed to start meds. I didn't want to though.
So in January, I started reducing my Caloric intake. I lost 7 kilos, down from 83kg to 76kg (I am 1.70m tall).
My blood pressure went down to (110-120/60-75). No meds required. Just ate less.
For me, on the other hand, weight loss didn't do anything for my blood pressure.
I was averaging around 160/90 on 3 or 4 different medicines [1] before losing weight. Then I lost around 45 kb (100 pounds) and kept it off...and there was no noticeable change in blood pressure.
Triglycerides and bad cholesterol levels plummeted, getting me completely off medicine for those. A1c dropped to 5 with no medication from over 8 with several diabetes drugs.
What started dropped blood pressure for me was becoming more active. Nothing extreme either...I just started using the stairs instead of the elevator at work to reach our offices (one floor up from ground) or to visit the vending machines for snacks (one floor below ground), and taking a 20 or 30 minute walk a two or three times a week.
That got it down to around 135/80.
I upped the activity to at least 30 minutes of walking a day starting in mid-2019, thanks to the psychologically manipulative gamification the Apple Watch I had just bought did with its fitness tracking. I had thought I was not susceptible to such things, but my current 1146 day streak of closing all rings says otherwise.
Now I'm averaging about 110/70. I only rarely ever see higher than 120 systolic or 80 diastolic. On the low side I see it get down to low 90's systolic on occasion and a little below 60 diastolic.
I should probably talk to my doctor about dropping medicines or lowering doses to see if they are necessary any more.
[1] There are several different ways blood pressure medicines can work, and many doctor feel it is better to try to control it by using several different medicines than just trying to attack it from one angle.
In my case a Ketogenic diet lowered my blood pressure. To the point that I need to add a pinch of extra salt to my food to bump it up or risk passing out every time I stand up too fast.
Just to share another data point, I had similar numbers several years ago and tried the same thing, didnt want to take meds so made significant changes to my diet and exercise. My cholesterol was getting to the point of needing medication too. I dropped something like 20-30 lbs, cut out a lot of carbs and most sugar. Felt great, but my bp and cholesterol numbers didnt move at all. started meds for both and theyre both well controlled now. Dont intend to refute your story, im told mine is genetic and hereditary. Always worth a try to see if life changes can make the difference though.
Blood pressure can be elevated by so many things. In the OP's case it seems it was excess body fat. In some it is sodium sensitivity.
In my case it was potassium malabsorption. Ate tons of high potassium foods but my blood levels were low. Never got that figured out, but potassium chloride (salt substitute) daily raised my potassium levels to normal and my BP fell to normal.
Personally I use potassium citrate so I can keep my Cl- levels under control, should only have like 2.3g of both Cl and Na per day so I found that KCl threw my Cl out of whack
But lots of Americans have issues with low potassium, it's a big issue
Thanks for sharing. That's why I was careful to label it as personal anecdata. I don't want to assume it works for everyone. But I believe losing weight is a good first step/test if you want to avoid taking meds.
there is a catch 22 with some meds, like lisinopril, which can make you gain weight..my doctor told me If I lost 15-20 pounds my BP would drop, but it's the lisinopril that made me gain that weight
Note that "cholesterol getting to the point of needing medication" is not a thing.
The statin pushers tried for decades to demonstrate that statins do any good for people not in imminent danger of (another) heart attack. They have failed. So, instead, they hector physicians to prescribe statins when they find a slightly "elevated" level of LDLs. Your body needs cholesterol, and makes exactly as much as it needs. If your level is "elevated", you are doing something that makes you need to make more. Suppressing it means you don't have enough.
If you worry about an elevated LDL level, the best response is to cut sugar intake.
> My doc told me I needed to start meds. I didn't want to though.
Doctors would always prefer if patients could solve problems with diet, lifestyle, and weight loss changes. However, few patients are willing and able to follow through like you did, and an increasing number will even take offense to suggestions to lose weight. Kudos for following through.
That said, I’d be surprised if dropping 7kg was the sole reason for your drastic blood pressure change. It’s likely that the improved diet and exercise required to change your weight actually underlie most of the improvement. You will have to remain at least somewhat consistent with that healthier lifestyle even at your new weight in order to avoid falling back to previous hypertensive levels.
For those with who have tough to control blood pressure, ask to see an endocrinologist and get screened for Hyperaldosteronism.
My personal anecdote - I've been on blood pressure medications since my senior year of high school.
Since then, I've had one hospitalization, seen four cardiologists, two nephrologists, many trips to the ER, regular check ups to keep my blood pressure in check. This spans over 25 years.
March, I had another really high blood episode that landed me in the ER. The cardiologist wants to bump my meds yet again because basically he has nothing else for me.
I was really frustrated.
I start to to research, and stumble upon Hyperaldosteronism. I get a referral to an endocrinologist. The blood test shows that I have a really high Aldosterone/Renin ratio. Along with low potassium (another sign). I have a CT scan, there's a nodule on my right adrenal.
Tomorrow I am having an AVS, an adrenal ventricular sampling, to tell which adrenal(s) are overproducing.
Thank you. I discovered I have an adrenal nodule via another medical investigation. No one has ever suggested it might be linked to my high blood pressure.
I'm 62, and was 'discovered' to have high blood pressure at 40. Mind you, I'd never even visted a doctor for at least 20 year prior to that, so who knows when it began. I've been waiting for a visit from the silent killer for some time. Maybe your post will delay that day! Thanks again.
They're very supportive with personal stories, what has worked for others, and guidance with the whole process of getting diagnosed with Primary Aldosteronism.
Oh God, you just reminded me I should really get to it. I'm also 1,70 and been averaging 84kg for the last few years, I'm in my mid-30's btw... Losing weight is so hard when you have zero passion for sport and nutrition...
I need to get one of them fitness trackers, people seems to praise them quite a lot.
Definitely get one, even if just to mess around with it. The apple watch (and recently, android watches) have great sensors. The more basic fitbit-style devices work great too.
They are so great to just learn how your body reacts to stuff, and how long your walks are. Not to mention how much fun the historical data can be.
> I have family members with no excess body weight - bmi in the single digits
You must be from a family of bots, highly intelligent snakes, or something like that. If you’re 2 meters tall, a BMI of 10 means a weight of 40kg. If you’re 1 meter tall, it means a weight of 10kg.
I’m not even sure humans with a BMI of under 10 can survive.
For most Americans the main cause of high blood pressure is excess uric acid, itself a product of excess sugar intake. Advanced imitation food substitute producers pack sugar into practically everything nowadays. It is hard to avoid it when buying anything processed.
Be aware that low blood pressure can be bad just like high blood pressure can be. Since high blood pressure is so common, doctors often won't even mention it. Healthy blood pressure can also be different for different people. If you have a high heart rate or you get dizzy when sitting/ standing up you might have low blood pressure.
You can increase blood pressure healthily by aerobic exercise and increasing water + electrolyte intake. Just adding this since weight loss can lead to low blood pressure, which is easily fixable, but rarely talked about.
> Be aware that low blood pressure can be bad just like high blood pressure can be.
Not in the way high blood pressure is. Chronic hypertension is associated with a variety of complications and conditions.
Other than in case of a sudden drop (e.g., due to blood loss or a severe allergic reaction), low blood pressure very rarely is dangerous. Common symptoms include lightheadedness, fatigue or, in more severe cases, syncopes (commonly known as fainting). By itself, even the latter isn't immediately dangerous (depending on the situation its consequences might be, though, of course).
If low blood pressure is a mere symptom of an underlying condition, such as bradycardia (low heart rate), that's an entirely different matter. In those cases, however, just addressing the low blood pressure instead of the actual condition literally would amount to treating a symptom but not the cause.
Woah buddy slow down with those radical ideas. Don't ya know that no one is responsible for their medical conditions and it's all because of income inequality, racism, and sexism?
How dare you suggest someone "eat less" or "exercise". Are you suggesting fat people deserve to starve to death?
/s
On a serious note, more people than I'd like to admit have seriously adopted some variation of that outlook in relation to health, among other things, and it's really doing an immeasurable amount of harm. I feel like more and more the message coming from the more radical SJW types is "Everything is outside of your control, you have no agency, don't even try to better your life, it's all the fault of the government/capitalism/white people/etc". If you had gotten me with that as a gullible teenager I'd probably still be in the same poverty I grew up in and would be in much worse physical and mental health.
Many people who are overweight, do not want to be overweight and have tried everything they can to lose weight. IMO, "eat less and exercise" is great advice, but it depends on a very specific set of preconditions to work.
Mental health, affordable and easy access to nutritious and non-poisonous food (such as, vegetables that actually contain the micro-nutrients needed to survive, food that is free from mix-ins that contain your intolerances or allergies, or food that's not been over-processed to oblivion), having time to cook, access to sunlight and a number of other factors all help with getting into shape. If you're unlucky enough to be missing some of them, your journey will be that much harder.
So yes, there is personal responsibility there. But it helps if the odds aren't stacked against you before you begin.
I don't disagree that it's more difficult for some people than for others, but ultimately it's as simple as calories in < calories out. Multivitamins are cheap, rice and beans are cheap, frozen veggies are (usually) cheap.
In a lot of cases a truly healthy diet is cheaper than the tasty but atrociously unhealthy "cheap" foods. Yes, you do sacrifice some variety and flavor, but it's more than doable.
The world isn't fair. That sucks, and I'm all for working to change that, but until that change comes we have to accept it for what it is. If you throw your hands up and don't challenge anything because you were born with a disadvantage then you're only contributing to the issue. It's much easier to throw your hands up when you're told over and over again that it's not your fault and is all the cause of immutable externalities.
I don't think it's wrong to point out potential related factors but it is wrong to shift any of the blame to those factors, thereby removing it from oneself.
> It's much easier to throw your hands up when you're told over and over again that it's not your fault and is all the cause of immutable externalities.
No, it's not. There's nothing about recognizing a challenge that says that you cannot keep trying to overcome it.
It's just as easy to throw your hands up when someone is unsympathetic and calls people who have compassion 'SJWs' and you are buried in shame. For some people, yes, some amount of shame can be a motivator. For others it works the opposite way and results in a vicious cycle of self-treatment for depression with food. Poor mental health can be a much more pressing and existential threat than being overweight.
Listen. We know for sure that the gut biome can trigger the release of neurotransmitters via the vast cluster of neurons in the digestive system. That is: bacteria in your gut can directly affect your mood if you don't eat the food they want you to eat. Like it or not, we are electrochemical machines, not little ghosts piloting spaceships.
I have a friend who is a healthy weight, has a flat stomach and is regarded as very attractive. She eats the absolute worst food: hot pockets, pizza rolls and candy. But, in public, no one assumes she eats junk food. No one tells her to lose weight or to eat less. No one makes a disgusted face at her if she goes to the gym.
On the other hand, imagine someone obese eating at McDonalds once a week while still maintaining a calorie deficit for the day. What kind of looks, assumptions and comments do you think that person will get when they are eating fries? Do you think that is motivating? Do you think people who want you to treat that person as a human are SJWs? Why is SJW an insult to you anyway? Because people care about other people too much? Because you doubt the sincerity of people who publicly make an effort?
> I don't disagree that it's more difficult for some people than for others, but ultimately it's as simple as calories in < calories out.
It's only simple if you only care about weight. If you care about both reaching a desired target weight and remaining healthy it is no longer simple. The path you take to the target weight matters a lot.
Nova on PBS had a good episode on the science of this in 2020 called "The Truth About Fat". It's currently not free except to people who are members of their local PBS station, but it is worth keeping an eye out for when it becomes free. (Episodes tend to be free for a while after broadcast, then become member-only for a while, and then it varies).
> I don't think it's wrong to point out potential related factors but it is wrong to shift any of the blame to those factors, thereby removing it from oneself.
Blame is not all or nothing. IMO it's more than fair to place some blame on the person, and some blame on the current food production and distribution system that makes it an uphill battle to recover from being overweight. Because they are both to blame.
> The world isn't fair. That sucks, and I'm all for working to change that, but until that change comes we have to accept it for what it is.
I accept that. But shrugging and saying "it is what it is, cope or die because that's how the world works", while truthful, is not very compassionate or helpful. People with issues like this should receive help as a matter of course (if for no other reason, then to reduce public healthcare expenses and keep them alive for longer to pay taxes). Just like most developed countries have food safety regulations, perhaps it's time to start thinking about systemic solutions to what is partially a systemic problem.
Excluding tablets? Probably when we crack genetic engineering of adults, or when we upload our minds into computers and do away with the flawed blood-based body entirely.
Much better would be to eliminate the high blood pressure.
Most high blood pressure, at least in UK and its former colonies (US particularly included), is a product of uric acid poisoning, itself caused mainly by the massive excess of sugar pumped into stuff sold as if it were food. (Excess alcohol has identical effect.) Cut stuff with sugar added from your diet, and take up exercise, and your blood pressure comes down.
Excess uric acid also causes most type-2 diabetes.
Kireev, D., Sel, K., Ibrahim, B., Kumar, N., Akbari, A., Jafari, R., & Akinwande, D. (2022). Continuous cuffless monitoring of arterial blood pressure via graphene bioimpedance tattoos. Nature Nanotechnology. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-022-01145-w
William Gibson 40 years ago:
"M-G employees above a certain level were implanted with advanced microprocessors that monitored mutagen levels in the bloodstream. Gear like that would get you rolled in Night City, rolled straight into a black clinic."
PS M-G refers to Mitsubishi-Genentech
On an unrelated note, I wish that author's who aren't Gibson would write novels set in Night City. I love Gibson, but often find his stuff hard to follow, and would love an escapist level novel set in a Gibsonian setting.
You may be interested in some of the source books for the Cyberpunk RPG. A lot of the game occurs in Night City, which isn’t exactly Gibson’s but heavily inspired by it. Just about all the books have great narratives to set the tone.
> The device takes its measurements by shooting an electrical current into the skin and then analyzing the body’s response, which is known as bioimpedance. There is a correlation between bioimpedance and changes in blood pressure that has to do with blood volume changes. However, the correlation is not particularly obvious, so the team had to create a machine learning model to analyze the connection to get accurate blood pressure readings.
This makes me curious how accurate, precise, and responsive the readings are. The article didn't mention anything in that regard.
The article said "researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University have developed an electronic tattoo that,..., and deliver continuous blood pressure measurements at an accuracy level exceeding nearly all available options on the market today".
But yeah they didn't dive into specifics.
“0.2 ± 4.5 mm Hg for diastolic pressures and 0.2 ± 5.8 mm Hg for systolic pressures, a performance equivalent to Grade A classification” per the Nature abstract linked in the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-022-01145-w
The only sad part is, so seldom do I see things exit a university press release, into the real world.
“The device takes its measurements by shooting an electrical current into the skin and then analyzing the body’s response, which is known as bioimpedance. There is a correlation between bioimpedance and changes in blood pressure that has to do with blood volume changes. However, the correlation is not particularly obvious, so the team had to create a machine learning model to analyze the connection to get accurate blood pressure readings.”
Yikes. Sounds like something that would have huge variations depending on the person’s skin type, hydration, age, and a bunch of other factors.
Probably a pipe dream, since it’s a university press release.
You could probably calibrate it to each person, and maybe recalibrate every couple months. Still leaves you with a bunch of factors, but maybe those can be controlled for (measuring skin conductivity in addition to impedance?).
Sounds prone to errors from moisture, activity, salt, and all kinds of things.
Even if the device would be much less precise than claimed in the paper, it would still be good enough to save the lives of many people.
One can always measure the blood pressure with a classic instrument every few days and recalibrate the tattoo resistance measurement.
What is important is to be able to measure the blood pressure continuously and trigger an alarm whenever it becomes too high or too low.
My mother died a few years ago, precisely because I did not have such a device for continuous blood pressure monitoring. Having her arm compressed was painful and very unpleasant for her, so I could not measure her blood pressure more than once per day.
She had a very dangerous condition, where she needed to take some medication to avoid a too high blood pressure, which could cause a hemorrhagic stroke, while simultaneously taking high quantities of salt and potassium supplements, because she eliminated them too quickly, so in a very short time she could reach a too low sodium/potassium content in the blood, which would trigger severe neurological problems.
It was very difficult to balance the 2 kinds of medication with contrary effects and every day their doses had to be adjusted.
Without continuous blood pressure monitoring, the daily doses could be based only on guesses, taking into account the recent history.
With great efforts, her health state has been kept stable for a couple of years, but then one day, for unknown reasons, she had a sudden fluctuation in the blood pressure, which became double the normal value, so soon she had a fatal stroke.
With continuous blood pressure monitoring, an alarm would have allowed the immediate use of blood pressure lowering medication, which could have prevented the stroke.
Therefore I believe that the development of such devices is very important, despite their shortcomings.
A direct proxy to BP seems valuable, could save many lives. I agree we'll want clinical studies to validate how precise/accurate this measurement is.
I never considered doing a tattoo, but this looks like a great idea.
As for decorative tattoos, I'll wait for e-paper version, so I can change it when I want to.
And yes I know this beats the purpose of a tattoo being something permanent, but, if I ever do something like that, I'll be forever an Etch-a-Sketch
This isn't really a tattoo.. It's more like a sticker.
That would be cool but can I ask what makes you think it's something that will ever actually exist? Or do you just mean that regardless of whether or not it ever exists, it's the only thing that would result in you getting a tattoo?
Tattoo pigments are about 1.5 to 2mm under the outer skin. One would need to implant the e-ink spheres at that depth and control it with electric fields over the skin. Pigments would need to be dense enough the image would be visible.
Sounds feasible, but I’m not sure about the toxicity of the e-ink capsules.
I find that my pattern of breathing has a massive effect on my blood pressure. If I slow my breathing, I can have a large drop from 135/60 to 110/60 (my bottom number is always quite low but my top number can go high).
Since discovering this, I’ve seen some articles about how slow exhalation stimulates the vagus nerve which causes a drop in blood pressure, which offers an explanation.
Highly recommend reading James Nestor's Breath [1]. There is an incredible body of breathing modalities from ancient to modern. James does an incredible job of presenting a non-biased journey through it with a dose of humility and a childlike sense of awe. I finally got my Wimhof practice on track after it.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Breath-New-Science-Lost-Art/dp/073521...
You can also stimulate it directly by stroking the scalene muscles of the neck which lay over that nerve.
> The device takes its measurements by shooting an electrical current into the skin and then analyzing the body’s response, which is known as bioimpedance.
I thought this would be a passive sensor, but this makes it seem like it's not. Is the electrical current produced "wirelessly" using an electromagnetic field (radio), as in those batteryless sensors? The article makes no comment on how this would work practically.
From what I understood the thing described in article are more or less fancy electrodes. You still need the usual electronics, PCBs and powersource to do the actual measurement. So without developing sufficiently small and flexible electronics, battery, and electrodes for connecting the electronics to the rest of e-tatoo you don't get anything of the promised unobtrusive, continuous measurements. As usual press release is dreaming big when only small fraction of the problem is solved.
What is an electronic tattoo? Based on the phrasing in this article I can't determine if this is a wearable device that magnitizes to some weird tattoo or the device is the "tattoo"
Looks like you're putting a super thin layer of graphene on the skin, here's a tweet I found from one of the people working on this mentioned in the article.
https://mobile.twitter.com/dr_kireev/status/1385428450719145...
Thanks. I thought this was a real tattoo which would have been pretty wild
I'm sure parts of the body mod/biohacking community are already working on it. People are already doing things like embedding RFID into their hands.
When I read the headline I thought they had somehow managed to get an actual tattoo to respond to blood pressure changes through the pressure itself, similar to how the cells in Octopi change colour.
my actual tattoo reacts to something (allergens?) occasionally and raises up (I can feel the lines when i touch it).
i can imagine that an electronic tattoo of some sort would feel really strange.
I almost embedded an RFID a few years back but chickened out.
What colour is your tattoo? I was hearing that red ink can especially be a source of these kinds of skin problems because of the presence of small amounts of mercury in it [1]
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tattoo-ink-mercur...
mine is just black its not even shaded
I read that as “I embedded an RFID in a chicken”.
Reminds me I went to a dairy the other week where chipped cows trigger feeding and milking bots for detailed monitoring, dietary microadjustments, etc. I’ll see if there’s info worth posting.
Livestock seems like it would be the place to start with permanent medical data implants, including batteries and a computer.
Your tattoo probably is the allergen.
It happens with mine too occasionally, it's more noticeable if I'm hot or if I've not moisturised recently.
Got it, sounds like it's a tattoo in the sense of temporary tattoo/skin decal.
There seems to be a device needed that "shoots electricity" in order to get the reading. This kinda removes the benefits of not using a cuff....
A cuff requires a pump, which is not small or particularly wearable. A device that generates an electric current can be tiny and wearable.
Why? A cuff is inflated by a pump, which is way more annoying than an electrical measurement.
For any biohackers out there with electronics and sensor skills, there is another easier, cheaper viable way to continuously monitor blood pressure: earlobe
There have been some academic experiments with good results but apparently manufacturers don't believe consumers would accept it. Athletes and elderly sure would.
Any sources or materials that you know of to learn more about this? Would love to try it out.
This sounds fantastic. The blood pressure cuffs are very bothersome for anyone needing to do a 24-hour analysis. My mom did one and it would take a measurement every hour during night time and it was very hard for her to sleep through it. It would be tight enough some times to burst capillaries. And once an hour is a really low resolution.
How long does the warranty last?
My personal anecdata, I would like to share: I developed blood pressure problems last year (140-160/85-95). My doc told me I needed to start meds. I didn't want to though.
So in January, I started reducing my Caloric intake. I lost 7 kilos, down from 83kg to 76kg (I am 1.70m tall).
My blood pressure went down to (110-120/60-75). No meds required. Just ate less.
For me, on the other hand, weight loss didn't do anything for my blood pressure.
I was averaging around 160/90 on 3 or 4 different medicines [1] before losing weight. Then I lost around 45 kb (100 pounds) and kept it off...and there was no noticeable change in blood pressure.
Triglycerides and bad cholesterol levels plummeted, getting me completely off medicine for those. A1c dropped to 5 with no medication from over 8 with several diabetes drugs.
What started dropped blood pressure for me was becoming more active. Nothing extreme either...I just started using the stairs instead of the elevator at work to reach our offices (one floor up from ground) or to visit the vending machines for snacks (one floor below ground), and taking a 20 or 30 minute walk a two or three times a week.
That got it down to around 135/80.
I upped the activity to at least 30 minutes of walking a day starting in mid-2019, thanks to the psychologically manipulative gamification the Apple Watch I had just bought did with its fitness tracking. I had thought I was not susceptible to such things, but my current 1146 day streak of closing all rings says otherwise.
Now I'm averaging about 110/70. I only rarely ever see higher than 120 systolic or 80 diastolic. On the low side I see it get down to low 90's systolic on occasion and a little below 60 diastolic.
I should probably talk to my doctor about dropping medicines or lowering doses to see if they are necessary any more.
[1] There are several different ways blood pressure medicines can work, and many doctor feel it is better to try to control it by using several different medicines than just trying to attack it from one angle.
Oh man. Now that I read this, I feel like I’m an idiot.
Of course I forgot to mention that while I was eating less I ALSO started taking walks outside for at least 30 minutes every day.
Now I’m not sure if weight loss was the core reason for my bp going down.
Either way, you’re winning.
In my case a Ketogenic diet lowered my blood pressure. To the point that I need to add a pinch of extra salt to my food to bump it up or risk passing out every time I stand up too fast.
Just to share another data point, I had similar numbers several years ago and tried the same thing, didnt want to take meds so made significant changes to my diet and exercise. My cholesterol was getting to the point of needing medication too. I dropped something like 20-30 lbs, cut out a lot of carbs and most sugar. Felt great, but my bp and cholesterol numbers didnt move at all. started meds for both and theyre both well controlled now. Dont intend to refute your story, im told mine is genetic and hereditary. Always worth a try to see if life changes can make the difference though.
Blood pressure can be elevated by so many things. In the OP's case it seems it was excess body fat. In some it is sodium sensitivity.
In my case it was potassium malabsorption. Ate tons of high potassium foods but my blood levels were low. Never got that figured out, but potassium chloride (salt substitute) daily raised my potassium levels to normal and my BP fell to normal.
Personally I use potassium citrate so I can keep my Cl- levels under control, should only have like 2.3g of both Cl and Na per day so I found that KCl threw my Cl out of whack
But lots of Americans have issues with low potassium, it's a big issue
Thanks for sharing. That's why I was careful to label it as personal anecdata. I don't want to assume it works for everyone. But I believe losing weight is a good first step/test if you want to avoid taking meds.
there is a catch 22 with some meds, like lisinopril, which can make you gain weight..my doctor told me If I lost 15-20 pounds my BP would drop, but it's the lisinopril that made me gain that weight
Note that "cholesterol getting to the point of needing medication" is not a thing.
The statin pushers tried for decades to demonstrate that statins do any good for people not in imminent danger of (another) heart attack. They have failed. So, instead, they hector physicians to prescribe statins when they find a slightly "elevated" level of LDLs. Your body needs cholesterol, and makes exactly as much as it needs. If your level is "elevated", you are doing something that makes you need to make more. Suppressing it means you don't have enough.
If you worry about an elevated LDL level, the best response is to cut sugar intake.
another thing to get checked for get checked for is sleep apnea
> My doc told me I needed to start meds. I didn't want to though.
Doctors would always prefer if patients could solve problems with diet, lifestyle, and weight loss changes. However, few patients are willing and able to follow through like you did, and an increasing number will even take offense to suggestions to lose weight. Kudos for following through.
That said, I’d be surprised if dropping 7kg was the sole reason for your drastic blood pressure change. It’s likely that the improved diet and exercise required to change your weight actually underlie most of the improvement. You will have to remain at least somewhat consistent with that healthier lifestyle even at your new weight in order to avoid falling back to previous hypertensive levels.
For those with who have tough to control blood pressure, ask to see an endocrinologist and get screened for Hyperaldosteronism.
My personal anecdote - I've been on blood pressure medications since my senior year of high school.
Since then, I've had one hospitalization, seen four cardiologists, two nephrologists, many trips to the ER, regular check ups to keep my blood pressure in check. This spans over 25 years.
March, I had another really high blood episode that landed me in the ER. The cardiologist wants to bump my meds yet again because basically he has nothing else for me.
I was really frustrated.
I start to to research, and stumble upon Hyperaldosteronism. I get a referral to an endocrinologist. The blood test shows that I have a really high Aldosterone/Renin ratio. Along with low potassium (another sign). I have a CT scan, there's a nodule on my right adrenal.
Tomorrow I am having an AVS, an adrenal ventricular sampling, to tell which adrenal(s) are overproducing.
Thank you. I discovered I have an adrenal nodule via another medical investigation. No one has ever suggested it might be linked to my high blood pressure.
Here's a story of a gentleman whose blood pressure issues were cured once they removed the offending adrenal gland.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/04/23/high-blood-...
I'm 62, and was 'discovered' to have high blood pressure at 40. Mind you, I'd never even visted a doctor for at least 20 year prior to that, so who knows when it began. I've been waiting for a visit from the silent killer for some time. Maybe your post will delay that day! Thanks again.
If you do find out you have a high Aldosterone/Renin ratio, join this Facebook group
Conn's Syndrome / Hyperaldosteronism Support Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/652067311558303
They're very supportive with personal stories, what has worked for others, and guidance with the whole process of getting diagnosed with Primary Aldosteronism.
For the Americans reading, you went from 183 -> 167 pounds and are 5'7".
Congratulations!
Did you mean Canadians? Pounds is what we use here in Canada
How are others supposed to know what Canadians use when Canadian don’t even know. Officially everything is metric. Unofficially, it’s a mess.
We do know - we even have a flowchart!
https://imgur.io/gallery/wIW2hkf
Oh God, you just reminded me I should really get to it. I'm also 1,70 and been averaging 84kg for the last few years, I'm in my mid-30's btw... Losing weight is so hard when you have zero passion for sport and nutrition...
I need to get one of them fitness trackers, people seems to praise them quite a lot.
Definitely get one, even if just to mess around with it. The apple watch (and recently, android watches) have great sensors. The more basic fitbit-style devices work great too.
They are so great to just learn how your body reacts to stuff, and how long your walks are. Not to mention how much fun the historical data can be.
Works for some. I have family members with no excess body weight - bmi in the single digits - and high blood pressure.
There are like 50 variables. Weight is a big one, but not the only one.
> I have family members with no excess body weight - bmi in the single digits
You must be from a family of bots, highly intelligent snakes, or something like that. If you’re 2 meters tall, a BMI of 10 means a weight of 40kg. If you’re 1 meter tall, it means a weight of 10kg.
I’m not even sure humans with a BMI of under 10 can survive.
Right. Body fat. Not BMI.
For most Americans the main cause of high blood pressure is excess uric acid, itself a product of excess sugar intake. Advanced imitation food substitute producers pack sugar into practically everything nowadays. It is hard to avoid it when buying anything processed.
Be aware that low blood pressure can be bad just like high blood pressure can be. Since high blood pressure is so common, doctors often won't even mention it. Healthy blood pressure can also be different for different people. If you have a high heart rate or you get dizzy when sitting/ standing up you might have low blood pressure.
You can increase blood pressure healthily by aerobic exercise and increasing water + electrolyte intake. Just adding this since weight loss can lead to low blood pressure, which is easily fixable, but rarely talked about.
> Be aware that low blood pressure can be bad just like high blood pressure can be.
Not in the way high blood pressure is. Chronic hypertension is associated with a variety of complications and conditions.
Other than in case of a sudden drop (e.g., due to blood loss or a severe allergic reaction), low blood pressure very rarely is dangerous. Common symptoms include lightheadedness, fatigue or, in more severe cases, syncopes (commonly known as fainting). By itself, even the latter isn't immediately dangerous (depending on the situation its consequences might be, though, of course).
If low blood pressure is a mere symptom of an underlying condition, such as bradycardia (low heart rate), that's an entirely different matter. In those cases, however, just addressing the low blood pressure instead of the actual condition literally would amount to treating a symptom but not the cause.
Did you change your micronutrient makeup, or reduce sodium more than proportionately to the caloric drop?
Nope. At least not that I am aware. If anything, I am using sodium more excessively now because I don't care so much any more.
I started using one those calories tracking apps and started hitting a target + started walking 30 mins outside every day.
Sugar intake is more important than salt, as a cause of high blood pressure.
Strange. Even 83kg is not a lot for your height.
Woah buddy slow down with those radical ideas. Don't ya know that no one is responsible for their medical conditions and it's all because of income inequality, racism, and sexism?
How dare you suggest someone "eat less" or "exercise". Are you suggesting fat people deserve to starve to death? /s
On a serious note, more people than I'd like to admit have seriously adopted some variation of that outlook in relation to health, among other things, and it's really doing an immeasurable amount of harm. I feel like more and more the message coming from the more radical SJW types is "Everything is outside of your control, you have no agency, don't even try to better your life, it's all the fault of the government/capitalism/white people/etc". If you had gotten me with that as a gullible teenager I'd probably still be in the same poverty I grew up in and would be in much worse physical and mental health.
Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Many people who are overweight, do not want to be overweight and have tried everything they can to lose weight. IMO, "eat less and exercise" is great advice, but it depends on a very specific set of preconditions to work.
Mental health, affordable and easy access to nutritious and non-poisonous food (such as, vegetables that actually contain the micro-nutrients needed to survive, food that is free from mix-ins that contain your intolerances or allergies, or food that's not been over-processed to oblivion), having time to cook, access to sunlight and a number of other factors all help with getting into shape. If you're unlucky enough to be missing some of them, your journey will be that much harder.
So yes, there is personal responsibility there. But it helps if the odds aren't stacked against you before you begin.
I don't disagree that it's more difficult for some people than for others, but ultimately it's as simple as calories in < calories out. Multivitamins are cheap, rice and beans are cheap, frozen veggies are (usually) cheap.
In a lot of cases a truly healthy diet is cheaper than the tasty but atrociously unhealthy "cheap" foods. Yes, you do sacrifice some variety and flavor, but it's more than doable.
The world isn't fair. That sucks, and I'm all for working to change that, but until that change comes we have to accept it for what it is. If you throw your hands up and don't challenge anything because you were born with a disadvantage then you're only contributing to the issue. It's much easier to throw your hands up when you're told over and over again that it's not your fault and is all the cause of immutable externalities.
I don't think it's wrong to point out potential related factors but it is wrong to shift any of the blame to those factors, thereby removing it from oneself.
> It's much easier to throw your hands up when you're told over and over again that it's not your fault and is all the cause of immutable externalities.
No, it's not. There's nothing about recognizing a challenge that says that you cannot keep trying to overcome it.
It's just as easy to throw your hands up when someone is unsympathetic and calls people who have compassion 'SJWs' and you are buried in shame. For some people, yes, some amount of shame can be a motivator. For others it works the opposite way and results in a vicious cycle of self-treatment for depression with food. Poor mental health can be a much more pressing and existential threat than being overweight.
Listen. We know for sure that the gut biome can trigger the release of neurotransmitters via the vast cluster of neurons in the digestive system. That is: bacteria in your gut can directly affect your mood if you don't eat the food they want you to eat. Like it or not, we are electrochemical machines, not little ghosts piloting spaceships.
I have a friend who is a healthy weight, has a flat stomach and is regarded as very attractive. She eats the absolute worst food: hot pockets, pizza rolls and candy. But, in public, no one assumes she eats junk food. No one tells her to lose weight or to eat less. No one makes a disgusted face at her if she goes to the gym.
On the other hand, imagine someone obese eating at McDonalds once a week while still maintaining a calorie deficit for the day. What kind of looks, assumptions and comments do you think that person will get when they are eating fries? Do you think that is motivating? Do you think people who want you to treat that person as a human are SJWs? Why is SJW an insult to you anyway? Because people care about other people too much? Because you doubt the sincerity of people who publicly make an effort?
> I don't disagree that it's more difficult for some people than for others, but ultimately it's as simple as calories in < calories out.
It's only simple if you only care about weight. If you care about both reaching a desired target weight and remaining healthy it is no longer simple. The path you take to the target weight matters a lot.
Nova on PBS had a good episode on the science of this in 2020 called "The Truth About Fat". It's currently not free except to people who are members of their local PBS station, but it is worth keeping an eye out for when it becomes free. (Episodes tend to be free for a while after broadcast, then become member-only for a while, and then it varies).
> I don't think it's wrong to point out potential related factors but it is wrong to shift any of the blame to those factors, thereby removing it from oneself.
Blame is not all or nothing. IMO it's more than fair to place some blame on the person, and some blame on the current food production and distribution system that makes it an uphill battle to recover from being overweight. Because they are both to blame.
> The world isn't fair. That sucks, and I'm all for working to change that, but until that change comes we have to accept it for what it is.
I accept that. But shrugging and saying "it is what it is, cope or die because that's how the world works", while truthful, is not very compassionate or helpful. People with issues like this should receive help as a matter of course (if for no other reason, then to reduce public healthcare expenses and keep them alive for longer to pay taxes). Just like most developed countries have food safety regulations, perhaps it's time to start thinking about systemic solutions to what is partially a systemic problem.
Agreed, it's really hard doing diet and exercise while being very depressed.
Excluding tablets? Probably when we crack genetic engineering of adults, or when we upload our minds into computers and do away with the flawed blood-based body entirely.
Sounds like something from the movie "In Time". Chilling to say the least.
Much better would be to eliminate the high blood pressure.
Most high blood pressure, at least in UK and its former colonies (US particularly included), is a product of uric acid poisoning, itself caused mainly by the massive excess of sugar pumped into stuff sold as if it were food. (Excess alcohol has identical effect.) Cut stuff with sugar added from your diet, and take up exercise, and your blood pressure comes down.
Excess uric acid also causes most type-2 diabetes.