Smartwatches know you’re getting a cold days before you feel ill | Hacker News Reader

Smartwatches know you’re getting a cold days before you feel ill

newscientist.com

47 pointstosh29 comments

I've been using mine like this for years, I actually thought it was common knowledge that monitoring your heart rate informs you about things like this. Why else would you wear one? My resting heart rate is around 42 BPM and I know some of the following things:

* Stress causes an increase. Periods such as university exams cause it to rise and stay high for over a week. I've noticed a direct link between how long it stays high and how likely I am to get burnt out.

* Overtraining. Sometimes I'll train up to 4 hours in a day for a few days in a row. If my heart rate doesn't return to under 50 it's a good sign I need some rest. If it stays above 60 I'll definitely rest.

* Alcohol. If you have a few too many drinks you'll see your heart rate stay high until you're recovered from the drinking.

WOW! 42 BPM, what's your exercise regimen look like?

Not OP, but my resting HR is similar (low 40s, occasionally high 30s) and I've been monitoring it daily for many years now. My routine is full-body strength conditioning (kettlebells and bodyweight) for an hour 3 times a week. Around 25-50+ miles per week running (with about 80-100 ft. of elevation gain per mile on average), depending on whatever race I may be training for. I walk anywhere from 5 to 10 miles a day every day. I take a multi-hour hike every weekend in the mountains. I mountain bike once or twice a month. I swim once or twice a month. My wife and I do yoga at home for about an hour on the weekend. I'll do a multi-day backpacking trip a couple of times a year. I don't stress out over not training when I'm vacationing or on a backpacking trip. So, in a normal week, I train 5-7 days. It took me many, many years to work up to this.

My focus is the running. Everything else that I do is, in my eyes, cross training and functional training to support the running. I've been a competitive runner since the 6th grade, having only taken a few years off in total over the last 25 or so years.

I manage my own minor injuries and will continue working out depending on the specific injury at hand. Major injuries, I'll see my doctor and do PT. Between running, cycling, and biking, I've been able to keep active in the face of almost every injury that I've faced. As I age, though, the minor injuries are a near constant danger. It's been crucial that I learn to check my ego multiple times during every single workout.

In all of this, I'm driven by the heart disease in my family. I've been concerned about my heart health since my father had a massive heart attack and triple by-pass when I was 17 years old. I'm less than 10 years away from being the same age that he was when he had that heart attack. My hope is that, by being this conscious and acting deliberately, I can avoid those same risks and problems.

It's pretty random, I've been in the Army now for 9.5 years. Compared to my peers I'm more likely to go running than lift weights though. I have really good cardio for my size (6'1", 230lb currently). When I do exercise I do put in really hard, I find intensity is far more important than the exact exercise.

I noticed this: my heartrate spiked several days before a bad fever. I'd been traveling and not sleeping well for a few days, and my Fitbit HR monitor went up 10-15 points. But it also could have been reporting that I was sleeping badly. Since bad sleep gives increased risk of catching a virus, it's important to know, but I'm not sure if it was detecting the virus or the sleep deprivation.

while you may not be able to do anything about our own sickness at that point, you could take steps to prevent spreading an infection to others

What about taking/boosting Vitamin C, echinacea and zinc supplements to minimize the duration?

I’m assuming this is getting down voted because of doubt around whether supplements do anything. But to this point, might adding a few oranges to an otherwise fruitless diet not help stave off the disease? Genuine question.

I don't think the question is settled, but unless you really hate oranges, the cost of adding them to your diet on occasion is negligible, and the reward is either small (if they don't boost cold resistance) or large (if they do). The payoff matrix is such that I'll eat them anyway. It's probably good for me one way or another, and getting sick or having a sick family member is enough motivation to push me to eat fresh fruit when I'm usually too lazy.

Anecdotally, since I started asking for orange juice on flights, I've gotten sick less often after flying. I always used to. But that coincides with other precautions I've started taking, like wearing a face mask.

You definitely can. They even mention one in the article. Taking it easy and going to bed early vs going out. There are also medicines.

What medicine can I take a couple days before I'm feeling symptoms that will reduce my risk of a full blown infection?

The exact same ones you take when you are feeling symptoms.

If its something that would need a course of antibiotics, then those. Although getting to the doctor and getting a diagnosis is still always necessary.

If it's just the common flu, lots of zinc and vitamin c.

I just checked because I just got pneumonia and I wear a Fitbit. Sure enough, my resting heart rate increased a couple days before I got sick

serious question: what can we do with advanced knowledge of a viral infection like the common cold?

Pragmatic preparative and preemptive steps. Ensuring you have tinctures, medication, arranging to work from home, rearranging child care. Small things, but when you're dealing with a foggy head, stuffed nose and a cough then every small thing helps.

Zinc intake. Studies made clear that a supplement of Zinc can help prevent the outbreak of a cold.

How much?

This is still to be discussed but most studies mention the intake of 50-100 mg/day. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136969/ mentions 75mg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc_gluconate#Zinc_gluconate_... is a good starting point for further research.

But as always, consider every supplement carefully. I took 50mg a day before and noticed some inconvenient side effects like bad odour of my sweat and very dry skin. ATM, I just take 50mg/week, and I didn't experience a cold in the last two years (for whatever reason).

You could make sure you avoid those with compromised or weakened immune systems (e.g. the elderly or patients with certain illnesses)

Wear a face mask everywhere you go so you don’t infect others.

I don't have the source right now, but I think you are more likely to spread germs when you fiddle with your mask.

Companies could have a policy of letting employees work from home if they're likely to be sick.

One of the biggest factors that can help is getting more sleep. If you catch it early enough, it can prevent you from getting the full-blown sickness completely.

Since you’re most infectious at the beginning of a flu, this could be great for preventing outbreaks because it could tell the user to take measures to limit the spread, like wearing a facemask and avoiding people as much as possible.

Smartwarches have body temperature sensors now? Which ones are okay to buy?

and then they had a feature where they warned you with a changed color, then they were made bright enough to alert the other people around you, then there was a social stigma for not displaying one, then they were mandatory.

What an asinine slippery slope. We don't even have mandatory vaccinations.

I heard using smartwatches with the color coded sickness alert causes you to pay too much attention to the smart watch, decreases social interaction, and is a leading cause of autism.

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