Tag: Health

insurance company wants to track your fitness data

A life insurance company wants to track your fitness data by Cheryl Wischhover

As Kate Crawford, founder of the AI Now Institute and a researcher who studies machine learning and artificial intelligence, pointed out on Twitter upon hearing this John Hancock news: “We saw this coming, and here it is. Endless trapdoors ahead: data inaccuracies, intentional gaming, constant intimate surveillance 24⁄7, data breaches that will be infinitely worse.”

I don’t think I would trust any employer or insurance company with this kind of personal information. They are not worthy of trust.

Work Death

What happens when we work non-stop by José Luis Peñarredonda (bbc.com)

The era when work ended as people left the office is long gone. Checking and answering messages from work seems unavoidable – and even desirable for some people, as they feel it allows them to outperform competitors, or to spend more time with family without losing track of their jobs. As put by a 2006 academic paper from Ian Towers, a researcher from SRH Hochschule in Berlin, mobile technology “increases expectations: managers and colleagues alike expect staff to be almost always available to do work”.

 

But being ‘on call’ is not the same as being off work, and the way our body reacts to both situations is very different. A 2016 study found that the cortisol levels (the hormone that regulates the ‘fight or flight’ reaction and plays a role in raising stress levels) of people ‘on call’ rise faster in the mornings than those of people who are not required to be available, even if they don’t end up working that day.

 

This hormone usually has its peak concentration when we wake up, and it decreases on the rest of the day. But scientists believe everyday stress factors tamper with its cycle in several ways: it rises faster when you expect a stressful day (researchers believe this may be the case here), its levels remain high if you are chronically stressed, and it does not rise if you are going through a ‘burnout syndrome’ – something usually preceded by a chronic stress period.

Money doesn’t matter if you’re dead

Graves' Disease - A Man's Perspective | GDATF

I was a Naval reservist and had to go in for a routine physical. The ship’s corpsman noticed my resting heart beat was one hundred and ten beats per minute. He sent me over to the Naval hospital for an EKG and to be evaluated by a doctor. A corpsman took my EKG and asked me if I was feeling OK. I said sure, no problems! I was told to rest ten minutes and they would do another EKG. Ten minutes later, they came back and found me asleep on the table. Talk about resting! They did the EKG again and my heart rate was one hundred and twenty beats a minute. Next thing I know, I am on a table in the ER, stripped down to my skivvies with doctors shining lights in my eyes and poking every conceivable part of my body. The doctor wanted to admit me into intensive care because he thought I was on my way to a thyroid storm and I could get very sick, very fast. The man got my attention. I told him there was no way they were going to put me into the hospital (doing my male thing again). I explained to the doctor that I was a reservist and if he put me into the hospital, they would have to put me on active duty. The doctor listened to my concern about being in the hospital and said “Mister, money doesn’t matter if you’re dead.” Once again he got my attention.

I had my first thyroid storm last weekend.