Live data from Hacker News

Blood pressure e-tattoo promises continuous, mobile monitoring

news.utexas.edu

21–30 of 90 posts

Re: Blood pressure e-tattoo promises continuous, mobile monitoring

#21
post #10

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.

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 bot…

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.

Re: Blood pressure e-tattoo promises continuous, mobile monitoring

#22
post #19
post #10

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 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

Re: Blood pressure e-tattoo promises continuous, mobile monitoring

#23
post #10

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.

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 bot…

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.

Re: Blood pressure e-tattoo promises continuous, mobile monitoring

#25
post #10

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.

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.

Re: Blood pressure e-tattoo promises continuous, mobile monitoring

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bot…

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

Re: Blood pressure e-tattoo promises continuous, mobile monitoring

#27
post #6
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Blood pressure e-tattoo promises continuous, mobile monitoring

#28
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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 c…

I don't disagree that it's more difficult for some people than for others, but ultimately it's as simple as calories in 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.

Re: Blood pressure e-tattoo promises continuous, mobile monitoring

#30
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.
Post reply on HN