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I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

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121–130 of 240 posts

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#121

Health metrics are absolutely tarnished by a lack of proper context. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that you can't reliably take a concept as broad as health and reduce it to a number. We see the same arguments over and over with body fat percentages, vo2 max estimates, BMI, lactate thresholds, resting heart rate, HRV, and more. These are all useful metrics, but it's important to consider them in the proper context tha…

Measuring metrics is easy, it's the algorithm on the backend that matters. There's a reason why Oura rings are expensive and it's not the hardware - you can get similar stuff for 50€ on Aliexpress. But none of them predicted my Covid infection days in advance. Oura did. A device like the Apple Watch that's on you 24/7 is good with TRENDS, not absolute measurements. It can tell you if your heart rate, blood oxygen or…

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Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#123

My wife is a doctor and there is a general trend at the moment of everyone thinking their intelligence in one area (say programming) carries over into other areas such as medicine, particularly with new tools such as ChatGPT. Imagine if as a dev someone came to you and told you everything that is wrong with your tech stack because they copy pasted some console errors into ChatGPT. There's a reason doctors need to spe…

I'm reminded of an effect called Gell-Mann Amnesia.

When reading news stories on topics you know well, you notice inaccuracies or poor reporting - but then immediately forget that lesson when reading the next article on a topic you are not familiar with.

It's very similar to what happens with AI.

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#124

Health metrics are absolutely tarnished by a lack of proper context. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that you can't reliably take a concept as broad as health and reduce it to a number. We see the same arguments over and over with body fat percentages, vo2 max estimates, BMI, lactate thresholds, resting heart rate, HRV, and more. These are all useful metrics, but it's important to consider them in the proper context tha…

Many of those metrics are population or sampling measures and are confounded by many factors at an individual level. The most notorious of which is BMI; it is practically a category error to infer someone's health or risk by individual BMI, and yet doing so remains widespread amongst people that are supposed to know better. Instrumentation and testing become primarily useful at an individual level to explain or inves…

> The most notorious of which is BMI; it is practically a category error to infer someone's health or risk by individual BMI, and yet doing so remains widespread amongst people that are supposed to know better.

BMI works fine for people who aren't very muscular, which is the great majority of people. Waist to height ratio might be more informative for people with higher muscle mass.

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#125
post #110

I dunno, if the Apple Watch said he had a vo2max of 30, that probably means he can’t run a mile in less than 12 minutes or so. He’s probably not at all healthy…

If Apple watch said anything about that it's probably wrong. It can't accurately measure VO2 max. Incidentally I got rid of mine recently. It is bliss not having one. Also VO2 max is a crappy measure of fitness. I apparently had "average" VO2 max after a treadmill test. I can hike 50km with a 2km elevation gain in one go and not die. People with higher VO2 max I know, dropped out.

> hike 50km with a 2km elevation gain in one go and not die.

And thru-hikers can do this for days. It’s more related to fatigue resistance, mitochondrial density, and walking efficiency. But VO2 max still matters in high-intensity sports, you can’t ignore it when you’re pedaling a bike at high Zone 4 in a race.

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#126

I dunno, if the Apple Watch said he had a vo2max of 30, that probably means he can’t run a mile in less than 12 minutes or so. He’s probably not at all healthy…

> he had a vo2max of 30, that probably means he can’t run a mile in less than 12 minutes or so. He’s probably not at all healthy… Health and fitness correlate but are different things. VO2max is more about fitness than about health. Also, looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VO2_max#Reference_values , 30 is about average for men in their 40s/50s, which, form a quick google, I estimate is the author’s age range.

> Also, looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VO2_max#Reference_values, 30 is about average for men in their 40s/50s, which, form a quick google, I estimate is the author’s age range.

And the average man is his 40s or 50s is in...not especially good aerobic shape.

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#127

My wife is a doctor and there is a general trend at the moment of everyone thinking their intelligence in one area (say programming) carries over into other areas such as medicine, particularly with new tools such as ChatGPT. Imagine if as a dev someone came to you and told you everything that is wrong with your tech stack because they copy pasted some console errors into ChatGPT. There's a reason doctors need to spe…

> My wife is a doctor and there is a general trend at the moment of everyone thinking their intelligence in one area (say programming) carries over into other areas such as medicine, particularly with new tools such as ChatGPT.

My wife is a lawyer and sees the same thing at her job. People "writing" briefs or doing legal "research" with GPT and then insisting that their document must be right because the magic AI box produced it.

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#128
post #122
post #98

Hard to tell who is stupider, the writer or ChatGPT.

The writer makes money from pumping out shitty click bait articles.

I don't see how it's "shitty." It portrays a usage of ChatGPT that I imagine is becoming pretty typical. People are treating "AI" as an oracle. The situation isn't helped by corporate heads and LLM boosters blathering on about how AI is soon going to replace most of the workforce, boost productivity by a gazillion percent, and cure cancer.

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of those metrics are population or sampling measures and are confounded by many factors at an individual level. The most notorious of which is BMI; it is practically a category error to infer someone's health or risk by individual BMI, and yet doing so remains widespread amongst people that are supposed to know better. Instrumentation and testing become primarily useful at an individual level to explain or inves…

> The most notorious of which is BMI; it is practically a category error to infer someone's health or risk by individual BMI, and yet doing so remains widespread amongst people that are supposed to know better. BMI works fine for people who aren't very muscular, which is the great majority of people. Waist to height ratio might be more informative for people with higher muscle mass.

I dunno, basing life decisions off a metric that has a fudge factor built into it to make the regression work feels sub-optimal to me.

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#130

Health metrics are absolutely tarnished by a lack of proper context. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that you can't reliably take a concept as broad as health and reduce it to a number. We see the same arguments over and over with body fat percentages, vo2 max estimates, BMI, lactate thresholds, resting heart rate, HRV, and more. These are all useful metrics, but it's important to consider them in the proper context tha…

>I'd go so far to say this is probably the case for most people. Your average person is in really poor fitness-shape but just fine health-shape. Modern medicine has failed to move into the era of subtlety and small problems and many people suffer as a result. Fitness nerds and general non-scientists fill the gap poorly so we get a ton of guessing and anecdotal evidence and likely a whole lot of bad advice. Doctors wo…

It’s also cultural. Most American doctors don’t bother to tell people if they are overweight and out of shape. It’s not something their customers reward.
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