Quantitative Self

Created on Dec. 17, 2012, 9:58 p.m. by Hevok & updated by Hevok on May 2, 2013, 5:03 p.m.

Quantitative self are all things about personal measurement and data.

Quantified self approaches will not themselves extend Lifespan, but tracking changes in health and biomarkers of Aging (psychological, physical, biometrics and also biochemical markers) is key at to achieving Negligible Senescence.

In order to test whether rejuvenative therapeutic approaches are really working having quantified self tools and systems in place to measure them is very important. Getting a interventions past the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) does not mean that they actually do what they shall do, and one can only be satisfied with personalized multiple qualitative and quantitative biomarker studies to prove that one is staying the same biological age and health, that the morbidity is decreasing and one gets younger/healthier.

A combination of an advanced personal health record, with the ability to data mine it for research purposes and for users to enroll in informal intervention studies, where individuals taking a particular drug or supplement could sign on to have their anonymized personal health record data common (accessible for researchers) linked in with that of other people also taking it, and have such people compared to matched controls in the system NOT undergoing the same intervention, to track outcomes and adjust statistically for confounder.

The quantitative self approach has the huge advantage that it enables test whether therapies developed in spirit of SENS are effective in retarding or even reversing biometrics on Aging without the need of any Lifespan experiments in humans (which would take decades). The idea to hype measuring biomarkers on Aging and trying to improve those is also great as it helps to make an increased awareness of Aging as a problem.

To exemplify this, such devices should record metrics in an non-invasive manner. For instance advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) accumulate with age and are associated with degenerative diseases [17482402]. Exercise leads to the breakdown of this type of age-related change. The protein glycation dependent skin fluorescence can be easily measured. Individuals seeing their results on reduced fluorescence after exercise were greatly motivated to continue doing more [Andreas Simm, personal communication].

It is difficult to ascertain how to take advantage of all this personalized medicine/health data. However, it is indeed an emerging area with huge potential.

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Tags: aging, biometrics, health, measurements, personalized medicine
Categories: News
Parent: Personalized Medicine
Children: Bio Impedance Analysis, Blood Biomarker

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