Digital Health To Empower You - The Human Edge Way.

In my previous newsletter I talked about the evolution of health tech and how that will change to allow people to make their own decisions when it comes to their body.?

Through the use of these technological revolutions where our biology is now being simplified for all of us to understand, it is moving in a direction towards patient empowerment. With the aid of digital health tools, individuals can monitor, predict, prevent, diagnose and even treat their own health conditions.?

This is what I also want for my patients and this is how it started…

Coming Up With Biohacks And The Mito App

As physicians we call ourselves healthcare experts but there is very little ‘health’ in our care

Dr. Marcus Ranney

I was always fascinated with biology and through the years it led me to experience, know and understand how remarkable our biological system actually is. It is with this fascination I decided to write a book ‘At the Human Edge’ to show people what they are missing out on when it comes to their bodies and what all it is capable of.?

Over the years I wanted to shift focus from only treating the sick to knowing how I can augment the health and wellbeing of an individual. I started thinking of ways and methods in which people can make lifestyle changes at the grassroots level so that they don't fall victim to all the diseases that now plague our world.?

This path became more clear to me after I got covid in the first wave. During that time, doctors were unaware on how to treat it, so I was put on a lot of steroids and because of that I became pre-diabetic, had long covid symptoms and so on. This allowed me to understand my metabolism much better and allowed me to biohack my way into being healthy again. It was through my personal understanding and developing ways of getting better that I started to research and develop biohacks to improve a person’s healthspan, which is the maximum number of years a person can remain healthy and disease free.

We have so many devices currently that track a variety of data—the rings that track sleep, the apps that track calories, the watches that track activity and so on. We need to bring together all this data we create to build holistic health information. The Mito app, which is currently being developed by Human Edge, strives to help its users optimize their health and performance using the days they already have. Want to get your hands on Mito? Write to us at [email protected] and be a part of our testing cohort.?

How Can Digital Data Change The Future Of Healthcare?

Data as a tool can be leveraged, manipulated and can be crafted in a manner to optimize human experience

Dr. Marcus Ranney

There is a huge amount of data that we as humans create on a daily basis. But very little of it is used to build mechanisms to hack the biological system.? All the tech we surround ourselves with currently, whether it is our telephones, the microwave, the internet etc weren't for public use in the beginning. But with the democratization of these, it has become an inseparable part of our lives. By unlocking the power of data, we can use it to know the fundamental basis of our health.?

The probability to live to 120 is coded in our body. With 12-18% influence due to our genes, the other 80% is in our hands, from the environment we live in, the people we surround ourselves with and the decisions we make on our food choices, exercise and sleep. The more this data and technology is prevalent among the populace - whether they are from higher or lower socioeconomic strata - inadequate prevention and inadequate knowledge about prevention can be reduced and healthcare can be made for all.?

With the right tweaks and changes in 3-5 yrs, commoditization of health devices will be widely available especially through internet technology and the interconnectedness of real time data wherever you are on this planet. It will be able to send and receive information and more importantly educate and enhance awareness.?

This holistic health tool will help doctors to understand the person sitting in front of them as well. Smart intelligence will be able to understand the biomarkers of our body and make us aware of our lifestyle and prescribe useful modifications. It won't just be the physicians, it will bring the person into the experiment of making their body healthy. In the information age people want to know what to do, understand their health data, know what is working and what is not. This will empower our patients.?

However, right now it is just the physical part of the person. What we can do now is for the audience who wants to make a difference but don’t know if they are doing the right things or not. It will help them by telling them what they can do and help monitor and track that info in real time. The behavioral part of it is as important as the physical part. And as the digital health industry grows over time, we can learn and make behavioral change through science using nudge theory, gamification and reward systems.??

Get Started On Your Well-Being Journey

If you want to know and understand your body so that you feel you have the power to make your own decisions to improve your health, understand it better and how to lead a healthy life you can visit humanedge.co.?

If you want to know more on this topic, I talked about all this and much more with Roger Green in an episode of his podcast ‘Surfing the NASH Tsunami’. You can listen to the podcast here as well.?

This newsletter is a part of our ongoing series.