The importance of healthy living cannot be overstated.
While we try to eat a well-balanced diet and exercise regularly, how do we know if we're
truly healthy?
How often do we think about our key health numbers?
You know the ones, Blood Pressure, Blood Sugar, and Body Fat Percentage.
With today's technology, now we can stay connected to our health like never before.
With us to demonstrate how high tech mobile devices are helping to improve our health
and quality of life are Steve Monnier and Yelena Kozlova of iHealth Lab.
Good morning.
Thanks for being here.
Steve, let me start with you.
You are a diabetic?
Yes, I am.
When were you diagnosed?
When I was about 28-years-old.
So a little over 20 years I've been a diabetic. 28, were you experiencing something?
Signs?
Symptoms?
I was showing symptoms.
I had lost a lot of weight very quickly and was urinating a lot, which are typical signs
of diabetes, and came to find out that I did in fact have diabetes.
Changed you life?
Changed my life considerably.
In what way?
You know, it's just something you need to be mindful of every minute of every day, and
it's always in the back of your mind.
So, it's something that you need to adjust your lifestyle to accommodate.
And you also had to track your numbers as well?
I did.
How did you do that?
Or how do you do that, actually I should say?
Well, for a long long time I was using a device like this one, which is a traditional glucose
meter.
I've seen those.
It's got a LED display on it.
It's also got the strips that go into it, which you prick your finger and then bleed
onto.
It gives you a reading.
Once you get a reading, you just log that into a log book.
So you physically have to write down exactly what you have every single day?
Every single day, for me, is four times a day.
Okay.
And I know, Yelena, technology has changed that completely for people like Steve.
How has technology improved this kind of tracking?
Well, Olga, iHealth has created a smart wireless glucometer, and this is it.
Just like with Steve's old meter, you still put in the strip, you still bleed onto it.
But now, once the testing is complete, the data is transmitted into your phone, and into
the cloud, and also into the iWatch.
And you can have this data available to you at any point.
You no longer need to have the log book.
So, no more writing things down and having to remember four times a day.
It's all available and it stores years of data.
Steve, can you show me how it works?
Sure.
I'd be happy to.
So, you turn on the device.
You're going to pair it with your phone or your tablet.
Once you do that, you're going to scan - and this is your vial of strips - you're going
to scan the QR code on top of the vial of strips.
It decrements them as you use them, so when you run out of this bottle, it would require
you to scan another QR code.
You take the strip, you plug it into the device, at which point you would prick your finger,
bleed onto the strip.
The read out or the reading will be recorded here as well as into your phone, and that
transmits the data into your cloud storage, which you can then share with loved ones.
You can share with your doctor.
And essentially they get your information in real time.
And you have days and days and months of that information in there.
Absolutely.
As long as you're collecting data, it will record it, and it's at your fingertips.
And that's a huge game-changer for a lot of people who maybe forget to log in, for parents
who need to know how their children are doing.
They can get the information in the app.
Right Yelena?
Definitely.
So imagine your child is at camp, and your child is diabetic.
There's no more worries.
You can just get the data instantaneously.
They take a reading, you see it.
Now you also have other devices for people who maybe take blood pressure medication,
or they need to know how their blood pressure is?
Yes.
So, we actually have two blood pressure monitors.
One is for your upper arm, and the other one is more a travel-suited solution, and you
can use this on your wrist.
Both take accurate readings.
Both are FDA approved devices.
They also transmit data up into the cloud.
They're smart wireless devices.
So, again, you show up at your doctor, you have months, years, however long you're recording
the data, it's available for you.
Right because if you have any concerns, the doctor will say monitor your blood pressure
for two weeks and come back.
And now that makes it easy.
You just show him on the app and say this is where I'm at.
Exactly.
So, right here, this is a weeks worth of blood pressure data.
Now, I know that if you need to do it over a week, over a month - cumbersome.
No more.
Now what is the scale for?
So this scale is a smart scale.
We call it the core, and after you stand on it...
So, you put your feet right here on these sensors.
It essentially takes a reading, but it goes beyond pounds.
It gives you nine parameters of your body mass.
So, you get your body fat percentage, you have your BMI, you have your bone mass.
And you can keep track of that over time?
You can keep track of that over time, and beyond that you can really see how your lifestyle
choices impact your health.
You can really see that in the scale, and you can continue with your exercise program
instead of just saying, "Well, my weights the same.
What's going on?"
Yelena, also, I know these products are also improving the lives of the elderly.
And I believe you have a great story with firefighters who are kind of like keeping
them healthy, if you will?
Yes, Olga.
So, the Satellite Beach Fire Department is doing fantastic work with their elderly population.
They used to have huge instances of 911 calls, and they decided to do something about it.
Now, they do regularly visit their patients, but between those visits they're using the
iHealth devices such as the blood pressure monitors, the scales, even the activity trackers,
and they're really looking at how their patients are doing between visits.
But between those visits, they login every day and they see how Estelle is doing, for
instance.
And if Estelle forgot to take her insulin after having a nice big slice of cake in the
evening, they can call her up and say, "Hey Estelle, what's going on?
Have you forgotten to take your insulin?"
That's fantastic!
Big game-changer here, I think.
Huge.
Where can viewers find out more about these products, and where can they get them?
You know, they can look at our website to get more information about it, which is ihealthlabs.com.
They're available for purchase at amazon.com as well as Best Buy stores, and soon at walmart.com.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for sharing your story.
Thank you.
Yelena, thank you so much for the info.
Thank you for having us on the show.
And to learn more about the benefits of mobile and digital measuring technology, visit us
at TheBalancingAct.com or get social.
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