I’m currently preparing the inevitable successor of the highly successful of the ‘Bloodtesters Project’, initiated by Gary Wolf and Azure Grant.
Key working assumptions:
‘Participant Led Research’ (PLR), with both (potential) patients and non-patients
Data sharing
Use a convenient QS-eligible protocol + device (e.g. Omron’s new Heartguide / ‘Project 2.0 Zero’ watch)
Involve a PhD with a real ‘drive’ to do research on blood pressure related hypotheses that imply QS-like/ Bloodtester-like research / way of working, in order to have more depth and impact
International/all continents team, with sufficient diversity, in skills, domain expertise and goals
Suggested domains: Cardiology, Health, Health Technology, Data science, Legal, Ethics
Could be interesting… I have been doing (almost) daily blood pressure measurements for a few weeks. Originally I just wanted to see if the slightly high readings I had when drawing blood were representative or not, but then I got a bit carried away
Here are some additional questions I hope to be able to answer:
How often do I need to measure my blood pressure in order to track long-term trends, and what variables affect the measurements? (e.g. changes in posture, room temperature, time of day, hydration, prior sleep or exercise)
Does blood pressure correlate with heart rate, which would be easier to measure? (preliminary answer: no)
Is my blood pressure sensitive to increased salt intake?
Bp vs body mass, waist size, sodium seem pretty significant for me
Might also want to track some odd things like blood pressure vs previous day miles driven or vs amount of time spent sitting if those are easy enough to record
Just saw the the Omron Heartguide wearable blood pressure monitor is now in presale. This may be very good for our project. We are working on funding so that we can run the project in a way similar to QS Bloodtesters, with well organized webinars, support for data analysis, potential for publication, ethical review, and so on.
My understanding is that the HeartGuide isn’t “continuous”, so still requires the user sitting still, activating the blood pressure cuff, etc. - why not just go with more traditional/inexpensive ($60-$70 USD) Omron blood pressure monitors? Seems to have other wearable features (activity, sleep, etc.) that many won’t need.
@QuantifiedBob - I’d like to see how it does, because as a long time blood pressure measurer myself, I know that I don’t usually have my cuff with me. If I had it on my wrist, I’d do it a lot more often. But it does come with a cost, so I agree we’d have to evaluate whether it’s worth it. I don’t know about the accessibility and reliability of the other metrics it collects, that’s worth testing too. Could be a solid benefit, but no way to know yet.
This sounds super interesting and I’d love to participate if possible. I’ve been tracking my blood pressure daily for a couple of months now using the BP Companion app on my iPhone, and it’s amazed me how variable it is - I’ve been able to reduce my systolic pressure by ~30 points by just relaxing.
This initiated a conversation with my S.O. about how that’s not really representative of my general or average BP (which would, presumably, be the factor that corresponds to health). So as Eric mentioned above, how often should I measure my BP to be able to remove these type of variables.
I’m also super tall, and I wonder if that has some influence on my BP…
Good news: I’m happy and proud to annouce that we - Valeria Pannunzio, Carolina Falcão and me, have launched the ‘Bloodpressure Testers’ project, officially called ‘The Quantified Heart’, this week!
We are looking for participants all across the world! Please drop us a line at v.pannunzio@tudelft.nl, if you’re interested and check the URL above for more information on inclusion criteria.
Thanks everybody for the interesting Q&A and the support: we will include this in the ‘backlog’ of our project. I would like to add a special thank you to Azure and Gary, for showing their dedication to get this next ‘QS Labs’ to life.
PS: We will pitch this project at two upcoming QS Meetups in May, in the Netherlands, as well as in Cambridge (UK).
Indeed, I was very interested in the Heartguide! Unfortunately it went sold out after release on the US market, and it is now impossible to even order it before May. I got in contact with Omron representatives (thank you @marcelvanderkuil) to see if there could have been a way to get a number of Heartguides before that time, they were quite helpful but made it clear that there was no chance.
Still, I think that the notion that products like the Heartguide exist (and will be more easily available in the next few months and years) is important for this project and will give perspective to the findings.
I want to participate in this one, I have 3 BP monitors that I’ve used, including one that measures at the wrist and two that measure on the arm. I’ve often wondered whether the variation I see is caused by the instrumentation, the measurement condition (how high my arm is, for instance) or underlying physiological phenomena. I also wonder how much my blood pressure various through the day and across days. I look forward to learning more.
We are considering to hand out a Fitbit to participants, in order to have standard way of capturing HR, HRV and ’Sleep’ metrics. Question: which type of Fitbit would be best suited, also looking at price?
I don’t believe any of the current Fitbit devices can capture HRV. They’re also not that great for heart rate during intense exercise (too much shaking at the wrist), and I never had much luck with their sleep metrics. That said, I still rely on a Fitbit to get a rough idea of daily (and hourly) activity patterns, and to record my sleep begin and end times.
Here my measurements, taken over a week (around) with the Omron RS7.
What I seem to notice is; measurements jump easily of a few points within minutes (in both directions), but very rarely these jumps exceed 10 mmHg. Same for days; same-day measurements are almost never more than 10 mmHg apart.
About hours of the day; this is some trend lines of BP variations during my working hours. Normally, BP should start to go up shortly before waking up, peak at mid-afternoon, and start to go down again (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-pressure/expert-answers/blood-pressure/faq-20058115). What I see in my (limited!) dataset seems more like two peaks, one in the early morning and one late in the afternoon. I could imagine this could possibly have something to do with fasting (the lows are in the moments in the day in which I’m usually empty stomach).
