Killer on the loose

A couple of months ago I saw an ad on Facebook or a watch that would measure blood sugar without actually having to prick the finger to take a blood sample. 

As I am a Type 2 diabetic with a widely ranging blood sugar value which needs me to adjust my insulin levels, I thought this could be an alternative. 

I ordered the watch.

It arrived with a broken screen. 

I did a test of all the values to be measured and found the pedometer, the blood pressure and the blood sugar values were grossly inaccurate. 

Also the watch strap clip fell to pieces within two days.

I informed the support team and they offered to send me a new watch. 

I expressly told them that I only needed a watch that accurately measured the blood sugar values, as other measurements were not life threatening.

A new watch arrived which was a different model to the first one. It even ran with a different app on my iPhone.

My testing revealed that all the inaccuracies in measurement continued and especially the blood sugar value. 

It never showed a value of more than 6 when  the actual value could be over 12. And it consistently showed a value of less than 5 when the actual value was more than 8. 

In Type 2 diabetes if the blood sugar measured is less than 5 it is necessary to lift the value with sn intake of sugar. And  if it is more than 7 the insulin dose injected has to be increased.

The value measured using the Smart watch F58 is just 5.7 whereas the value obtained using the blood sample and the blood glucose monitor in 13.8!

The situation with the first watch was similar!

These are killer situations for a Type 2 diabetic patient.

I wrote to the support team and they made a series of offers to refund money, all of which I refused.

In the meantime they removed the blood sugar measurement from the first watch.

The other major error is the pedometer reading. 

I take 2 steps to my wheelchair when I go to the toilet and another 4 steps from the wheelchair to the toilet. I get values which are picked out of thin air as 30 steps to over a 200 steps for such situations. Also I walk for almost an hour every week in the department store when I do my weekly shopping with a walker. I get readings of 100 steps to 500 steps, both of which are nowhere close to reality.

I say that these dangerous readings  that can be killers. You are duly warned not to use these watches for any medical purposes. 

And to top it off, the other day I got a reading of my body temperature of 47.5 C which means they had already killed me off.

Beware of the claims made for these watches.

I am putting a link on Facebook to this blog entry as it could lead you to a very serious situation leading to death!

U Decide : Does This Guy Even Know His Subject?

There are times when you receive a forward from a friend and you laugh of guts out. I laughed at each line while I read through this.

In the evening, I read it to our grandson, Samuel, in Newcastle, with Annikki listening, and had them both in splits of laughter.

Being largely involved with Phyics in my later stage of my career, mainly Solid State Physics, the punch line hit me right between the eyes!

Enjoy!

"This was a question in a physics degree exam at the University of Copenhagen:

"Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer."

One student replied: "You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building."

This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed immediately.

The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably  correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case.

The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable knowledge of physics.

To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer that showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.

For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought.

The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use.

On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:

"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper,drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground.

The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer."

"Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper."

"But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T = 2 pi sqroot (l/g)."

"Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up."

"If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building."

"But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him, 'If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper'."

(The student was Niels Bohr, the only Dane to win the Nobel prize for Physics)"