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How it works:

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Examples of discoveries to replicate:

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Criteria/Scoring:

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Judges:

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Timeline (2011):

Just a quick note to let you all know that CureTogether is a finalist in the Amgen/Changemakers Empowering Patients Competition!!

Thank you for being part of this. Please vote today – we have a good shot at winning the $10,000 grand prize if we get enough votes in the next 13 days. It can be your good deed for the day!

Please take half a minute to cast your vote.

THANK YOU so much!!
Wishing you all a wonderful day,
Alex

We are so excited!

CureTogether’s entry into the Ashoka Changemakers patient empowerment competition won the Early Entry Prize for best idea entered by the early deadline!

From the competition website:

The Amgen Foundation is supporting the Patients| Choices| Empowerment competition with Ashoka’s Changemakers to answer the question of how we can elevate patients’ voices to improve health outcomes globally.

Submit your solutions, or nominate a project, in this challenge that empowers patients to make decisions with confidence and clarity, in concert with people who care and can help.

Congratulations to the Early Entry Prize winner: CureTogether – Crowdsourced Patient Experience. Learn how they are working to empower patients HERE.

Prizes: Enter before the competition deadline of 5PM EDT on September 29, 2010 and you may be one of three winners that receive USD $10,000 to advance your project.

If you have a minute, please help by leaving a comment on our entry page - it will help us have a better chance of winning the competition.

Thank you for your help!

Christine Peterson is hosting the first Personalized Life Extension Conference, October 9-10 at the San Francisco Airport Marriott. She is offering a $100 discount on the $275 registration price to all CureTogether members who register with the discount code “CureTogether”.

From the conference website:

“Topics to be covered in lectures, Q&A, and during meals and breaks include:

Supplements: Should we be taking resveratrol, vitamin D3, fish oil, coenzyme Q10, acetyl-L-carnitine, melatonin, DHEA, and many others? Benefits, costs, risks, and supplement advisors to consider.

DNA testing: Costs are coming down fast. We can’t re-write our DNA (yet), but there is much that can be done to “turn on” and “turn off” genes related to individual risks.

Telomere protection: Getting your telomeres measured, and techniques to protect them, from inexpensive to very expensive. TA-65 is the latter; we’ll debate value and cost.

Finding a life extension doctor: Very few physicians are informed or even interested in anti-aging techniques. Let’s explore how to find the ones who are.

Blood testing: If you’re young and healthy, get extensive blood work done now to get a baseline. If older, see where you’re too low or too high and take corrective action — the “normal” range accepted by the average doctor is almost certainly too broad.

Gadgets: From low-end blood pressure readers and Omron pedometer, to the mid-range Zeo sleep monitor, ShoulderFlex massager, and emWave PC biofeedback, to the high-end UVB non-tanning “tanning bed” for stimulating vitamin D production, we’ll look at which equipment is safe and cost-effective.

Calorie restriction and intermittent fasting: It’s pretty clear these can delay the diseases of aging. We’ll hear how hard or easy they are to carry out in real life. “Mimics” of calorie restriction: We’ll consider whether any of these are ready for prime time. Inflammation: Increasingly seen as central to the aging process, we’ll look at ways to measure and reduce this damaging process throughout the body, from taking aspirin and anti-inflammatory supplements to reducing abdominal fat and increasing dietary fiber. C-reactive protein (CRP) monitoring can track progress.

Sleep: Quantity and quality of sleep is increasingly being recognized as critically important; we’ll look at the factors governing these and how to control them.

Stress reduction: Perhaps the most important single factor to tackle, due to its connection to blood pressure and cortisol, and yet a challenge to reduce given today’s lifestyles. Many approaches can help –yoga, humor, meditation, sex, massage, vacations, moderate exercise, downsizing, simplifying, reducing email frequency, and getting off the computer one day a week.

Self-experimentation: Many longevity techniques involve changing a parameter and tracking its effects. We’ll look at designing such experiments, learning from the Quantified Self experience.

Exercise: What types, what’s the minimum, and (just as important) the maximum from a longevity perspective, since overtraining can cause overly high cortisol levels.

Eating: A complex, controversial, and centrally important topic for longevity — advice to take (not the USDA), macronutrients, micronutrients, organic vs. standard, raw vs. cooked, probiotics, what types of processing to avoid, specific “foods” to avoid including high-fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils, techniques for weight control and reduction, how to reduce the time required. Specific foods to consider: curcumin, turmeric, cinnamon, green tea, black tea, berries, dark chocolate, and stevia to replace sugar.

Mood: Optimistic people live longer, it’s claimed. We’ll look at mood-influencing supplements, techniques, and actions, from SAMe, rhodiola and Prozac to the pursuit of love and intimacy: married people and those in monogamous long-term relationships are said to live longer.

Enhancement and brain function: To figure out how to live longer, it would help to be smarter. Some of us have tried mental “enhancers” such as Provigil or Ritalin; let’s compare benefits and risks. We’ll look at supplements thought to preserve brain function, such as galantamine.

Standards of information quality: Large double-blind studies are not available for many longevity questions, and may never be due to high costs and inability to patent existing nutrients and practices. Yet health claims must still be evaluated, using less-ideal data.

Common errors: A common mistake in life extension news items is mistaking correlation for causation. Let’s examine how to guard against this and related confusions, rampant in media reports and even in some medical studies.”

IFTF BodyShock the Future entry idea: Shock Your Body from Institute for the Future on Vimeo.

INSTITUTE FOR THE FUTURE ANNOUNCES BODYSHOCK:
CALL FOR ENTRIES ON IDEAS TO TRANSFORM LIFESTYLES AND THE HUMAN BODY TO IMPROVE HEALTH IN THE NEXT DECADE

“What can YOU envision to improve and reinvent health and well-being for the future?” Anyone can enter, anyone can vote, anyone can change the future of global health.

With obesity, diabetes, and chronic disease rampaging populations around the world, Institute for the Future (IFTF) is turning up the volume on global well-being. Launching today, IFTF’s BodyShock is the first annual competition with an urgent challenge to recruit crowdsourced designs and solutions for better health–to remake the future by rebooting the present.

BodyShock calls upon the public to consider innovative ways to improve individual and collective health over the next 3-10 years by transforming our bodies and lifestyles. Video or graphical entries illustrating new ideas, designs, products, technologies, and concepts, will be accepted from people around the world until September 1, 2010. Up to five winners will be flown to Palo Alto, California on October 8 to present their ideas and be connected to other innovative thinkers to help bring these ideas to life. The grand prize winner will receive the IFTF Roy Amara Prize of $3,000.

“Health doesn’t happen all at once; it’s a consequence of years of choices for our bodies and lifestyles–some large and some small. BodyShock is intended to spark new ideas to help us find our way back to health,” said Thomas Goetz, executive editor of Wired, author of The Decision Tree, and a member of the Health Advisory Board that will be judging the BodyShock contest in addition to votes from the public.

“BodyShock is a fantastic initiative. Global collaboration and participation from all voices can produce a true revolution,” said Linda Avey, founder of Brainstorm Research Foundation and another Advisor to BodyShock.

Entries may come from anyone anywhere and can include, but are not limited to, the following: Life extension, DIY Bio, Diabetic teenagers, Developing countries, Green health, Augmented reality, Self-tracking, and Pervasive games. Participants are challenged to use IFTF’s Health Horizons forecasts for the next decade of health and health care as inspiration, and design a solution for a problem that will be widespread in 3-10 years, using technologies that will become mainstream.

“Think ‘artifacts from the future’–simple, non-obvious, high-impact solutions that don’t exist yet, will be among the concepts we’re looking to the public to introduce,” said Rod Falcon, director of the Health Horizons Program at IFTF.

BodyShock’s grand prize, the Roy Amara Prize, is named for IFTF’s long-time president Roy Amara (1925-2000) and is part of a larger program of social impact projects at IFTF honoring his legacy, known as The Roy Amara Fund for Participatory Foresight, the Fund uses participatory tools to translate foresight research into concrete actions that address future social challenges.

PANEL OF COMPETITION JUDGES

Joanne Andreadis

Lead of Innovation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Linda Avey

Founder, Brainstorm Research Foundation

Jason Bobe

Director of Community, Personal Genome Project
Founder, DIYBio.org

Alexandra Carmichael

Co-founder, CureTogether

Ted Eytan, MD

Kaiser Permanente, The Permanente Federation

Rod Falcon

Director, Health Horizons Program

Peter Friess

President, Tech Museum of Innovation

Thomas Goetz

Executive Editor, WIRED Magazine
Author, The Decision Tree

Natalie Hodge,MD FAAP

Chief Health Officer, Personal Medicine International

Ellen Marram

Board of Trustees, Institute for the Future
President, Barnegat Group LLC

Kristi Miller Durazo

Senior Strategy Advisor, American Heart Association

David Rosenman

Director, Innovation Curriculum
Center for Innovation at Mayo Clinic

Amy Tenderich

Board Member, Journal of Participatory Medicine
Blogger, DiabetesMine.com

DETAILS

WHAT:
An online competition for visual design ideas to improve global health over the next 3-10 years by transforming our bodies and lifestyles. Anyone can enter, anyone can vote, anyone can change the future of health.

WHEN:
Launch – Friday, June 18,2010

Deadline for entries -Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Winners announced -Thursday, September 23, 2010

BodyShock Winners Celebration at IFTF – 6 – 9 p.m. Friday, October 8, 2010 – FREE and open to the public

WHERE:

http://www.bodyshockthefuture.org

(and 124 University Ave, 2ndFloor, Palo Alto, CA)

The webcast will be hosted in 2 spots:

1.       http://www.hhs.gov/open/ or http://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?live=9347

2.       Meeting information: http://www.iom.edu/communityhealthdata

3.       HHS Blog Post: http://www.hhs.gov/open/discussion/chdi.html

4.       RWJF Blog Post: http://rwjfblogs.typepad.com/pioneer/2010/05/introducing-data.html

5.       Twitter: #healthapps

It’s a great sign that the government is innovating around open health data. Check it out!

I’m going to my first book launch party tomorrow. I’m a bit nervous.

It’s for Thomas Goetz’s book The Decision Tree, which was just released. His book and blog carry great insight into the future of health – personalization, quantification, and smarter choices. He even created a nifty app on Wired’s website where you can build your own decision tree.

Why am I nervous? Well, the book includes my own personal decision tree (see below), based on my 10-year battle with chronic pain. So now everyone who reads it will know my story. Which is scary but also fantastic, because I think hearing people’s stories is such an important part of healing ourselves that is often missing in traditional doctor-patient healthcare.

Kudos to Thomas for putting personal, informed, patient choice at the forefront of health. I’m glad he wrote the book, and I encourage you to read it!

Here are my top 10 takeaways:
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1. Disability to Super-Ability – Mullins, Kamen, Angle

Three incredible stories, told back to back, left the audience in tears and on the edge of their seats.

Prosthetically augmented athlete Aimee Mullins gave a moving account of how being “disabled” has affected her life in a positive way. She reframed our thinking: “Adversity isn’t an obstacle to get around, it’s part of our life. We adapt.”

Dean Kamen spoke of his passion to build prosthetics for war veterans that are ultimately better than real limbs, imparting super-ability to the wearers.

iRobot co-founder Colin Angle continued the story of augmented reality by demonstrating how robots will become caregivers for elders like his mother. “In 2030, every person under 65 will be responsible for the care of a person over 65,” Colin said. “Can robots help with this?”

Saving lives, restoring functional living: these are inspiring applications of robotics and engineering. I highly recommend watching these three TEDMED talks when they are released.

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2. Best iPhone Apps for Health – David Pogue

On a lighter note, New York Times columnist David Pogue gave his run-down of the top health-related iPhone apps. Here’s his list…

• UHear hearing loss test
• SoundAmp hearing aid through your earbuds
• PeriodTracker menstrual cycle tracker for women (and their partners)
• Lose it! weight loss aid
• Eyeglasses magnifying glass
• Anatomy Lab virtual human dissection
• Epocrates drug reference
• Airstrip OB remote fetal/maternal heart monitor
• Allscripts Remote EHR
• Lifescan glucose monitor

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David’s favorite non-health apps?
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• Twittaround – shows you who is Twittering around you in real time
• Nearesttube – augmented reality shows underground subways in the UK
• Ocarina – your iPhone becomes an instrument

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3. Putting Geo-Medicine in your EMR – Bill Davenhall

Here’s a simple idea that could change the way you manage your health.

Bill Davenhall of ESRI showed annotated maps tracking his place history (everywhere he has lived in his life) and the prevalence of various toxic chemicals. The correlation was striking, and he discovered that the level of toxicity he was exposed to in his life may have been a factor in his recent heart attack. Had he known about this geography-based risk, he might have taken better care of his health.

Bill advocates for a kind of geospatial medicine in which you and your doctor have access to your place history directly in your electronic medical record. I’d like to add this new dimension to my own Quantified Self tracking.
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4. Two Remarkable Women – Kris Carr and Donna Karan

I got to have dinner one night with filmmaker Kris Carr and designer Donna Karan.

Kris is a cancer survivor who runs Crazy Sexy Life, an incredible community and resource to inspire anyone struggling with disease. A self-described “wellness warrior”, she asks the question, “Why, when we are challenged to survive, do we give ourselves permission to truly live?”

Donna Karan took the stage the next day and asked, “How do you find the calm in the chaos and treat the whole patient?” This question is the inspiration for her Urban Zen Foundation, which focuses on wellness, empowering children, and preserving cultures in New York City. There is strong undertone of peace in Urban Zen. I think this model could have a powerful impact if it were replicated across the country and around the world.
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5. Two Remarkable Men – Jesse Dylan and Aaron Rowe

These two guys are among the most helpful, genuine people I’ve ever met.

Jesse Dylan is the creative genius behind such projects as the Obama “Yes We Can” video with Will.I.Am. He is also the founder of Lybba, a non-profit dedicated to bringing patients, doctors, hospitals, and researchers together in a collaborative, comprehensive conversation on the world’s medical knowledge. He started Lybba after his family’s experience with Chron’s disease, and wants to empower patients with the resources they need to make better health decisions. Hooray!

Aaron Rowe is a biochemistry PhD student and writer for Wired Science. He has an insightful stream of tweets @soychemist, and if I could bottle half of his helpfulness, I’d be a happy camper. Watch for great things to come from Aaron. His thoughts on the TEDMED conference can be found here.
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6. Emotional Learning Curriculum for Kids – Goldie Hawn

As a mother of two daughters, I am very grateful for Goldie Hawn’s foundation and the message she delivered from the TEDMED stage.

“We need to rethink our whole approach to classroom education, integrating neuroscience with the latest social and emotional learning techniques. A peaceful, happy child is the first step toward a peaceful world.”

Social/emotional learning is such an important, often neglected area of human development. This approach should be in the hands and minds of every teacher, every parent, and every legislator, to learn ourselves and to share with our children.
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7. What do People Eat? – Peter Menzel and Faith D’Alusio

Documentary photographers Peter Menzel and Faith D’Alusio have published a series of provocative books to make us rethink our perceptions of the world. They tackle food consumption, intelligent robots, eating insects, material consumption, and how women live.

Their newest book, due for release next August, is called What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets. They interviewed 80 people from around the world and gathered together all the food each one eats in a single day. After the photo shoot, they meticulously weighed each item and calculated total caloric content for each person’s day. From the 1300 calorie diet of a caloric restriction/life extension enthusiast to the 6600 calorie diet of a recovering meth addict, the spectrum is broad and fascinating.

I love the visual impact of these books, their global message, and the discussions they inspire among people of all ages and backgrounds.
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8. Building Organs with an Ink-Jet Printer – Anthony Atala

Yes, this is actually being done in the lab of Anthony Atala today. He is the Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina. One of the projects they are working on is building functional, beating heart valves, which they exercise in a bioreactor to help precondition them for implantation.

Anthony showed a video of the regular ink-jet printer they hijacked, using cells to print a heart valve that actually started beating! This was one of the coolest TEDMED demos, for sure.
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9. Visualizing Depression – Alexander Tsiaras

Futuristic medical visualizations from XVIVO and Alexander Tsiaras’ thevisualMD were peppered throughout the conference. One of the most amazing was this one, showing how depression actually causes structural changes in the brain.

From thevisualMD website, “Regions of the brain that may be affected by depression include the ventricles, corpus callosum, hippocampus, and all parts of the limbic system- which is involved with emotion formation as well as processing, learning, and memory.”

Alexander said these visualizations are helping people understand the changes and processes that are happening in their bodies, which results in more patient compliance and hopefully better health.
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10. The Art of the Spoken Word – Sekou Andrews

By far my favorite performance at TEDMED was the opening spoken word piece by the incomparable Sekou Andrews. He elegantly threaded themes from each speaker’s topic into a passionate, soul-bursting anthem engaging the audience to “be well and do good.”

It’s hard to capture in words how electrifying Sekou was, especially from my vantage point in the first row, but I certainly hope I get to see him perform again.
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So these are my top 10 takeaways. Honorable mentions go to HopeLab for the games they are developing to help kids understand and improve their health, and to The Fun Theory for their approach to making behavior change fun.

The TEDMED talks will be available online soon – stay tuned on Twitter @accarmichael and @TEDMED.

I was recently at the Mayo Clinic Transforming Healthcare Symposium to give a talk on how Self-Tracking will change the future of health. Here is an overview of the talk, as well as slides and video…

“The New Wave of Self-Tracking
Ubiquitous, invisible biosensors. Constant, streaming measurements. Analytics for your health.

Detailed self-tracking will transform our understanding of our bodies, our health, and our medicine. Geeks are already tracking everything from calories to blood pressure to steps taken during the day (Quantified Self). People with chronic conditions track their treatments, pain levels, and side effects (CureTogether).

The ultimate promise when this goes mainstream is true personalized medicine, where each person gets a treatment plan individual to their body. It’s an exciting future, and the seeds are being planted now.”

Create a video (under 1 minute) on how you cured yourself, how CureTogether has helped you, or any cure-related theme. The best 20 videos get this beautiful T-shirt!

To enter, upload your entry to YouTube or any video-sharing site by August 13 and send the link to Alexandra at alexandra@curetogether.com.

Good luck!

News Update

CureTogether was also mentioned in these articles recently – many thanks to the authors and readers who keep encouraging this work!

Wired: “Know Thyself: Tracking Every Facet of Life, from Sleep to Mood to Pain, 24/7/365“

Wall Street Journal: “Health Data Proves Contagious on Social Media”

Brainandspinalcord.org: “A Novel Approach to Self-Empowered Healthcare“