Having trouble logging in? Sign up for a free account Get unlimited access on Medscape. Cue measures vitamin D and fertility, brings lab testing to your home Wearables like FitBit and the Jawbone UP have encouraged our love of personal statistics, but they're currently limited to steps taken, distance walked and a handful of other relatively simple metrics. And while some gadgets can monitor your heart rate, what about things like inflammation and vitamin D levels? Enter Cue, a 3-inch device that specializes in measuring these and several other stats, including testosterone levels and influenza. It's available for a special pre-order price of $149 starting today, and it's expected to ship in spring 2015 under the FDA's investigational devices exemption. That's a long way away, but as someone who hates the doctor's office, I'm intrigued by the idea of bringing lab tests into the home. Jump past the break for a closer look. Developed by a San-Diego based technology company of the same name, the Cue comes with single-use cartridges that measure fertility, testosterone, influenza, vitamin D and inflammation.
(Those are the currently available tests, though additional ones will be added further down the line.) You add a droplet of saliva or blood -- or a nasal swab -- and the device analyzes your sample, sending information to an app on your smartphone via Bluetooth 4.0. The idea is that you'll perform tests several times to monitor your health, and Cue's app will show you charts that display your progress.Beyond just tracking inflammation and testosterone levels, though, the system will offer you recommendations based on your results. This kind of information is what makes the future of health-tracking devices so exciting, after all; beyond just monitoring how many calories you've burned, gadgets will soon analyze our data to let us know when we need to hit the gym or get a few more hours of sleep. We've already seen this functionality in devices like the Jaybird Reign, but a sophisticated device like the Cue, complete with various cartridge tests, promises to be even more insightful.Cue's makers, Ayub Khattak and Clint Sever, emphasize that the gadget isn't meant to replace your doctor.
Instead, the home tests empower you in managing your health, and they could inform your conversations when do visit a physician. The potential benefits are especially clear when considering the fertility cartridge test: tracking your Luteinizing Hormone helps in planning when to conceive, and if you can get that information without a trip to the lab, all the better.Again, the Cue isn't set to launch until next year, but the company is kicking off pre-orders today. The first 1,000 buyers will get theirs for $149, while the remaining units will go for $199. Check out the source link for more info. From around the web ear iconeye icontext fileCan Too Much Vitamin D Be Toxic? As more Americans take vitamin D supplements, there has been concern that more people could experience toxic effects from very high vitamin D levels. But a new study shows that people rarely experience harmful side effects when taking large amounts of vitamin D. Researchers analyzed information from more than 20,000 vitamin D blood tests performed on people living in Rochester, Minnesota, and the surrounding area over a 10-year period.
They looked to see how many people had "high" vitamin D levels, defined as levels over 50 nanograms per milliliter. (Normal vitamin D levels are between 20 and 50 ng/mL.) About 8 percent of the people had vitamin D levels over 50 ng/mL, but 0.6 percent had even higher levels, over 80 ng/mL, and 0.2 percent had levels over 100 ng/mL. The researchers also found that the proportion of people with high vitamin D levels increased considerably during the study period — from 9 per 100,000 people in 2002 to 233 per 100,000 people in 2011. This spike is likely due to an increase in people taking vitamin D supplements, either because a doctor prescribed them or because they decided on their own to take them, the researchers said. Despite this increase, the people in the study rarely experienced hypercalcemia, or high blood calcium levels that can occur as a result of high vitamin D levels. The condition can cause weakness, vomiting and kidney problems, and is the main side effect of high vitamin D levels.
In fact, there was no link between people's vitamin D levels and their blood calcium levels. [9 Good Sources of Disease-Fighter Vitamin D] "We found that, even in those with high levels of vitamin D over 50 ng/mL, there was not an increased risk of hypercalcemia, or elevated serum calcium, with increasing levels of vitamin D," study co-author Dr. Thomas D. Thacher, a family medicine expert at Mayo Clinic, said in a statement. The study identified just four cases over the 10-year period of people who had hypercalcemia associated with high vitamin D levels, and three of those were mild cases in which people did not have symptoms. (In those three cases, the condition was revealed only by the blood test.) There was just one case of true vitamin D toxicity, in a 51-year-old woman who had vitamin D levels of 364 ng/mL. The woman had taken 50,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D per day for three months, along with calcium supplements, and went to the doctor with weight loss, vomiting and confusion.