Entries by Carol Torgan, Ph.D.

Is your activity tracking gadget accurate? Do you care?

  Activity tracking devices are just like real estate: what matters is location, location, location. If you own—or plan to own—a Fuelband, Fitbit, Metria, BioHarness, UP or other fitness tracking gizmo, you should consider whether the device straps to your wrist, clips to your belt, or is embedded in your shoe. Otherwise you may rack […]

Brush Your Teeth, Change Your Life

Guest post by Jill MacNeice I have always been a bit neurotic about my teeth. Perhaps because my mother, who was cursed with weak teeth, put the fear in me that my choppers would drop  out of my head, just like that, if I didn’t brush regularly. Or, perhaps it was my childhood dentist, who […]

Track, Share and Compare: The Hot Trend of Self-Tracking

Self-tracking is rapidly moving mainstream. As if to underscore this point, as I was flying to Las Vegas to deliver this presentation at the American College of Sports Medicine Health & Fitness Summit & Exposition, I reached into the seat pocket in front of me and pulled out the ubiquitous SkyMall magazine. The cover featured […]

Sweating the Myth of the Exercise Pill

It happens almost every time a scientific study is published that shows a new substance appears to have a benefit similar to exercise. Some journalists seem unable to resist mention of an “exercise pill.” Most recently, an article in the journal Nature titled, “A PCG1-a-dependent myokine that drives brown-fat-like development of white fat and thermogenesis,” […]

The Care Innovations Summit Challenges: Crowdsourcing Innovation

in•no•va•tion [in-uh-vey-shuh n] Noun 1. something new or different introduced. 2. the act of innovating;  introduction of new things or methods. When it comes to healthcare and federal agencies, “innovation” is probably not the first word that pops into your head. But that may be rapidly changing, thanks to the Care Innovations Summit. The Summit […]