Health Trackers

New consumer technology is empowering us to take control of our day-to-day health. Leading tech writer Richard MacManus looks at what is out there now and what is in development, and what this might mean for our health in the future.
Health Trackers tells the story of the rise of self-tracking - the practice of measuring and monitoring one's health, activities or diet. Thanks to new technologies, such as smartphone apps and personal genomics, self-tracking is revolutionizing the health and wellness industries. Through interviews with tech developers, early adopters and medical practitioners, Richard MacManus explores what is being tracked, what tools and techniques are being used, the best practices of early adopters, and how self-tracking is changing healthcare.
The first eight chapters focus on a particular type of, or approach to, self-tracking, for example, diet, daily activity and genetics. The final two chapters look at how the medical establishment is adopting, and adapting to, self-tracking. This timely book covers technologies still early in their evolution but poised to go mainstream, and rather than look at how to use specific gadgets, it focuses on the philosophy and usefulness of self- tracking in its many forms. Many of us are curious about it, but don't understand the benefits (and sometimes risks) of these tools and practices. With no comparable book on the market, Trackers is the first to focus on consumer technologies and to help ordinary people negotiate the new health landscape.

Richard MacManus, is the founder of technology blog readWrite.com. Widely read globally, it focused on the US market and was syndicated by the New York Times from 2008-2011. In 2011, Richard sold readWrite to San Francisco-based saY media and in 2012 left his job there as editor-in-Chief to write this, his first book. As readWrite's founder, he is widely recognized as a leader in articulating what's next in technology and what it means for society at large. He became interested in health technology when diagnosed with type I diabetes and he has written many articles about consumer health products and trends.

Introduction
1: Buster Benson's self-tracking odyssey
2: The pedometer on steroids: tracking activity with Fitbit
3: Diet wars: tracking food with MyFitnessPal
4: The tao of weight tracking
5: How useful is genetics? Me & my 23andMe results
6: Inception: tracking the brain
7: Bacteria nation: tracking the microbiome with uBiome
8: The health dashboard: TicTrac
9: The modern doctor: Dr. Robin Berzin
10: Tracking + medicine: MD Revolution
Epilogue