Jeffrey Bland discusses how the Oura Ring tracked his immune response to a COVID-19 vaccine through biometric data. He explains how wearable devices use surrogate markers to measure immune function in real time.
Hi, I'm Dr. Jeffrey Bland and I want to share something with you that I think is very, very interesting.
You know, I'm in that 75 year.
Group and so I had the opportunity to get my Covid vaccination. And this is a discussion not about vaccination, but about what I learned about my immune system. And I think you'll find this kind of interesting. So it turns out that we just recently published an article that's just appeared in the medical literature. In fact, you can Download this from PubMed and print it out if you'd like.
It's called COVID19 Clinical Tools for Assessing and Personalizing Immunity.
And in this article we discuss various ways that one might assess your immune system using different kinds of surrogate markers. Some of these surrogate markers that are built on our physiological status are accessible through new biometric devices. Things that we wear, one that I've been wearing, and the multiple things that over the years is this Oura ring. And, and I want to talk a little bit about what I learned from my Oura Ring experience through this process of vaccination. So to really explain it quickly, let.
Me go to the app that you.
Have on your smart device from the Oura ring. And it tells you kind of each day what your overall aggregate state of fitness is or health.
So just to give you an idea, on Wednesday 27 January it was.
They normally range somewhere between mid-80s to.
90S for me, which I feel good. So on Friday, excuse me, the next.
Day my score was 83. So you can see where it's kind of ranging.
Then at that afternoon I had my.
Vaccination, I had a little bit of a sore arm as the day went on, went to bed, got up the.
Next morning and still sore arm, but no real symptoms. Didn't really feel like I was having any problem. And then I picked up my smart device and looked at my Oura ring score. Yikes. 60. This is the lowest I've ever seen by like 20 points. How did that happen? Well, you have to look inside the algorithm. So what I found was my pulse rate went up at night, my body temperature went up, my heart rate variability.
Went down, and my respiration went up.
Slightly, meaning my body was under stress. Well, how long did it stay? Well then let's go to the next day, some now, 36 hours after I got my vaccine and yikes. 57, my body's still under stress. Now the irony is I'm not feeling sick. I'm going to work. I'm participating in normal day's activities. But clearly my immune system is under stress, as illustrated by these values. Now, what happens the next day? Again, I'm living the same life, living in the same place, eating the same foods. So the next day 81, and then the following day 87. So what does this tell us? It tells us that our body, through these surrogate markers on our biometrics, is telling us how our immune system is functioning. Things that you may never have thought about before. That all of these are surrogate indicators or physiological indicators of our immunological vigilance, which is then when it's immune activated, sucking energy out of our body to support our immune system. And we then see these data in our biometrics well before we would be sick or well before we would actually start to say, oh, I definitely have an immunological problem. So I think this is a very, very interesting part of our emerging story as to how we actually can get a better understanding of our immune system status using tools that are now available again, was my learning curve. I hope I shared with you something that you might find useful as well. Thank you.
