Cardiologist Dr. Tiffany Di Pietro demonstrates smart scales that measure pulse-wave velocity for arterial health, smartwatches that track sleep and blood pressure, posture sensors, smart thermometers, and connected toothbrushes. She explains how integrated health data helps patients spot weight-loss plateaus and cardiovascular changes, but warns that self-diagnosis via these tools can complicate clinical care.
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Welcome back. Well, you love tracking your health, right? Tracking your health just got easier. From your posture to your temperature, high-tech accessories can help you maintain a healthy lifestyle straight from your phone. Joining me right now is board-certified cardiologist, preventive health expert, Dr. Tiffany Di Pietro.
Good to see you, Dr. Di Pietro. Hi, thank you for having me.
Thank you so much for joining us, and I know you're not associated with any of these products. You are a doctor, cardiologist, and we want to get your take on things. Tell us about what's going on in terms of tracking your health. Do you use these things as a doctor?
I do. I use a smart scale every day. I'm kind of obsessed with it. Right before I get in the shower every morning, I step on, check my weight.
These are smart scales?
These are smart scales. This is a Withings and a Philips smart scale. They both do body mass index, fat percentage. They track your, your weight on an app. Each of them have apps, and you can see a graphical kind of representation. You can set goals for yourself. It tells you when you meet your goal. What's cool with the Withings scale is it does something called a pulse wave velocity. It measures arterial health. So the lower the number, actually the more elastic your arteries are and the better. And it changes from day to day, so it really gives you a really good insight into your cardiovascular health.
So how is this different than a regular scale? It's obviously giving you a lot more stuff.
Yeah, so a regular scale just does your weight. So these, this tells you your fat percentage, how much of your body weight is from water, how much is from muscle, how much is from bone.
That's good info.
Yeah, very good info.
Because you want to know how much is from water. I always feel like when, when I lose weight, I'm like, oh, It's all water.
Well, what I tell my patients too is sometimes maybe when you plateau, you say, oh my gosh, I'm not losing any weight, but maybe it's muscle mass. Okay. Right? So maybe you're losing fat, but you're gaining muscle, so your weight's kind of plateauing, but you're, you're better in terms of your health overall.
Okay, so these you can, you can download on your phone.
Yep.
And then you're stepping on it and it's all going right to your phone.
That's it.
That's awesome. Okay, tell me about the other things here.
Okay, so this is a smartwatch. So this is also a Philips product. What's nice about this is all the Philips products products, they have a Health Suite app and they all work together. So when you use your scale and your watch and they have a blood pressure cuff and they all kind of sync together in the same app to give you an overall health.
Isn't that similar like to a Fitbit or something like that?
Similar to a Fitbit. This also tracks your sleep, it tracks your activity without you having to push a button. Automatically. So a lot of these smartwatches you have to tell it when you're being active and this one you don't. It automatically regulates everything.
Does it, does it tell you when you're walking versus biking? A lot of these things they don't track biking.
Yes, this, this one does.
Okay, all right, that's good. And what about these?
Okay, so this is my favorite This is my favorite one.
You say you're getting this for your husband.
Yeah, I didn't say that on national television.
Oh, that's fine.
So all doctors have terrible posture, all of our white coats. They all kind of make a slouch. We carry our iPads, our watches, our senses from the hospital.
So you're all heavy.
So we're all slouching over. This is an awesome little device and it's really not that expensive. It's a little square that goes in your collar and when you slouch over it vibrates and it tells you you need to stand up straight.
Oh my God.
It also tracks how much you're walking throughout the day and your calorie burn as well and you can download it to an app.
So you're slouching and all of a sudden you get a buzz on your jacket and you get a reminder to stand up straight. Stand up straight. That's a really good one. No Contact Smart Thermometer.
My favorite product on the table.
Let's do it.
Yeah. Okay, so I have a— So I downloaded the app. I can do it to myself if you want. So in order to make it work, you do have to download the app. And then once you download it, you put in your name, your date of birth. It tells you, you know, so it knows how old you are and you literally just hit a button. Right. And then you wave it over your forehead. It will vibrate and it gives you 98.9.
Wow!
So without touching it—
Wait, do that again because I don't know that that was on camera. You were just waving it over your forehead.
Waving it over my forehead.
Is that as accurate as other thermometers?
So it's pretty dang accurate. A rectal temperature is the most accurate. I don't think most people want to do that at home. Right. You know, in hospitals we do it, but for what we need for our homes, it's accurate. I'm standing under a very bright light. It's saying 99.4, which is pretty accurate. Wow, that's terrific.
Do you know the price of that?
The price of this is about $100, I think I want to say it's about $180.
Everybody needs one of those.
But what one of my favorite things about it is it also has an app and it links to Boston Children's Hospital. And so you, you put in your age, if you have any other chronic medical problems, and it tells you if you should seek medical advice from a hospital or a doctor.
Incredible, incredible what's happening. It's got to make your life as a doctor easier.
It makes it easier in some ways, makes it a little bit more difficult in others.
What's more difficult?
You know, the Google search, Dr. Google. Google, I think I have cancer and I have a fever type of thing. Oh my God, I'm dying, I'm dying.
Alright, this toothbrush, tell me about that.
This is kind of the— it's cool too, it's a little humorous. So you brush your teeth, it has Wi-Fi Bluetooth capability, it can tell where you brushed and how hard you brushed. So if you look on the box here, for instance for you, it says, "Great brushing, Maria. Try using less pressure next time." Okay.
So just commentary on the way you're caring for yourself, the way you're brushing.
That's overall dental health.
Okay, so you, you love the posture one, you love the thermometer and the scales, and I have a scale, and you have a scale.
Yeah, good stuff.
Dr. Tiffany Di Pietro, thank you.
Thanks for weighing in on all that stuff. We really appreciate it.
Tiffany Di Pietro there. We will see you again tomorrow for more health accessories that link to your phone. We're excited about that. Thanks so much. All right, we'll take a short
