Latest / Lab to Lives / Bridging the Gender Gap in Medical Research: The Potential of Wearable Technology

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Bridging the Gender Gap in Medical Research: The Potential of Wearable Technology · Lab to Lives

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Transformation in Trials.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Transformation in Trials.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: This is a podcast exploring all things transformational in clinical trials.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Everything is off limits on the show, and we will have guests from the whole spectrum of the clinical trials community, and we're your hosts, ivana and Sam.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Transformation in Trials.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Today, we have Suzanne Sariman joining us, and Suzanne is an innovator in multiple areas.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Today, we'll be focusing on female representation clinical trials, though, and Suzanne, maybe as the very first question to get us started, can you tell us more about what is the proportion of female subjects in clinical trials today?
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Hi Ivana and hi Sam, thank you for having me.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, so this is, of course, a subject that's very close to my heart and I'm going to link it within towards consumer technology as well, as I go through it.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: We all know and I mean you guys have had various podcasts with various guests talking about the subject that there is a gender gap, and we are all fully aware of that, and I think more and more clinical trials are starting to actually have women as part of it.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, the FDA is sort of focused on that now as well, but I do believe that the big gap that has been left over the years is very difficult to fold that fast and specifically on female diseases and diseases that is very, you know, that actually is important to women.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: In specific, I think it's a much slower progression when it comes to the clinical trials.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: There's still, of course, a very strong bias towards men, and this is also because women's bodies have always been complicated, you know, and by complicated I mean we have a four week cycle and I think you know, if we just pause for a minute there, if you think about it, with all the research that's been done over the years, there's been very little done into or looking into.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: You know women's cycles, for example, clinical trials on how does that work?
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: So you get your first sort of menstrual period when you're 12, you have your last one around 51.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: That's 39 years of if you don't understand your body, of not actually being able to empower yourself and using your body to its advantage, which is which is pretty shocking if you think about it it's only now that we start to understand how we need to live and how we need to go about our daily basis.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: You know, within these cycles, understanding what to do each week, how to rest, how to what nutrition to eat, how to recover, how important to sleep, and it's different from men to women.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: I would also say for sure that wearables and you know this is a topic I'm very passionate about can help a lot within the trial space.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: You know I've also worked with a few companies that are focused on Parkinson's disease, where they do some trials and where I've actually supported and helped them with.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: You know how do you track when the patient is not there.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: You know how do you actually start to track and understand what happens when they in the trial and when they're there and when or when they're with a specialist and when they go home.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: So you know to also to get that full, comprehensive story.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: And I think wearables can also help us from the perspective that, with all this huge gap, with, you know, not having women in clinical trials for many, many years, if we start to collect data from women actually, you know, it's a much faster way to close the gender gap than actually relying on pharmaceutical companies you know, needing a billion dollars and 10 years of research to go after each of the very important sort of medical research areas for women, rather than just let's collect some data of about, you know, 100,000 women and let's look at that data and let's see what we can analyze in very specific medical research.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: So that's really for me, a way to also look at this, where clinical trials can also become a mixture, of starting to really use wearables to an advantage.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I have a very obvious question, and that is so for well the existence of the human race.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: We kind of knew that male and female bodies are different.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: How did this occur that we have been ignoring the specific female anatomy for such a long time?
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: It's a great question.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: I think we all, I think all of us as women, sit with that question mark above our heads, right, because if you just look at biology then you can see that our bodies are totally different in the way we operate.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: It's different, I mean women.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: You know it's no secret that we have a cycle and I think that has been.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: I've been reading up a lot, also pre the podcast, about this that women have been perceived as complicated patients because of our cycles, because you could be in your cycle in a going into clinical trial.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Then they didn't really want that and they wanted the body to react in a different way, or maybe the body temperature was too high of that patient.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: So you know.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: So.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Therefore, they then said OK, then let's take small men and put them through as women.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: And we all know that from the great book, you know, invisible Woman, where that has happened a lot in the past.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: But what a lot of people don't realize is the effect that has had on actual also creation of medicines and treatments.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: So you know, I always, always like to tell, to tell real stories about life, and because I'm so integrated in how technology can can actually make our, our lives and our health better.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: I can tell you a story about my mom who got diagnosed with heart disease and she's, she's.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: She's had it for many, many years.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: She's had multiple, she's had a quadruple bypass.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: She and various stents and since, but recently, she got given some heart medicine for one of the veins that was a little blocked and three weeks.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: They said it will take three to four weeks for it to kick in.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: And I had a conversation with her asking how are you feeling?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: You know, is it?
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Is it feeling better?
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Are you?
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Are you less out of breath?
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: And she said to me it's working fine.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: But the only thing is, at 78, my menopause is back.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Oh my God.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: And and I was just in shock and of course you know being in this space, I mean immediately I realized oh wow, the medicine she's on has not been created For her and now it's having an effect where it's actually causing havoc, still in her body.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: I mean postmenopause.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Of course you know she's way beyond that.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: But bringing her menopause back, and you know her comment to me and I think if you and I today would react very differently if this happened to us.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: But you know her comment to me is I'm fine If it solves my heart issues.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I'm fine to have my menopause back and to me that that just gives me that power reinforcement to say I don't want that to happen to myself or to any other woman I know, when we reach the age of 78.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: So I think that is why this is so important, that we need to start looking at how to involve more women women in these, in these clinical trials.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: Suzanne, was that even listed as a possible side effect to this medicine, or is it a complete unknown that it could bring on the menopause again?
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Total unknown wasn't even listed as a side effect because I spoke to her about that and then she asked a doctor about it too, and of course he just kind of smiles oh that's very strange, should we put you on another tablet?
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: But you know, as I was also sort of thinking myself well, probably all of this medicine, because, specifically in the cardiovascular heart disease, because we also know that that works differently in women than it doesn't men, like a lot of women, actually, when they starting to get a heart attack, they get pain in their lower back, whereas men predominantly get it in the left arm.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: So there is this sort of like.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: You know, I think there's a specifically in that space.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I think there's still a huge lack of actually looking at the difference between men and women.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: But no, this was not listed as a side effect.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Now, that's insane.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: And when I also realized that the way that it feels when you get a heart attack differs across men and women, but we basically only teach the male version of what a heart attack feels like to recognize the effects, I was shocked.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I was like, wow, we really need to like the information should at least be equal, that it can look like this or it can look like this and you should react to both situations Exactly We've talked about.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Why is it that we've ended up with experimenting more on male subjects than female subjects?
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: We've talked about that the female body is complicated.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Can there be some sort of?
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Often, the argument that I meet from our industry is to take care of the women or to avoid that.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: These impacts are fertility and things like that.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Could there be some benign reasons for excluding female subjects from clinical trials?
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: Well, of course it depends what you're testing, but I don't think so For me.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: I don't really see that at all as a reason to exclude women.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: In fact, I would go as far as to say, in these clinical trials I would love to also see us starting to wear more wearable devices and, for example, earables.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: In years we'll be tracking from the ear and biometrics because that, even if you, that could have no effects, side effects on your body, right, you're just purely collecting data and it's a much faster way of collecting data, both within trial but also when the actual patient leaves and goes home.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: And if you want to do a separate, you know, to see the difference between when you're in the trial moments and then what happens when you go home, like they do with a lot of diseases, to understand them better.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Of course you know, I think, for me the reason.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: You know, if I look just at yearables and yearning and yearning aids, a topic I'm very close to.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: You know, I've worked in the past with headphones and wanted to merge hearing aids and headphones many years ago and now we're getting at a point where we have these over-the-counter, you know, yearning aids and we're getting smarter about it, but still a long way to go in this space, I believe.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: But imagine where you could track from you, because we all know from your Apple Watch.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Today, if you have your AirPods in, you can, either on the phone or through the watch, it tells you oh, the music is too loud, yeah, so you actually have been listening now for an hour at music at a really high frequency, really loud.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine if you then have a screening test for your yearning, so you have a basis and you understand what your screening is, because we all have yearning lots by now.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: You know, at the stage in our lives I think it's after the age of 25, we all see quite a decline.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Most of us will live fine with it and quite a lot of us will need help as we get older.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: And what could be interesting is then, you know, taking this wearable data, daily wearable data, understanding what you're doing to your ears and actually over a period of X amount of months, you could see oh, wow, that was my yearning screening results in the beginning of the year.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Because I'm still puzzled why we don't just have like an eye health and an ear health screening every year, because I think it's so important, it's our senses, and so you know, and then you can see, with how you live, if you listen to a lot of loud music, if you commute a lot, if you have headphones in your ears a lot, you can actually see the impact and what's happening.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: So imagine actually being that empowered, imagining trials, actually being able also to show you that.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: And you know, here we're talking about some, some yearables and wearables, but I'm very passionate about how we bring this closer into these trials as well, because I think, again, there is there's a lot of data we can collect which is just getting lost and, you know, instead of spending billions as I said, you know figuring this out, this is a fairly easy way to do it and to track it.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: And our wearables and hearables are?
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Are they better designed for the female anatomy and the female body than the drugs that we have?
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: That's a great question.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Well, no, not yet.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: I wish I could say yes, I so wish I could, and this is actually something that I feel we need to change.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: You know very fast.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Of course, there are the wearables in the market.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: I also.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: I like a lot of the wearables that are currently on the market because I like the interface and I like feeling very empowered, understanding what's happening in my body.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: However, you know I'm wearing a product at the moment.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: I show it here on the camera and you know I'm hiding it because I actually don't want people to see it.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: I've put it so high on my arm so it actually sits under everything I wear, and sometimes I actually just take it off because I just don't want to be seen with it.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: But you know, that's, that's kind of a reality.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: I think a product that is a more sort of softer, easier product to wear is the Oro Ring, and I mean Apple Watch is being adopted by a lot more women.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: You definitely can see that, but it's still very masculine.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: I get the comments a lot about from women saying why can't you make me a product that I can wear under my clothes that is hidden, for example, bras?
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Why can't we put sensors there on our bodies, in clothing, and, on the other hand, why can't I have a piece of jewelry that looks like jewelry and doesn't look like tech?
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: So could we start with a product which is not so tech heavy and just gives me less features, because I think women are smart enough to understand if a product is more about design, they will lose features, but I can tell you that in 99% of the time, women are fine with that, but they are not sitting in the rooms where decisions are being made for product design and product development, and and that is, of course, also an area we need to look at right Because we are, as women, we are 50% of the world's population and, as I always love when I sit in these venture meetings and projects and listen to pictures people going femicide, really Okay.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: So products for women, but that's a niche market.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: I love that because 50% of the world's population is the biggest niche market I've ever heard of in my life and I will.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: I will quit everything I'm doing today and focus on that and just do that.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: It is funny, though, because as the mail on the call, identifying blind spots, though, because my immediate reaction is, if I look at a product is look at the look for, like the features basically, as opposed to what it looks like in the aesthetics of the product.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: That's a secondary sort of consideration for me.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: Number one is like what data do I get out of it and what does the app look like for me in terms of the data it represents?
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: So, but and and I was I was blinded to the fact that other people would think differently and after the population, maybe do.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: But, sam, I can tell you something very interesting there.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: So I have done a lot.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: I work a lot with consumer research because I work with various companies helping them actually design products for women.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: So I have been doing more and more of this over the last few years.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Then, looking at partnerships within the tech space, and what I've sort of learned and this is this is consistent across the board when you give a tech product and it doesn't really matter what it could be, it could, let's say, for argument's sake, we give a wearable to a man, the first words that comes out is it's touch of the product or feeling the product and saying how does it work.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: If you give the same product to a woman, you get what does it do for me?
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: And they only look at the products.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: They don't touch the product.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: They don't actually even, you know, spend a second with the product.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: They just go what does it do for me?
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: And I think that is so interesting Because it's two, we're coming from two different worlds what how does it work?
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Versus what does it do for me?
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when you put it like that as well.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: To be honest, the, the female question is more valuable.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: It's like it's outcome based, as opposed to sort of what's in front of your face.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Exactly, yeah, smart.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how could the wearable technology help cause the gap that we have understanding how drugs work on the female body?
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: So, for example, if you look at if you're taking a drug that is related to your body temperature, if you take a drug that's related to your heart rate, if it has an effect, you know, just imagine tracking what it does over a period of time, from when you take the drugs to when you actually, you know, for three or four week period when it needs to start working.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Imagine the impact.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: I would also say, you know, something that is very important to me is actually CGMs, so continuous glucose monitors, because we all know nutrition is such an important and big part of our health in general.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: So you can, you can work on your sleep, you can definitely work on your exercise, moving your body every day, but if you still live like a garbage can, it's very difficult for your body to cope.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: And one of the things that I've started to do some already some years ago was actually having a CGM, you know, once or twice a year to look at my glucose levels, because I love sugar and you know, like everybody else, I absolutely love it.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: And you know, even though I move a lot, my diet can also be quite bad and that I would say wearing a CGM for two, for two weeks, three times a year, has actually showed me so much about my diet that I've actually changed habits, because I saw the result that glucose have in my system and it shocked me beyond the point where I went, wow, okay, I need to do something about this, because seeing stuff visually like that has really had an impact.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: So bringing it back, you know, I really believe that if you, if you're testing whether it's your nutrition, your glucose levels, whether it's actually, you know, your heart rate, respiratory, we cannot test that too.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: It's sort of like it's clear indicators over a period of time where you can see the effect from when you either start certain medicine or when you say, okay, I'm actively going to change, because some clinical trials are also about habit changes.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Right, it's about certain people doing certain things for a certain period of time and how does that have an overall effect on the trial.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: So I really think that you know the engagement here with wearables as part of it, is super important.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: On the CGM just out of interest.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Is there any reason why you wouldn't wear that 365 days of the year?
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: Was there something about like the physical act of having the monitor on you that made it sort of tricky to have around 365 coverage?
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Or was it just for other reasons?
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: I think for me it is exactly what you point out there.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: I don't like having it that long.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: So, and also because you get the ones which diabetics actually wear all throughout the year, which is quite bulky and big and of course it is still.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: It is a small needle that penetrates your skin and the thought of that.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: That was also the first time I wore it.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: I wore it.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: For me it was just.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: It took me like 24 hours to get over the fact that I have a small needle actually sticking into my arm, but then once I forgot about it.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Now I don't even think about it anymore, like I do it now twice a year, because I know the impact this has had on my health and how I eat and how I understand my relationship with sugar a little better.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: So that's why I only do the two weeks when it falls off by itself, the ones you can get like variant super sapiens, so it just falls off by itself.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Would I wear it all the time?
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Would?
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: I?
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Would love to track my blood glucose all the time?
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, but it's not an option yet, right, and we know that a lot of people are not wearing it.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: We know that a lot of people are working on it.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: But yeah, because diet is super important, you know, to anything that you that you're going after from a health perspective.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I think it's a brilliant approach to that specific device.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I've also experimented with it myself and wearing it for prolonged periods of time is just.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: It does impact, like the area where you wear it.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: If not, you can say it's not free.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: It does cost some discomfort to wear it.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: So I really like your approach to just wear it, get the data, calibrate your diet and then move on.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and I did it also for a period of time because, you know, for me I there's actually a very personal relationship here with wearables, and why I got so involved with it is that I actually got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease quite some years ago, in my late 20s I'm not going to give away my age, you know, but, and it has taken me, it has taken me approximately eight years to resolve that disease and actually myself treat myself.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Because the medical world did tell me after my first sort of like course of medicine I had a relapse.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: So I went back into the same state and they wanted to give me radiation.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: And you know, because they didn't have a solution, they told me outrightly that less than 2% of the world's population get this disease and we have no research on it.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: So our option is to give you radiation and to give you a pull for the rest of your life.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: And when I listened to that I already said no, I'm not doing that, that just doesn't sound right.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: And so it took me eight years to really understand my body, understand the nutrition, sleep, relationship, with everything that I had right.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: So and I have to say, wearables have empowered me in that stage.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, I started with the Nike Fuel Band and Jawbone.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: You know these products that were so basic.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: It was just movement and then a little bit of heart rate and and look where we are today.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Today, we are miles, miles ahead, and what I'm still missing is this linking up to.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, here's all the data, and I think some of the wearables are doing it pretty well now, starting to coach you, but it's like what's this, so what?
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Tell me what I should do next.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Guide me, coach me a little bit when you have all this data on me, coach me.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: And I think that is why I'm such a big fan of wearables and yearables and I want to spend sort of you know, rest of my career helping to create these products in a way that's better suited for all consumers and I'm smiling at Sam when I say that, but you know, I think men already have a lot of great products as well already, but, you know, specifically pivoting towards women as well, to say, okay, how do we look at other parts of the body?
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Because I can tell you, you know, some years when I was diagnosed, I would have loved some of the products we have today, because probably would have would have sped up an eight year process.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: You know it would have been faster and I don't want anyone else to take eight years to go through that.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: So yeah, but, suzanne, is that the direction we all need to go in, now that we actually need to become more of an expert in our own body, to be able to use the data that we get from wearables and also to apply it to our own health?
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Look, there's a lot of people who say a lot of.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: I've also had it myself where people say to me you track way too much, susan, do you even understand how you live yourself?
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Or are you only listening to wearables and to tech?
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: And that's fair, because I live a very tech-oriented life.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: But I have to say and maybe I don't expect anybody to wear wearables as much as I do but what I would say is how can you ever use your body to your advantage if you don't understand or have some data that can empower you on your health?
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: And I think for every single one of us, we all have something that we're either a little bit concerned about, worried about we're not feeling too good, and it's for every single one of us.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter whether you're a pro athlete or whether you're just hitting your 20s and starting to have a much busier lifestyle.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: I think we all have this kind of something that we want to work on.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: And just by starting to understand a little bit more and empowering yourself with some data whether that's tracking your sleep, understanding how much you're moving, understanding then your recovery, your heart rate variability, which you can tell so much from, like your stress levels I mean it's incredible what you can tell just from that one biomarker.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: So, I have to say, for me it feels like pure empowerment, because I know so much about my body and I do feel that every single human being needs to have a responsibility for themselves and their own health.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: I think we have become very reliant on governments will take care of us, especially in countries or parts of the world where the government do have a good health system in place for everybody and if I feel bad, I just go to the doctor.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: I feel we've passed that and I think we can see that also because of the food we eat and it's making us more sick and we need to start understanding what we're doing to ourselves every single day and we all have a responsibility, just like we have a responsibility for the environment.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: I think for you to get up in the morning and take care of the environment this is always what I say To have that energy, it starts with you.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Start with you taking care of yourself, understanding your own health, because I always say, someone who doesn't feel good probably doesn't have the energy for the environment or actually living a sustainable lifestyle.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: So it's something I know sometimes, but I really think about this a lot, because if you feel good about yourself and you're empowered in your health, I just think everything becomes slightly easier.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Well, suzanne, I'm totally with you.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: What do you think are the real kind of challenges to wider adoption of these wearable devices, then?
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: And obviously you talked about one aspect, and that was kind of the design and the fact that they were focused purely on well, a lot of them focused on males.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: What else are you thinking about?
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: Is there things around data privacy, for example, that people are concerned about, because that's something that I've heard in the past that perhaps people are a little worried about the amount of data that's being generated and who is using that data, for the reasons that they may not have given consent for?
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: No, of course, the data part, and we also knew that from.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of areas where the data part comes up, but I think everybody's trying to ensure that that data stays locked in.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: Look, there's over a billion body sensors we call it sensors on the body today and it's ticking over every day.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: So that is to me that's a positive sign, because I feel like I've been talking about body sensors since 2009 and here we are in 2023.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: And having over a billion sensors on people's bodies is quite amazing.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: On the data privacy I see that too, because I know people are concerned.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Wow, okay, so if I share this data with, if I have it, can it be shared with an insurance company and can that count against me?
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: I know that's a very, very big concern for a lot of people, but I can also tell you that, knowing an insurance company and actually in the Eucalyptus Vitality Health, where you do share your wearable data with your insurance company like how active I am, how am I shopping, what kind of food am I eating then you actually get rewarded for that and you get rewarded in a way where you pay less, you get more options to health products and your insurance level goes up and up.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: So you get a yearly screening for free if you get to a certain level and that works much, much more in your advantage, if you see what I'm saying, rather than not having that and you start to linger into this prevention stage and I think a lot of health insurance companies this is where they want to go, this is where they should be going is this prevention, and we all should go there.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: But of course, to get there, you need to share something because that's the only way.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: So I think it's still tricky, like with everything, even with social media and all the areas where we have this data privacy problems.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: I think that is that 100% perfect at this stage?
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: I do not think so, and it still worries certain people.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: But for me, the benefit of actually sharing that with a provider who I work with and showing them how I live my life and then getting as an advantage certain health screenings helping me with prevention I see the value in that.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: Totally agree.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I like the idea of using the data to lower bills as well.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, I've always said you know, this is an interesting one.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: you know credit cards, so you always get points on your credit cards okay, a lot of us get points or you get some advantages or whatever.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: And what I've said is where is my advantages for living a healthy lifestyle?
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: So I spent a lot of money on, you know, on healthy and activities.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: I'm going to barries, I'm doing all kinds of different things and I'm like the credit card company can see this.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: So I'm like, okay, but reward me for that.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: And we're not quite there yet.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: But I would love to spend my money on more health and because, you know, health is wealth, as they say.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: And if you're healthy, you probably will live longer and you will be better.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: You know you would also be a better client from that perspective.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: So so I'm sort of for me that connection somehow just doesn't hasn't quite happened yet.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: So I agree, but what am I?
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: This may already exist.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: You might be able to tell me if it does or not but often my I think the disconnect for me when it's come to wearables is everything is very convenient in terms of activity tracking, sleep tracking, etc.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: The food part of things has been challenging, and I don't even know if this would even exist, but something that makes it seamless for you to catalog what you eat without doing like laborious diary type entries, some kind of connect, even like a digital connection to your fridge, or they come across some technology that just makes it seamless, so that you pick something out of your fridge and it just links in with the wider ecosystem.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: When they do that, I think they'll crack the code.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Maybe they've done it already, but yeah, what are your thoughts about that?
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think your kitchen will become an area which will become all about your health and your nutrition, right.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: So so I totally agree with you.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Every time you open that fridge, I'm one of these people I can open the fridge and just stare into it.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: I think we all do it, but at least I openly admit to doing that right.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: But the thing is sometimes when people say to me, so what have you eaten today?
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Then I'd be like, oh well, I had a banana and then I had some this and then you forget some of the other things.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: So something you're right, which can log every time you take or you open a cupboard or something like that.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: But that doesn't exist today.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: You still have the CDs where you have to keep a journal.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: You write it down and most of us, let's be honest, we don't write exactly how many coffees we have, you know you just don't journal like that.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: But but there is.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: This is where I would say to you if you haven't, try us, try a CDM, because every time you eat and you and in the UK, you can get the super sapiens, which is actually it's real time.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: So when you take a sip of your coffee, you see on the app what it does to your glucose, then you can see okay, now I've had lunch, so obviously you have.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: You see a spike depending on what you're eating, and then you can go for a walk and then see how the effect that has on your glucose.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: So so you don't yes, you not and you can then keep a journal of your own food, but we all know we don't do that.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: But for me that's been the biggest habit changer understanding how food impacts my glucose and why.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Because I'm a high energy person already and it's like also craving for sugar and needing that.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: You know sugar sort of rush, and I've sort of now been.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: I can actually sustain a full day without needing sugar in the afternoon and it's just.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: But through understanding, like building up energy during the day.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: So I think, try that, sam, and give it a go.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: But I agree with you, I do think our homes in general kitchen super important to our future health, as well as our bathrooms, right when we wake up in the morning, you know.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: And and then how can we start to integrate these rooms into our daily lives?
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Well, we are about to start rounding off this episode, Suzanne, and I would be curious to hear your take on this question that we always ask our guests, and that was if we gave you a magic wand and you could change one thing in our industry and this may be life sciences, this may be health in the broader terms.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: What would you wish for?
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, I would wish for an absolute sort of like, whole variety of wearables on the market for, from younger age, children with diseases, with nutrition diseases, women for women specifically on the body, think about brass, smart brass, and all the way also for men.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: You know, alerting men when they're not feeling good, and you know they don't have a tendency of not going to the doctor too often and checking their bodies.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Somehow a lead system, somehow wearable, to say you now have to go, you need to get checked.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I, you know, my sort of dream and wish in the world is that we will all have a sensor on our body that will tell us how we're doing.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: And I and it's not because I want to track people and it's got nothing to do with that For me it's purely about prevention, I think preventative health, you know, having having been diagnosed with disease that took me eight years to understanding my body and changing things significantly to get to a point now where I'm cleared of it without medical intervention, you know I would have loved something that could have helped me prevent that from happening.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: So I really believe in this sort of prevention and for me, the way, the way there is senses on the body, and then I wish that would be the thing I would wish for us that we just have a variety of options.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: So, however we want to track whichever part of our bodies you want to track, whichever biomarker we after make it very easy and simple for us to track.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: That I think we're going there.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: It makes me very, it makes me smile every day, and knowing that there is a billion senses on people and it's everything from health tracking to prevention to sport, to the point is it's doing, it's a sense that's actually doing something for the greater good, and that makes me smile and very happy.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: That is amazing, a good wish, and I hope that it does come true.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Suzanne, where can I listeners get in touch with you for follow up questions or more information?
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: So you can find me I'm just Suzanne Sariman on LinkedIn and also on Instagram, my two sort of major channels that you can find me Also.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: well, thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: It was great to talk to you both.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: You're listening to transformation in trials.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: If you have a suggestion for a guest for our show, reach out to Sam Parnell or Ivana Rosendale on LinkedIn.
• 38:34
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• 38:40
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