As we open our first Ripple funding round this month, the wearable tech market is currently valued at $93bn and $5.6tn is spent on wellbeing globally.
We all want to better understand how to manage our personal wellbeing, fitness and health and with Ripple, we’ve developed an innovative and cost effective way to do so.
Wearable technology is rapidly shaping the future of healthcare, enabling proactive, personalised, and data-driven personal health management.
From wearable technology like Ripple to fitness trackers and smartwatches to advanced biosensors and implantables, wearables provide continuous health data and insights that could transform how we manage our health.
Here are some of the primary reasons why wearables are seen as a significant and transformative part of the future for personal healthcare:
1. Real-Time Health Monitoring
Wearables like Ripple allow continuous physiological monitoring. In our case, this includes rapid, needle-free measurements for 3 significant areas:
- Blood sugar levels and associated insulin response
- Baseline and exercise lactate levels
- Internal tissue hydration
This real-time data is invaluable for both individuals and healthcare providers, helping to catch irregularities early and allowing for immediate intervention. For people with chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, or hypertension, real-time monitoring could even be life-saving.
2. Preventive Health and Early Detection
Wearables can detect subtle changes in our health that may signal the onset of an illness. For example, we can monitor changes in blood sugar and how our body responds to what we eat and drink over time.
By identifying potential health issues early, wearables can enable preventive actions and reduce the need for more extensive treatment down the line.
It’s no wonder that health wearables are part of the UK government’s 10 year plan to prevent illness and save the NHS.
3. Reducing healthcare costs
By enabling early intervention, remote monitoring, and promoting healthy behaviours, wearables can help reduce the frequency of hospitalisations and medical interventions.
This has the potential to decrease overall healthcare costs, benefiting both patients and healthcare systems. For example, the ability to monitor cardiac patients remotely has been shown to reduce hospital readmissions, which are costly for both patients and insurers.
A recent Times article written by Robert Colvile took this narrative even further. “Doctors can only treat the patients in front of them. If Britons eat better and drink less, it could save the health service hundreds of billions of pounds”.
To which we say ‘The only way to know what’s good for you is by measuring your response to the foods you choose to eat’
4. Personalised Healthcare
Wearables generate a vast amount of personalised data, allowing for healthcare recommendations tailored specifically to each person’s needs.
Machine learning algorithms can analyse this data to provide insights on lifestyle, dietary needs, exercise, and stress management, creating a holistic, personalised health profile.
Whatever age you are, getting to grips with the mechanics of your own body is fundamental to improved health. Not understanding how our bodies respond to what we eat, drink, how we move and sleep and importantly, how our bodies uniquely respond to all of the above, is already having devastating consequences.
5. Encouraging Healthy Behaviour
Ripple provides real time feedback on health metrics that help encourage healthier habits.
For example, as we age, maintaining our health and vitality becomes increasingly important. Whilst diet, exercise, and sleep often take centre stage in discussions about healthy ageing and longevity, one fundamental aspect is sometimes overlooked: hydration.
Proper hydration is crucial for supporting healthy ageing and overall well being. Ripple is unique in measuring nutrition, activity and hydration. Maintaining a healthy balance between these three elements has a direct impact on wellbeing and healthy behaviour.
6. Enhancing Mental Health Management
Mental health management has benefited significantly from wearable technology, with devices now able to monitor a range of factors including sleep patterns.
We know that poor sleep contributes to stress and fundamentally, what we consume contributes to the quality of our sleep, which in turn correlates with mental wellbeing.
For example, the nutrients we consume can influence our sleep patterns and overall sleep quality. The glucose required to regulate energy levels throughout the day is also essential for setting the stage for a restful night’s sleep.
Consuming complex carbohydrates earlier in the day, and balancing our intake with activity, helps stabilise blood sugar levels, preventing spikes and crashes that can disrupt restful sleep patterns.
The real-time data from your Ripple will enable you to balance your nutritional intake with your activity, helping to optimise the quality of your sleep.
A Wearable Future
Overall, wearables represent a powerful tool in the movement toward a proactive, personalised, and data-driven healthcare system.
It's about changing the way we think about our health. Because a staggering 90% of poor health can be attributed to risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, poor diet and physical inactivity - and stress. And it’s all preventable. We just need to understand how.
As technology advances and more people adopt wearables, they will likely become an essential part of daily health management and clinical practice, shaping a future where health monitoring is continuous, holistic, and seamlessly integrated into our lives.