As a kid I've always loved information
that I could get from data
and the stories that could be told with numbers
I remember growing up I'd be frustrated on
how my own parents would lie to me
using numbers you know.
[?] "I've told you once I've told you a thousand times."
No dad, you've only told me 17 times and twice it wasn't my fault.
I think that's one of the reasons I got a PhD in statistics.
You know I always wanted to know,
what are people trying to hide with numbers?
As a statistician, I want people to show me the data
so I can decide for myself.
Donald and I were pregnant with our third child
and we were at about 41 and a half weeks,
what some of you may refer to as been overdue.
Statisticians we call that being within the 95% confidence interval. [Laughter]
And, at this point in the process
we had to come in every couple of days
to do a stress test on the baby, and this is just routine,
it tests whether the baby is feeling any type of undo stress.
And you are rarely, if ever, seen by your actual Doctor,
just whoever happens to be working at the hospital that day.
So we go in for a stress test and after 20 minutes
the Doctor comes out and he says,
"your baby is on distress, we need to induce you".
Now, as a statistician, what's my response?
Show me the data!
So he proceeds to tell us the baby's heart rate trace went from 18 minutes,
the baby's heart rate was on the normal zone
and for 2 minutes it was in what appeared to be
my heart rate zone and I said,
"well, is it possible that maybe this was my heart rate"?
You know, I was moving around a little bit...
it's hard to lay still on your back,
41 weeks pregnant for 20 minutes...
you know, maybe it was shifting around.
He said "well... we don't want to take any chances".
I said okay..."what if I was at 36 weeks with the same data,
would you decision be to induce"?
Well, no, no I would wait until you were at least 38 weeks
but you are almost 42, there is no reason to leave
that baby inside let's get you a room.
I said... well...
why don't we just do it again?
We can collect more data, I can try to be really still for 20 minutes,
we can sort of average the two and see .... you know, what that means ... (laughter)
and.. he goes,
"Ma'm,I just don't want you to have a miscarriage".
That makes 3 of us.
And he says, "your chances of having a miscarriage double
when you go past your due date, let's get you a room".
Wow. So now as a statistician, what's my response?
Show me the data!
Dude you're talking chances,
I do chances all day long, tell me all about chances.
Let's talk chances. (Laugher)
Let's talk chances.
So I say, ok, do I go from like a 30% chance to a 60% chance?
Like, where are we here with this miscarriage thing?
And he goes..."not quite but it doubles
and we really just want what's best for the baby".
Undaunted, I try a different angle.
I say ok out of 1000 full term pregnant woman,
how many of them are going to miscarry
just before their due date?
And then he looks at me, and looks at Donald then he goes,
"about 1 in a thousand".
I said Ok, Ok, and so of those thousand women,
how many are going to miscarry
just after their due date? ..."About two".
I said ok, so you are telling me that my chances
go from 0.1% chance
to a 0.2% chance.
Ok, so at this ppoint the data is not convincing us
that we need to be induced
and so then we need to have a conversation
about how inductions leads to a higher rate
of cesarean sections and if at all possible we'd like to avoid that.
And then I said, you know,
and I really don't think my due date is accurate. (Laughter)
And so this really stunned him
and he looks sort of puzzled
and I said, well you may not know this
but pregnancy due dates are calculated
assuming that you have a standard 28 cycle
and my cycle ranges, sometimes it's 27
sometimes is up to 38,
and I have been collecting the data to prove it.
And so we ended up leaving the hospital that day
without being induced,
we actually had to sign a waiver to walk out of the hospital.
And I'm not advocating that you not listen to your Doctors,
because even with our first child
we were induced at 38 weeks, cervical fluid was low,
I'm not anti-medical intervention.
But why we were confident to leave that day?
We had data that told a different story.
We had been collecting data for 6 years.
I had this temperature data,
and it told a different story.
In fact, we could probably pretty accurately estimate conception.
Yeah, that's a story you want to tell
at your kid's wedding reception...
I remember like it was yesterday ... (Laugher)...
my temperature was a sizzling 97.8 degrees
as I stared into your father's eyes, oh yeah, (Laughter)
22 more years we're telling that story.
But we were confident to leave because
we had been collecting data.
Now what does that data look like?
Here's a standard chart
of a woman's waking body temperature
during the course of a cycle.
So from the beginning of the menstrual cycle
until the beginning of the next.
You'll see that the temperature is not random.
Right, there clearly there is a low pattern
at the beginning of her cycle
and then you see this jump and then a higher
set of temperatures at the end of her cycle.
So what's happening here?
What is that data telling you?
Well ladies, at the beginning of our cycle,
the hormone estrogen is dominant and that estrogen
causes a suppression of your body temperature.
And at ovulation, your body releases an egg
and progesterone takes over, pro-gestation.
And so your body heats up in anticipation
of housing this new little fertilized egg.
So why this temperature jump?
Well, think about when a bird sits on her eggs...
why is she sitting on them?
She wants to keep them warm,
protect them and keep them warm.
Ladies, this is exactly what our bodies do every month,
they heat up in anticipation
of keeping a new little life form.
And if nothing happens, if you are not pregnant,
then estrogen takes back over and that cycle starts all over again.
But if you do get pregnant, sometime you
actually see another shift in your temperatures
and it stays elevated for those whole 9 months,
that's why you see those pregnant woman
just sweating and hot,
because their temperatures are high.
Here is a chart that we had about 3 or 4 years ago
we were really very excited about this chart,
you'll se the low temperature level
and then a shift and for about 5 days,
that's about the time it takes for the egg to travel
down the fallopian tube and implant,
and then you see those temperature charts go up a little bit.
And in fact, we had a second temperature shift
confirmed with a pregnancy test that were indeed pregnant
with our fist child, very exciting.
Until a couple of days later
I saw some spotting and then I noticed heavy blood flow,
and we had in fact had an early stage miscarriage.
Had I not been taking my temperature
I really just thought my period was late that month.
But we actually had data to show
that we had miscarried this baby,
and even though this data revealed a really
unfortunate event in our lives,
it was information that we can then take to our doctor.
So if there was a fertility issue or some problem
I had data to show,
we got pregnant, our temperature shifted,
we somehow lost this baby...
what is it that we can do to help prevent this problem?
And it's not just about temperatures
and it is not just about fertility,
we can use data about our bodies to tell us a lot of things.
For instance, did you know that taking your
temperature can tell you a lot
about the condition of your thyroid?
So your thyroid works a lot like the thermostat in your house.
There is an optimal temperature that you want in your house,
you set your thermostat,
when it gets too cold in the house your thermostat kicks in
and says, "hey we need to blow some heat around",
or if it gets too hot your thermostat
sort of registers turn the AC on, cool us off
that's exactly how your thyroid works in your body.
Your thyroid tries to keep an optimal temperature
for your body.
If it get too cold your thyroid says we need to heat up,
if it gets too hot, your thyroid cools you down.
But what happens when your thyroid is not functioning well?
But when it doesn't function then it shows up
in your body temperatures,
they tend to be lower than normal and very erratic.
So by collecting this data
you can find out information about your thyroid.
Now, what is it, if you had a thyroid problem and you went to the doctor,
your doctor would actually test the amount of
thyroid stimulating hormone in your blood.
But the problem with that test is
it doesn't tell you how active the hormone is in your body.
So you may have a lot of hormone present
but it might not be actively working to regulate
your body temperature.
So just by collecting your temperature every day
you get information about the condition of your thyroid.
So what if you don't want to take your temperature every day?
I advocate that you do
but there's tons of other things you can take.
You can take your blood pressure, you can take your weight...
yeah, who's excited about
taking your weight every day. (Laughter)
Early on in our marriage Donald had a stuffy nose
and he had been taking a slu of medications
to try to relieve his stuffy nose to no avail.
And so that night he comes and he wakes me up and he says
"honey, I can't breath out of my nose".
And I sort of roll over and I look, and I said, well can you breath out of your mouth?
And he goes, "yes, but I cant breath out of my nose"!
And so like any good wife, I rushed him
to the emergency room
at 2 o'clock in the morning.
And the whole time I'm driving and I'm thinking
you can't die on my now. (Laughter)
We just got married
people would think I killed you!
And so, we get to the ER and the nurse sees us
and he can't breath out of his nose and so
she brings us to the back and the doctor say,
what seems to be the problem and he goes,
" I can't breath out of my nose".
And he said, you can't breath out of your nose? "No"...
but he can breath out of his mouth...(laughter)
OK, he takes a step back and looks at both of us
and he says sir, I think I know the problem,
you're having a heart attack,
I'm going to order an EKG and a CAT scan
for you immediately.
And we are thinking,
no no no, it's not a heart attack he can breathe
just out of his mouth...no, no, no,
and so we go back and forth with this doctor
because we think it is the incorrect diagnosis
and he's like no really, it'll be fine, just calm down.
And I'm thinking, how do you calm down... I don't think he's having a heart attack.
Fortunately for us, this doctor was at the end of the shift.
This new doctor comes in he sees us clearly
distrust with a husband who can't breath
out of his nose.
He starts asking us questions.
He says well, do you two exercise?
We ride our bikes, we go to the gym... occasionally. (Laughter)
We move around. And he says, what were you doing
just before you came here?
I'm thinking, I was sleeping, honestly,
But OK, so Donald goes into the slu of medications
he was taking and he lists,
"I took this decongestant, and then I took this nasal spray"...
and then all of a sudden the light bulb goes off
and he says, "oh, you should never mix
this decongestant with this nasal spray
clogs you up every time.
Here, take this one instead", gives us a prescription
We're looking at each other and I looked at the doctor
and I said why is it that it seems you
were able to accurately diagnose his condition
but this previous doctor wanted to order
an EKG and a CAT scan?
And he looks at us and says,
when a 350 pound man walks in the ER
and says he can't breath,
you assume he's having a heart attack
and you ask questions later".
ER doctors are trained to make decisions quickly,
but not always accurately.
And so had we had some information
about our heart health to share with him
maybe we would have gotten a better diagnosis
the first time.
I want you to consider the following chart,
of systolic blood pressure measurements
from October 2010 to July 2012.
You'll see that these measurements start
in the prehypertension/Hypertension zone,
but over about the course of a year and a half
they move into the normal zone.
This is about the hear rate of a healthy 16 year old.
What story is this data telling you?
Obviously is the data from someone
who's made a drastic transformation
and fortunately for us, that person happens to be here today.
So that 350 pound guy that walked into the ER with me
is now an even sexier and healthier
225 pound guy, and that's his blood pressure trace.
Over the course of that year and a half
Donald's eating changed
and his exercise regimen changed and
his heart rate responded,
his blood pressure responded to that change
that he made in his body.
What's the take home message
that I want you to leave with today?
By taking ownership of your data just like we've done,
just by taking this daily measurements about yourself,
you become the expert of your body,
you become the authority.
It's not hard to do.
You don't have to have a PhD in statistics
to be an expert in yourself.
You don't have to have a medical degree
to be your body's expert.
Medical doctors, they're experts on the population,
but you are the expert on yourself.
And so when the two of you come together,
when two experts come together
the two of you are able to make a better decision
than just your doctor alone.
Now that you understand the power of information
that you can get through personal data collection,
I'd like you all to stand and raise your right hand.
Yes, get it up.
I challenge you to take ownership of your data
and today, I hereby confer upon you
a TEDx associate's degree in elementary statistics
with a concentration in time dependent data analysis
with all the rights and privileges adverteining there to
and the next time you are in your doctor's office.
As newly inducted statisticians,
what should always be your response?
Show me the data! I can't hear you...
Show me the data! One more time...
Show me the data!
Show me the data.
Thank you.