Diet stuff

Discussion in 'The Lounge - Off Topic' started by zxspectrum, Dec 26, 2009.

  1. zxspectrum

    zxspectrum Terabyte Poster Forum Leader Gold Member

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    OK some of you may know that im on dialysis and im waiting for a transplant. One of the main things about being a renal patient is that you have to be careful with your diet as renal failure means that you have to be watching everything that you eat as your body cannot get rid of certain materials.

    ONe of the main problems is potassium and phosphate as the first can lead to heart attacks and the second can make your bones brittle over time. Now with a controlled diet and extra meds you can control this to an extent. But the other day i was thinking when i looked at a package of some food that it had a system whrere the consumer could see what he/she was putting into their system. There is also another system which involves a traffic light set up, red is bad and green is good etc. Now i dont expect a company to change its labelling to help out people on renal diets but i was wondering - and this is where you lot come in for suggestion.

    Could there be a piece of software out there that i could seletc what i have eaten and then get a coloured output like the traffic light system etc to tell me whether im doing good or bad etc. This would then give the patient extra ammo in the fight against kidney disease and if it was good enouigh could be rolled out across the board for other types of chronic conditions.

    Now before i have people shouting at me, im not seeking medical advice here, it is a purely IT situation. Just the problem is that IT and the hospitals are only just really starting to get along and something like this maybe a fair way away??

    I was thinking along the lines of a database setup??? Or could there be something else thats better out there.

    See what you think

    Happy Christmas

    Ed
     
    Certifications: BSc computing and information systems
    WIP: 70-680
  2. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    Is there one at the moment? Not that I'm aware, no.

    Could it be done? easily. However there are some pretty complex considerations around:

    Firstly, it cannot contain information about all food's in the world. Its just impossible really. Every brand of fish fingers has different nutritional levels/ingredients.

    It could, however, ask the user to enter said ingredients/nutritional values for a particular product. But that doesnt necessarily take into account natural ingredients (such as a stick of celery) that you combine to produce a home cooked meal.

    It would also require heavy medical input if it was going to be used as a medical tool. I certainly wouldnt want to be liable for a miscalculation that tells you eating spoonfulls of salt is good for you. Which would also necessitate heavy UAT from both the medical experts, and some users.
     
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  3. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    As always, its been done by some people already. A quick Google threw up a US equivalent
     
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  4. zxspectrum

    zxspectrum Terabyte Poster Forum Leader Gold Member

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    Hey

    Thas a good find that Fergal although is seems somewhat complex. I can understand it but a lot of people who have this condition seem to hate computers so a complex system like that would make them run for cover. You threw up a few good points in regards to how the program would run and i spose one of the main things would be cost, the thing from america is $89, im not sure about the conversion rates anymore but isnt the around £89 nowadays.

    I think it would be better on a meal to meal basis where you put in all the ingredients and then it would approximate what your intake was, and would also work in cinjunction with a printout of results from your biochemistry. This would then act as an indicator as to where your levels were at. Say for instance my phosphate is stupidly above a certain level, for arguments sake lets say its at 50% above the reccomended level and i need to cut down on all the things that contain phosphate, like milk, cheese yoghurt etc. I would then type in what im going to eat and from there id get a red , yellow or green as feedback???

    Ill look more into the link you found and see what software its runnin

    Ed
     
    Certifications: BSc computing and information systems
    WIP: 70-680
  5. Raffaz

    Raffaz Kebab Lover Gold Member

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    Calorie King is a good program, not sure if its exactly what your after though. The only way to truly know what your taking in would involve analysing everything you eat in the labs.

    http://www.calorieking.com/
     
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  6. mallet

    mallet Kilobyte Poster

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    Sorry to hear about this Ed. I have been on and off this forum for some time but what was the health reason that you had to be put on dialysis?
    Take care mate and happy christmas.


    -Mallet
     
    Certifications: MCP
  7. zxspectrum

    zxspectrum Terabyte Poster Forum Leader Gold Member

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    The main reason was high blood pressure, the reason for the high pressure is unknown, i just put it down to work and the stress of work. But you learn new stuff all the time lol

    Ed
     
    Certifications: BSc computing and information systems
    WIP: 70-680

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