1. Rethink obesity and diabetes. Not a dry eye in the house after Peter Attia, MD, got finished with us. He recalled his pre-op exam of an obese patient with type 2 diabetes prior to her leg amputation. Attia’s gut-wrenching honesty shocked us: He admitted to holding the patient in contempt for letting herself get so fat. Attia said he couldn’t empathize with this desperate woman who was about to have her leg chopped off.   As he tells his story, Attia is sobbing. And so are we. “I never questioned the conventional wisdom,” Attia said. He’d assumed, as most people do, that being overweight causes metabolic syndrome (the complex of symptoms, including high blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol, that can lead to type 2 diabetes). Conventional wisdom says that people become overweight when they’re undisciplined about diet and exercise. But maybe obesity is the response to metabolic syndrome—not the other way around, Attia says.   Attia poses this metaphor: Picture a sudden epidemic of bruises afflicting millions and millions of people. “What if we thought bruises were the problem? What if we started treating bruises aggressively, but did nothing to help people avoid bruising? Blaming obese people is blaming the victims. Let’s accept the possibility that our thinking is wrong. I think back to that patient, and I want to say, ‘I’m sorry I let you down—I’m sorry our system let you down.’ ” Check out Attia’s blog here. 
  2. Your smartphone can give you a physical. Otoscopes that see into ears, stethoscopes, blood pressure monitors, ultrasound wands, heart monitors, spirometers (to measure breath function), and eye scopes—now, your doc (or in some cases, you) can plug devices like these right into your iPhone and take essential readings. So heart patients could send their latest stats to their doctor without the need for a visit. Folks with breathing disorders like asthma or COPD could monitor important changes. In development, a skin scope lets you capture images of suspicious moles and send them to your doctor. That’s just for starters. Learn more here. 
  3. Online activity may predict our health. One day, we may find evidence of your chronic disease long before your doctor catches it—by mining your online history, says Deborah Estrin, a professor of public health at Weill Cornell Medical College. She says that we leave tracks with the mobile and digital technology we use—“breadcrumbs that form digital traces.” How does that predict disease? Once we perfect the technology to decode this “small data,” we’ll be able to see how your digital tracks reflect your health. Think posts like: “Ugh, couldn’t get out of bed today” or “Woot! Nailed that 5K!” Online silence counts, too, as it could potentially signal depression, for example. “Chronic disease changes are subtle and play out in day-to-day activities and behavior that show up in our interactions with social media and online,” says Estrin. All we need now are the programs to figure it all out. Interested? Learn more here. 
  4. Oklahoma City’s got a really cool mayor. If Mayor Mick Cornett was chagrined to discover he’d become obese (at 220 pounds), he was horrified when his beloved hometown landed up on a list of America’s fattest cities. Springing into action, he put OC on a diet, and challenged citizens to lose one million pounds. That was in 2008. He made OC fitness-friendly by building hundreds of miles of sidewalks and bike paths, worked with restaurateurs to create healthier menus, and added parks and riverfront sports. In 2012, he and the city celebrated—at the Oklahoma City Zoo’s new Elephant Pavilion—when they hit that million pound mark (the equivalent, if you’re counting, of 100 elephants). Click here for inspiration for your town.
  5. Richard Simmons rocks! When I saw this veteran weight loss guru—he of the spangly singlets and shiny short shorts—on TEDMED’s speaker roster, I thought, what’s up with that? Really old think for this techie crowd. I was so wrong—this Sweating to the Oldies pro totally’s got game. He had the crowd laughing hysterically—and crying—and up on their feet (and up on the stage!) dancing and carrying on. For the rest of the week, Simmons was the talk of TEDMED. He was so inspirational that I’m persuaded to pick up one of his exercise DVDs myself. Unquestionably, Simmons is the Pied Piper of fitness fun.
  6. Your dosage may be wrong. Steve Gullans, PhD, is a former faculty member at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital who’s published more than 130 scientific papers. He says that just 30% of people who take cancer drugs benefit from them; 70% are non-responders. Half of all drugs we use fail because dosages aren’t managed properly for individuals; under- and over-dosing is common. Since so many physical factors play into dosages, you need blood tests and therapeutic drug monitoring to know whether or not a drug is working for you—so discuss getting tested during your treatment with your doctor.  
  7. Get your son to watch this video. Zubin Damania, MD is director of health care development at the Downtown Project in Las Vegas. And he’s a stand-up comedian/rapper whose side-splitting presentation about quitting his high-paying doctor gig in Los Angeles to head up a health care center for the poor in Vegas had TEDMED in stitches. As his alterego, ZDoggMD, he makes funny (some more so than others) health videos. Moms of teens/young adult males: Send a link to ZDoggMD’s YouTube video about self-checking for prostate cancer to your sons. I promise, it won’t make them squirm.    Get your own first-person TEDMED experience September 10–12, 2014. For the first time you’ll be able to watch live from San Francisco as well as from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. For more information, visit TEDMED.com. *Updated April 2014