All posts tagged: Personalised

Will UK Supermarkets Bring In ‘Personalised Pricing’ Soon?

Will UK Supermarkets Bring In ‘Personalised Pricing’ Soon?

Published by Sam Flores

Recently, the Bank of England suggested that UK supermarkets may bring in something called “dynamic” and “personalised” pricing. It noted some sectors are experimenting with technology “that could enable dynamic pricing in the future, such as electronic shelf labels in supermarkets”. But when HuffPost UK asked the British Retail Consortium, which represents multiple UK supermarkets, whether this is likely, its director of food and sustainability, Andrew Opie, said: “Supermarkets do not use, and have no plan to use, dynamic or surge pricing in their stores.” He added that digital pricing displays, which some supermarkets use, allow retailers to update and check thousands of prices “in an effective way, so they can continue to offer great value for customers”. But what is dynamic and personalised pricing, why do some think it’s coming soon, and why do others call worries of hourly price surges a “fantasy”? What is dynamic pricing? Dynamic pricing involves “frequent, real-time adjustments in response to demand and supply,” the Bank of England said. It’s been used for years in hospitality and air travel. …

Can you determine your personalised stress score?

Can you determine your personalised stress score?

Published by skeptic

Working out what makes you stressed and how much is too much can feel quite subjective. Increasingly, however, technology can help. Most smartwatches can give you a basic reading of stress using your heart rate. A healthy resting heart rate for an adult is between 60 and 100 beats per minute. Cortisol and adrenaline, released when your stress response kicks in, can raise this; a poor ability to recover from stress can keep it raised. Many smartwatches also track heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of the natural variations in time between consecutive heartbeats. When your body is stressed, cortisol and adrenaline trigger a fast and consistent heart rate, reducing this natural variability between beats. When the parasympathetic system kicks in to restore balance, your natural variation increases. Average HRV varies between people, so it is best to use deviations as a way of monitoring your stress levels. Over time, heart rate and HRV can be used to give you a stress “score”, helping you identify certain activities, people or times of the year that …

Personalised medicine is yet to deliver, but that must start to change

Personalised medicine is yet to deliver, but that must start to change

Published by skeptic

Few areas of healthcare have been the subject of more hype, and achieved less genuine good, than personalised medicine. Companies are eager to track your biomarkers or supply a personalised nutrition plan – all for a healthy fee, of course – but truly useful personalised medicine is still a long way off. The idea remains a good one, though. We all differ: in our genetics, in our microbiomes, in every detail of our bodies. And our quirks can make a big difference to our health. Two stories this week exemplify this. Almost all of us will be infected by the Epstein-Barr virus at some point in our lives, but, as we report here, genetic variants mean some of us are less able to expel it from our bodies. This may help explain why the virus is harmless to most people, but may be behind autoimmune conditions such as multiple sclerosis in some. Likewise, some people are resilient to the misfolded proteins that would otherwise cause Alzheimer’s disease. “ It is vital to identify the people …