What happens when a medical tradition thousands of years old meets 21st-century wearable technology? In this solo episode of Growing Older Living Younger, Dr. Gillian Lockitch explores that question through her personal experience with the Watch2Care smartwatch, a wearable that tracks contemporary physiological data while presenting its findings through a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) framework. As a Western-trained physician and medical biochemist, Dr. Gillian was intrigued—but also skeptical—when her watch displayed unfamiliar scores associated with the TCM concepts of heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys. Studying her scores led to an important distinction: the watch is not directly measuring these organs or diagnosing organ function. It tracks 38 physiological metrics and uses an AI-based platform to transform those data into functional indicators interpreted through a TCM-derived framework. It looks at scores in 5 system concepts - heart, lung, liver, spleen and lung.These do not equate to anatomical organs but to TCM functional systems that add to an overall wellness score. This episode explores the difference between what a wearable actually measures and what an algorithm subsequently infers, why trends may be more useful than isolated numbers, and how curiosity and critical thinking can help us use increasingly sophisticated health technology intelligently. The central question: Can wearable technologies help us understand our bodies better without allowing algorithms, scores and increasingly abundant health data to confuse—or control—us?
Episode Timestamps
00:30 — When ancient Traditional Chinese Medicine meets modern wearable technology
06:05 — Understanding TCM functional systems and the five elements
08:00 — Western medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine: two different interpretive frameworks
10:00 — Tracking patterns rather than relying on a single measurement
11:56 — When more health data creates confusion rather than clarity
14:00 — Why wearable wellness scores should not be treated as medical diagnoses
17:01 — Your Ageless Action: choose one meaningful metric and follow the trend
20:00 — Curiosity, critical thinking and what is coming next for healthy aging.
Your Ageless Call to Action:Choose one metric from a smartwatch, fitness tracker, sleep tracker, scale or other health-monitoring device and follow its trend to see what improves or makes things worse. It might be your resting heart rate, sleep duration, number of steps or another measurement meaningful to your healthy aging. Then ask yourself -Is there one small behavior I could change?
Your Longer-Term Healthy Aging Objective: Over the coming months, learn to recognize patterns in your own health data and relate them to changes in sleep, activity, nutrition, stress, illness, travel and daily routines.The objective isn't to achieve perfect numbers. It is to know yourself better and use information intelligently to support the larger goals of protecting your brain, body, resilience, independence and quality of life.
About Dr. Gillian Lockitch: Email her at askdrgill@gmail.com to schedule your personal conversation about aging youthfully.Dr. Gillian Lockitch is a physician, medical biochemist, professor emerita, researcher, author, international speaker, entrepreneur and host of Growing Older Living Younger. She translates the science of healthy aging into practical strategies designed to help people protect their brain, body and independence as they grow older. She is the author of Growing Older Living Younger: The Science of Aging Gracefully and the Art of Retiring Comfortably and an independent Brand Affiliate with Nu Skin, a global integrated beauty and wellness company. Her entrepreneurship complements her longstanding interest in healthy aging, wellness, lifelong learning and helping people take an active role in how they age.
All information provided in the Growing Older Living Younger podcast and project is for education and entertainment purposes only, and must not be construed as medical advice. Discuss any changes that you plan with your appropriate health care professional.