[mountain_peak]

Kind of a silly personal anecdote, but growing up, my father had a unique "strained" nostril breathing pattern and bad sleep apnea + COPD. I became 'hyper aware' of people's breathing patterns - to the point where people at work had fun with it - standing behind me breathing normally. I could identify who it was > 90% of the time (they were not trying to breathe quietly or differently). I often thought of people's breathing signature as sort of factor to identify them by. I certainly didn't think I was the first person to note this.

More interestingly, I'm also able to pick out people who have early signs of "decreased health" based on their breathing pattern at rest - I don't think it's overly difficult.

This study appears to cover both aspects - creating a breathing fingerprint and estimating BMI. I certainly wasn't aware of breathing differences associated with cognitive state. Bravo to the researchers for formalizing all of this - hope some positive interventional techniques are driven by these findings.

[lazyeye]

Recommend reading "Breath" by James Nestor. A surprisingly readable book on the topic

https://www.amazon.com/Breath-New-Science-Lost-Art/dp/B082FP...

[mountain_peak]

Did not know this existed; thanks very much for posting that - even the comments are insightful. Added to my next order!

[tough]

is there any sensor data from stuff like apple health care that could be put into an ML to detect such changes on breathing fingerprint?

[mountain_peak]

Your thoughtful question is definitely along the lines where the research could change health outcomes. Apple Health currently tracks trends over time and can alert if any disconcerting trends are identified. If Apple were able to capture a breathing signature at rest, say once a month, trends could be identified (via training data, as you mention) and data optionally provided to healthcare providers.

Some people who are alone (including my father) have no idea that they have sleep apnea or 'odd' breathing - for apnea, they're obviously asleep, and for other breathing factors, it's usually a slow and unnoticeable progression.

[baby_souffle]

> is there any sensor data from stuff like apple health care that could be put into an ML to detect such changes on breathing fingerprint?

Pixel (all of android?) devices have some sleep-time snoring/breath interruption detection built in.

As far as I know, they do this with just microphone so the apple watch should be able to do this, too.

Plotting the measurements over time would be really cool!