SMARTWATCHES could be a handy way to monitor your heart health, new research claims.
American scientists developed a new way to assess heart health based on information routinely collected by the gadgets.
Heart rate per step may be a more accurate indicator of well-being than total steps per day, they said.
The team found that dividing the average daily heart rate by number of steps taken per day provides a more reliable indicator of a person’s cardiovascular fitness, compared with either heart rate or step count alone.
Study lead author Zhanlin Chen said: “The metric we developed looks at how the heart responds to exercise, rather than exercise itself.
“It’s a more meaningful metric because it gets at the core issue of capturing the heart’s capacity to adjust under stress as physical activity fluctuates throughout the day.
“Our metric is a first attempt at capturing that with a wearable device.”
While screening tests can provide early warning of heart disease risk, many people might not take up screening offers.
But researchers say that taking advantage of the information collected by smartwatches could offer a new way to identify people at higher risk and encourage them to speak with a doctor.
The team analysed data from more than 6,000 American adults who provided data from their Fitbit and electronic health records to the All of Us research programme.
Calculating the relationship between participants’ average daily heart rate per step (DHRPS) and a range of cardiovascular outcomes, data showed that people with elevated DHRPS were around twice as likely to have type 2 diabetes and 1.7 times as likely to have heart failure.
They were also 1.6 times as likely to have high blood pressure and 1.4 times as likely to have coronary atherosclerosis – a build-up of plaque in the heart’s arteries – compared with people who had lower DHRPS.
[bc_video account_id=”5067014667001″ application_id=”” aspect_ratio=”16:9″ autoplay=”” caption=”Millions at risk of ‘silent killer’ that triggers heart attacks and stroke – as doctors warn it’s 3 times more common than feared” embed=”in-page” experience_id=”” height=”100%” language_detection=”” max_height=”360px” max_width=”640px” min_width=”0px” mute=”” padding_top=”56%” picture_in_picture=”” player_id=”default” playlist_id=”” playsinline=”” sizing=”responsive” video_id=”6361836767112″ video_ids=”” width=”640px”]No relationship was found between DHRPS and the risk of a stroke or heart attack.
The results also showed that DHRPS was more strongly associated with cardiovascular disease diagnoses than either daily heart rate or step count alone.
Based on their findings, the researchers suggest that DHRPS could be used as an early indicator of who might benefit from more screening tests or cardiovascular conditioning to improve their heart’s functioning.
Mr Chen, a medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, said the metric is simple enough that a person could calculate it on their own based on the data collected by a smartwatch, or it could potentially be built into smartwatch apps.
He added: “Wearables are welcomed by the consumer and worn throughout the day, so they actually have minute-to-minute information about the heart function.
“That is a lot of information that can tell us about a lot of things, and there’s a need to further study how this detailed information correlates with patient outcomes.”
But Mr Chen noted that the study design meant researchers couldn’t tell if the Fitbit measurements were taken before or after patients’ heart disease diagnoses.
The team hope to conduct more research, measuring DHRPS minute by minute instead of using daily averages.
With some refinement, Mr Chen said that DHRPS or a similar metric could ultimately be incorporated into the standard heart disease risk assessment used by doctors.
He is due to present the findings at the American College of Cardiology’s annual scientific session in Chicago on Saturday March 29.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a general term for conditions affecting the heart or blood vessels.
It’s usually associated with a build-up of fatty deposits inside the arteries – called atherosclerosis – and an increased risk of blood clots.
It can also be associated with damage to arteries in organs such as the brain, heart, kidneys and eyes.
CVD is one of the main causes of death and disability in the UK, but it can often largely be prevented by leading a healthy lifestyle.
It comes after researchers used smartwatch data to predict people’s likelihood of getting dementia.
The study found that information such as walking speed and step count could shed light of dementia risk, as people who walked more regularly and at a faster pace were 40 per cent less likely to be diagnosed with dementia or cognitive decline.
People’s bedtimes – also recorded through fitness trackers – were found to be a predictor of dementia too, as those who went to sleep before 9pm and slumbered for over nine hours had a 60 per cent higher risk of the brain-robbing disease.