Parsing health gizmos

[wtg]

Eric Topol does a deep dive on the new improved Apple Watch.

On September 9th, Apple announced it was revamping its Apple Watch Health Sensing System, rolling out a Readiness score (0 to 10), and increasing the frequency of heart rate variability (HRV) outputs 24-fold. This can be viewed as upping its competition with various other consumer wearable sensors. These “readiness scores” as a composite of multiple metrics, with heart rate variability (HRV) being front and center for most. The majority of Americans are now using wearable sensors, which equates to well over 100 million adults. HRV and Readiness scores are increasingly being marketed as a measurement of autonomic nervous system health, a digital marker for future disease, a clock for biological age, and a holistic metric to promote healthspan and even longevity. (Apple also introduced a new longevity tab and “Health Age”.) None of this has been proven. In this edition of Ground Truths I am going to review what we know about heart rate variability and readiness scores.

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-big-holes-in-wearable-heart-rate?publication_id=587835&post_id=215540121&isFreemail=true&r=1v8sh2&triedRedirect=true

My takeaway: No Apple Watch or other wearable for me. And I'll still eat my ice cream.

[Mik]

I have a Fitbit that I never wear unless I want my heart rate. And that I find pretty unreliable.

[ShiroKuro]

My mother has an Apple Watch, earlier model. The main reason we got is for fall detection. And it seems to work pretty for that. (She fell once recently but thankfully was fine)

I don’t think she uses it for much else health-wise, beyond sort of making a note of how much movement she gets.

I personally do not want a “wearable” of any kind. I already work very hard to keep my phone notifications to a bare minimum, the last thing I want is a notification I can feel on my physical body!

If I’m worried about heart rate etc., I'd rather have a designated device.