Lifestyle
Unlock Heart Health: How Your Smartwatch Becomes Your Personal Monitor
Smartwatches have become ubiquitous in today’s society, offering a wealth of information at our fingertips. Beyond tracking steps and heart rate, recent scientific research suggests these devices could play a crucial role in assessing cardiovascular health risks.
Heart disease has long been the leading cause of death in the United States, surpassing the fatalities from chronic lower respiratory disease and all cancers combined, according to the American Heart Association. Alarmingly, nearly half of the American population suffers from high blood pressure, with 38 percent unaware of their condition.
The advent of smartwatches might change this narrative by enhancing awareness of heart health. A recent study introduces an innovative approach to monitoring heart health using these devices. The research suggests that the optimal way to assess cardiovascular fitness is by calculating the Daily Heart Rate Per Step (DHRPS), which involves dividing your average daily heart rate by your daily steps.
“The metric we developed looks at how the heart responds to exercise, rather than exercise itself,” stated Zhanlin Chen, a medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and the study’s lead author. He will present these findings at the 2025 American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session.
Chen further elaborated, “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.”
The study analyzed data from 7,000 U.S. adults, using Fitbit information and digital health records from the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us research program. This extensive analysis covered 5.8 million people/days and 51 billion total steps.
The findings revealed that individuals in the top 25th percentile for DHRPS, labeled as having “elevated DHRPS,” were at a higher risk for cardiovascular events compared to their peers. Specifically, they were twice as likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, 1.7 times more likely to experience heart failure, 1.6 times more likely to have high blood pressure, and 1.4 times more likely to suffer from coronary atherosclerosis.
Interestingly, no correlation was found between elevated DHRPS and the risk of stroke or heart attack. However, the DHRPS metric proved more effective in diagnosing cardiovascular diseases than relying solely on daily heart rate or step count.
This new approach could encourage more proactive health screenings and interventions. The simplicity of the DHRPS calculation makes it accessible for anyone with a smartwatch. Chen envisions tech companies incorporating this metric into smartwatches, providing users with real-time insights.
“Wearables are welcomed by the consumer and worn throughout the day, so they actually have minute-to-minute information about the heart function,” Chen noted. He emphasized the potential wealth of information these devices can offer and the need for further research to explore how this data correlates with patient outcomes.
Let us know what you think, please share your thoughts in the comments below.
