{"id":74026,"date":"2017-04-12T07:13:51","date_gmt":"2017-04-12T07:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/dont-bank-on-heart-rate-accuracy-from-your-fitness-tracker\/"},"modified":"2017-04-12T07:13:51","modified_gmt":"2017-04-12T07:13:51","slug":"dont-bank-on-heart-rate-accuracy-from-your-fitness-tracker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/dont-bank-on-heart-rate-accuracy-from-your-fitness-tracker\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t bank on heart rate accuracy from your fitness tracker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wrist-worn activity trackers such as Fitbit don\u2019t reliably assess heart rate, a new study finds.<\/p>\n

While the devices may have some legitimate benefits, they shouldn\u2019t be used for medical purposes, researchers suggest.<\/p>\n

Evaluating four wearable activity trackers from Fitbit, Basis and Mio, the researchers compared results to those from an electrocardiograph (EKG). They found results varied among the different models and were much less accurate during exercise than at rest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese devices are probably good enough to inform consumers of general trends in their heart rate \u2014 high or low \u2014 [but] it\u2019s important to have more accurate information when physicians are relying on this data to make decisions on medications or other tests and treatments,\u201d said Dr. Mitesh Patel.<\/p>\n

Patel is an assistant professor of medicine and health care management at the University of Pennsylvania. He wasn\u2019t involved in the study.<\/p>\n

However, the study\u2019s lead author cautions against making too much of the discrepancies.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt any moment, the tracker could be off by a fair bit. But at most moments, it won\u2019t be,\u201d said Lisa Cadmus-Bertram, an assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe heart-rate feature performed better at rest,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re not as precise during exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2014 survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that 20 percent of American adults owned a wearable activity tracker.<\/p>\n

For the new study, 40 healthy adults, aged 30 to 65, were recruited to test the Fitbit Surge, Fitbit Charge, Basis Peak and Mio Fuse.<\/p>\n

\"Fitbit<\/span>
CBS This Morning<\/span><\/p>\n

Fitbit CEO on new products and industry competition<\/h3>\n

\n Fitbit has grown into the world\u2019s largest maker of fitness trackers since it was founded in 2007. The company has sold more than 48 million Fitbi\u2026\n <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Generally, when compared with the EKG results, the activity trackers were near the correct mark, Cadmus-Bertram said. But occasionally, their estimates of heart rate could swing too high or too low.<\/p>\n

At rest, the Fitbit Surge was most accurate; Basis Peak was least accurate, the study authors said.<\/p>\n

During exercise on a treadmill at 65 percent of maximum heart rate \u2014 defined as 220 beats per minute minus age \u2014 accuracy suffered more.<\/p>\n

The monitors could overestimate heart rate by as much as 39 beats per minute (Fitbit Surge), or underestimate it by as much as 41 beats per minute (Fitbit Charge), the study found.<\/p>\n

The findings support those of a study released last month at the American College of Cardiology annual meeting. Depending on the type of activity, the wrist devices were up to 34 beats per minute off, those researchers found.<\/p>\n

Again, the devices were least accurate during exercise.<\/p>\n

Some wrist-worn activity trackers use a light-emitting diode, or LED, that measures heart rate by detecting changes in the amount of blood in the skin.<\/p>\n

Patel said accuracy may be a problem because the devices move around on the arm, especially during exercise.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Fitbit\u2019s maker said its fitness trackers aren\u2019t intended to be medical devices. The company issued a statement in response to the new study.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe conducted extensive internal studies which show that Fitbit\u2019s PurePulse technology performs to industry standard expectations for optical heart rate on the wrist.\u00a0Fitbit devices were tested against properly calibrated industry standard devices like an EKG chest strap across the most popular activities performed worldwide \u2014 including walking, running, biking, elliptical and more.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Cadmus-Bertram cautioned that the data for the new study were collected about a year ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only have newer models since been released, but the algorithms behind the data are presumably being updated and improved on a regular basis,\u201d she said. \u201cSo the results we found might be different if we did the study again now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In general, she\u2019s remains a fan.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the whole, fitness trackers still provide a tremendous amount of useful information to the average user who just wants some feedback to help them to increase their exercise level,\u201d Cadmus-Bertram said.<\/p>\n

The study findings were published online April 11 in the\u00a0Annals of Internal Medicine<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wrist-worn activity trackers such as Fitbit don\u2019t reliably assess heart rate, a new study finds. While the devices may have some legitimate benefits, they shouldn\u2019t be used for medical purposes, researchers suggest. Evaluating four wearable activity trackers from Fitbit, Basis and Mio, the researchers compared results to those from an electrocardiograph (EKG). They found results […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}