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US studies: Apple Watch can detect Covid-19 days before the outbreak

2021-01-23T16:19:34.814Z


More and more smartwatches can precisely measure the heart rate of their wearers. According to US scientists, this can help detect Covid-19 infections at an early stage.


More and more smartwatches can precisely measure the heart rate of their wearers.

According to US scientists, this can help detect Covid-19 infections at an early stage.

  • In the fight against the

    Corona

    * pandemic, researchers are now also relying on fitness trackers such as the

    Apple

    *

    Watch

    .

  • They provide precise

    heart rate

    data

    .

  • The

    scientists

    now

    want to take

    advantage of this.

Munich - Smartwatches such as the

Apple Watch

* and fitness trackers from other manufacturers such as

Garmin

or

Fitbit

can help

to detect

Covid-19

diseases - even before the symptoms appear.

This is reported by the US television broadcaster CBS, citing corresponding studies by the world-famous

Stanford University

and the

Mount Sinai

University Hospital

in

New York

.

In their investigations, the researchers used the sensors for measuring the heart rate in the fitness trackers.

They have long been standard in smartwatches.

In the meantime, the corresponding technology is so mature that the Clever watches can measure even the smallest changes in the heartbeat of their wearers.

And that's exactly where the researchers come in.

Because with the spread of an infection, the so-called

heart rate variability

(

HRV

) also changes, i.e. the fluctuation range between two heartbeats.

In healthy people, the corresponding variability is around a tenth of a second.

An infection like

Covid-19

leads to an extremely violent defense reaction of the body, the corresponding heart rate variability decreases.

While the nervous system is wide awake in healthy people and can therefore react more quickly to changed conditions such as the increased need for oxygen when climbing stairs, the ability to react is

significantly lower

in people with a virus disease such as

Covid-19

.

"This change allows us to predict whether a person is sick before they even know," study author Professor

Rob Hirten

of Mount Sinai Hospital told CBS.

According to the study, which was based exclusively on data from the Apple Watch and the iPhone, corresponding changes in HRV values

could be detected

on average a good six days before the first signs of

corona

disease.

Apple Watch: Disease information days before the outbreak of the corona symptoms

Researchers at Stanford University came to a similar conclusion.

According

to an article for the US journal

Nature Biomedical Engineering

from last November

, 81 percent of the

corona-

positive subjects had an increased heartbeat days before the onset of the first symptoms

.

In addition to the

Apple

Watch, comparable models from Garmin or Fitbit were also used - with comparable results.

However, the researchers indicated in their work that their results were only an intermediate stage.

Changes in heart rate and heart rate variability did not necessarily indicate Covid 19 disease, as other infections also led to similar changes in HRV and heartbeat.

In addition, the values ​​would have to be

checked

during examinations with significantly more

Covid 19

sufferers, it says.

Conversely, however, the data would offer another starting point to contain the spread of the pandemic, it is said.

* Merkur.de

is part of the Ippen Digital network.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-01-23

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