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Apple Watch detects irregular heart beat in large U.S. study

reuters.com

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Re: Apple Watch detects irregular heart beat in large U.S. study

#71

Post by astura »

eriktrautman wrote: post #17
jacquesm wrote: post #12

Like with any medical test: if you do more tests you will find more incidence. The same thing happened with various forms of cancer screening. If we were to test everybody for everything very few people would be found to be 100% and a lot of unnecessary procedures would be the result. Given the obesity problem this result should not be a surprising finding anyway.

Are you advocating that we shouldn't bother testing instead? I'd imagine that many people would be quite interested in knowing the ways they're not 100% that might actually kill them... like cancer.

It's complicated... Not all instances of cancer are harmful, more men die with prostate cancer then die because of of it and thyroid cancer is found as an incidental in ~30% of autopsies. More detection can cause more harm than good, as what happened in South Korea with thyroid cancer screening, a huge increase in detection and treatment without any decrease in survival rates.

Here's a good overview:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-skeptical-look-at-screeni...

Info about thyroid cancer over diagnosis:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/05/09/5275692...

Re: Apple Watch detects irregular heart beat in large U.S. study

#72

Post by threeseed »

melling wrote: post #23

In the future everyone will wear a smartwatch. My thesis was health and safety. https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/in-the-future-everyo...

No they won’t.

The market for luxury watches is growing every year and despite the arrival of different technologies e.g. Quartz, Digital they are still around. I actually think this will be an emerging market as people start to revolt against technology being everywhere.

And for me smart watches are on whole detrimental to a person’s health since they raise stress levels through constant notifications.

Re: Apple Watch detects irregular heart beat in large U.S. study

#73

Post by threeseed »

staticassertion wrote: post #13
ChuckMcM wrote: post #2

Pretty cool. Although its early days yet. I still worry about back doors that would allow the watch to be used as a lie detector surreptitiously.

I'm more concerned with the data being sold/ leaked and it impacting insurance premiums.

When has Apple ever sold or leaked data to third parties ?

Re: Apple Watch detects irregular heart beat in large U.S. study

#74

Post by hawaiianbrah »

pfranz wrote: post #25
eriktrautman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you advocating that we shouldn't bother testing instead? I'd imagine that many people would be quite interested in knowing the ways they're not 100% that might actually kill them... like cancer.

Nothing specific to this article, but this comes up often in medicine. Sure, you can pay to run more tests, find some things earlier (along with some false positives), but the outcomes and treatment aren't any different than if you waited for more obvious symptoms and could take a more accurate test.

What? An ounce of prevention and a pound of cure and all that. Early detection is key in a lot of situations, so how could earlier not be better? Why wait unnecessarily?

Re: Apple Watch detects irregular heart beat in large U.S. study

#75

Post by raphaelrk »

xtagon wrote: post #55
dave84 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be overkill considering they can extract your heart rate in real time from a video.

How is this possible? Honest question, I've never heard of this before.

This video from 2013 references to possible methods: imperceptible changes in skin color and imperceptible movement of the head. https://youtu.be/EhZXDgG9oSk

Re: Apple Watch detects irregular heart beat in large U.S. study

#76

Post by threeseed »

buboard wrote: post #31

i would like this in a watch that doesnt need charging every week. i dont care for touchscreens and games.

It really depends on if you sleep with your watch or not.

If you don’t then battery life is really irrelevant because you can rest your watch on a pad and have it charge just like if it were a normal watch.

Re: Apple Watch detects irregular heart beat in large U.S. study

#77

Post by threeseed »

dbg31415 wrote: post #41

Yeah, it's good at spotting issues... but man, health monitoring creeps me out. I don't want to live in a world where insurance companies and employers force us to hand over this data. Just feels really creepy to me. Like way over the line.

You just invented this situation in your head.

No one is handing over health data to insurance companies or employers.

Re: Apple Watch detects irregular heart beat in large U.S. study

#78

Post by taurath »

threeseed wrote: post #72
melling wrote: post #23

In the future everyone will wear a smartwatch. My thesis was health and safety. https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/in-the-future-everyo...

No they won’t. The market for luxury watches is growing every year and despite the arrival of different technologies e.g. Quartz, Digital they are still around. I actually think this will be an emerging market as people start to revolt against technology being everywhere. And for me smart watches are on whole detrimental to a person’s health since they raise stress levels through constant notifications.

I’ve turned off all notifications on my watch other than texts and phone calls - it’s nice to be able to walk outside without my phone, but still can call someone if we lose each other.

Re: Apple Watch detects irregular heart beat in large U.S. study

#79

Post by nine_k »

threeseed wrote: post #72
melling wrote: post #23

In the future everyone will wear a smartwatch. My thesis was health and safety. https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/in-the-future-everyo...

No they won’t. The market for luxury watches is growing every year and despite the arrival of different technologies e.g. Quartz, Digital they are still around. I actually think this will be an emerging market as people start to revolt against technology being everywhere. And for me smart watches are on whole detrimental to a person’s health since they raise stress levels through constant notifications.

It's funny how a complex and intricate technology of mechanical watches ceases to be seen as technology in 300 years.

Re: Apple Watch detects irregular heart beat in large U.S. study

#80

Post by astura »

corysama wrote: post #51
arrrg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just imagine all the stress and suffering caused by the misdiagnosis and unnecessary visits to the doctor and unnecessary tests and imagine that on a grand scale (to say nothing of wasted resources). I’m not saying that to automatically disqualify and increase in the availability of testing – but it does have to be implemented with the proper care and caution.

Given the choice between A) Everyone is told nothing. B) 5% of people are told “Here’s something. It’s serious.” And, 45% of people are told “Here’s something. But, it’s not serious.” Option B sounds greatly preferable.

Depends... does "Here’s something. But, it’s not serious" take expensive, risky, and invasive medical tests to get to the "not serious" part?
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