
Apple Watch detects irregular heart beat in large U.S. study - onetimemanytime
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-heart-apple/apple-watch-detects-irregular-heart-beat-in-large-u-s-study-idUSKCN1QX0EI
======
brandonb
I work at a related company (Cardiogram), and there's a surprising amount of
signal locked in the humble heart rate sensor -- we've run multiple studies
with UCSF showing accurate detection of sleep apnea, high blood pressure, and
even diabetes using off-the-shelf heart rate sensors and a deep neural
network, DeepHeart: [https://blog.cardiogr.am/screening-with-wearables-what-
do-th...](https://blog.cardiogr.am/screening-with-wearables-what-do-the-
clinical-guidelines-support-1877baa32dd9)

If you're an engineer or payer relations expert and you'd like to help build
the future of healthcare, definitely drop us a line! hello@cardiogr.am. We're
especially looking for Javascript engineers, Android engineers, and
salespeople with payer experience.

~~~
vowelless
Link doesn't work.

~~~
brandonb
Weird - I was able to reproduce an error in loading
[https://blog.cardiogr.am/screening-with-wearables-what-do-
th...](https://blog.cardiogr.am/screening-with-wearables-what-do-the-clinical-
guidelines-support-1877baa32dd9) by refreshing. I'll investigate, but for now,
try refreshing the page.

~~~
eli
Something's wrong with your DNS:
[https://dnschecker.org/#A/blog.cardiogr.am](https://dnschecker.org/#A/blog.cardiogr.am)

~~~
taspeotis
They forgot to renew their domain:

    
    
        Domain name: cardiogr.am
        Registrar: abcdomain (ABCDomain LLC)
        Status: on hold
        ...
        Registered: 2015-03-17
        Last modified: 2019-03-17
        Expires: 2019-03-17

~~~
brandonb
You got it—I renewed it 40 minutes ago. Bear with us as we get the renewal
processed and DNS propagated.

~~~
emdowling
Still not resolving in a lot of places, also making your app not work (I’m in
the UK).

------
aboutruby
I saw a few posts on Reddit about how the Apple Watch basically saved people's
life:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleWatch/comments/a40qm5/heading_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleWatch/comments/a40qm5/heading_to_a_cardiologist/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleWatch/comments/9zrdq5/how_an_a...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleWatch/comments/9zrdq5/how_an_apple_watch_potentially_saved_my_life/)

I'm sure there is a lot more.

(Also all the people losing weight)

~~~
mehrdadn
I wish there was a heartbeat-measuring watch with the battery life of a dumb
watch. My watch goes like 5 years (I've lost count honestly) on its original
battery. I'd love to have something watching out for my health but I just
can't see myself moving to a smartwatch that needs recharging every 18 hours
when I don't even need the smartness crap...

~~~
brandonb
You might like the Withings Steel HR, which has a traditional mechanical
watchface, a heart rate sensor, and about 25 days of battery life:
[https://www.withings.com/us/en/steel-
hr/36rgw/shop?screen=de...](https://www.withings.com/us/en/steel-
hr/36rgw/shop?screen=desc&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-OXXt4qI4QIVix6tBh3YkgZ-
EAQYAiABEgKQa_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds)

Some Garmin and Fitbit models have good battery life — often about a week.

~~~
windexh8er
I'm the type of person that loves watches and doesn't like smart watches.
Personally I find them to be too much distraction. I'm more of a G-Shock
wearing type of user, although I've owned many Garmins over the years for
working out, but none enough to wear daily. That was until the Garmin Instinct
[0]. You can easily get 10-15 days out of it depending on how much you work
out and use the GPS for tracking. I also don't sleep with a watch on, so it's
shut off at night. Anyway, point being the Instinct is just enough "smart" yet
rugged enough for daily use. One of my favorite watches I've ever owned.

[0] [https://buy.garmin.com/en-
US/US/p/621802#overview](https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/621802#overview)

~~~
dhimes
I'm much like you- with a new fitbit charge 3. The thing is positively
addictive. I still wear a sailing watch for sailing, but for everything else I
use the fitbit, especially for heartrate when I work out and for sleep
tracking, which seems pretty good). I can go 5 days or so before I recharge
it, but I've never let it go until it was dead so I don't know how much I can
push it.

------
hannob
It should be noted though that this study does not say that an Apple Watch
will overall provide medical benefits. It also doesn't follow automatically
from the fact that it detects things with a certain reliability.

The interactions of early detection and medical benefits and downsides are
complicated and it will require a lot more science to figure out whether a
device like an Apple Watch can provide benefit.

~~~
Despegar
>It also doesn't follow automatically from the fact that it detects things
with a certain reliability.

There's more information on this here:

[https://www.apple.com/healthcare/site/docs/Apple_Watch_Arrhy...](https://www.apple.com/healthcare/site/docs/Apple_Watch_Arrhythmia_Detection.pdf)

------
Zanni
If I'm reading this right, the Apple Watch was actually more accurate in
detecting arterial fibrilation episodes than the ECG patch they used for
initial confirmation. The Apple Watch identified 2,000 people. The patch
confirmed 33% of those, but then another 51% were confirmed by some
undisclosed method.

~~~
tedivm
That's not an accurate interpretation. Atrial fibrillation episodes are not
constant- they come and go, and different people will have them at different
frequencies. It's possible that people had an episode while wearing the watch
but haven't had any episodes while wearing the ECG.

ECGs are also less comfortable to wear than watches, so it's possible the
people they sent them to didn't wear them as often (it's even possible that
they didn't wear them at all).

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
All good arguments for the watch it seems. I was a little eye roll at the ECG
feature Apple added, but I’m happy to be proven wrong.

~~~
rootusrootus
The ECG really has it's moments. I have arrhythmia (not Afib) and it's handy
to be able to correlate what I'm feeling with actual evidence. And I can print
it out and take with me at my next appt to discuss with the doc.

But if you have a perfectly boring, normal heart, I can see not using it very
often. At least it's unobtrusive if you aren't interested in it.

------
Waterluvian
I can see a future where my doctor gives me a wristband to wear for a month
then return as a part of each annual checkup.

Though maybe it gets even better than that and we just all start wearing
watches again.

I want that feature but I'm not a watch wearer.

~~~
GuiA
The future is your insurance company making you wear a smart watch 24/7 if you
don’t want to pay a huge premium. I predict it’s going to be a huge quagmire
over the next decade or so.

~~~
chii
It would be a huge invasion of privacy for an insurance company to do this -
and not only privacy, but the fact that insurance companies can discriminate
based on this data means that the healthy don't end up subsidising the
unhealthy (which is the whole point of insurance). SO premiums go up
regardless, and only the insurance company win in this scenario.

Right now, the right choice is to combat this problem before it becomes a real
problem. Before it sets root as cultrually acceptable to hand over your
biometrics data to private companies without the right payment and
compensation.

~~~
eric-hu
> but the fact that insurance companies can discriminate based on this data
> means that the healthy don't end up subsidising the unhealthy (which is the
> whole point of insurance).

I agree with your premise about the point of insurance. How is the discussed
idea any different than insurance companies giving different rates to older
people and denying coverage for pre existing conditions, in terms of
discrimination against the non healthy?

~~~
lotsofpulp
It’s not different, but denying coverage for pre existing conditions is
illegal in the US. Also, there is a limit to the ratio between the highest
premium and lowest premium in the insurance pool, along with out of pocket
maximums so you will still end up with the healthy subsidizing the unhealthy.

Incentives to make people healthier should not be a problem with these
constraints (max premium rations and guaranteed coverage for everyone). It’s
no different than offering a lower car insurance premium to someone that
doesn’t drive drunk.

------
jacquesm
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.

~~~
eriktrautman
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.

~~~
arrrg
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.

~~~
corysama
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.

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

~~~
mbreese
Exactly -- for those 45% with the false positive, you will be doing emotional
harm to many of them, even without an invasive followup test.

And then, if you knew that 45% of people got a false positive, how likely is
the 5% (the true positives who really need it) going to believe their initial
result and even get the followup?

~~~
PakG1
EULA and UI should emphasize that this is not a sure thing, please see a
doctor to be sure. Why would anyone get mad at that? My grandpa noticed my dad
losing a ton of weight. He told my dad there might be something wrong with
him, go check it out. Turns out it was cancer, saved my dad's life. Should my
dad be upset at my grandpa for causing emotional stress if it was nothing?

~~~
mbreese
Of course your dad shouldn’t be upset - your grand father did exactly what he
should have done. When you notice a symptom like that, you get it checked out.
(I’m happy for you and your dad, btw). The problem is when you have people
getting checked out without any underlying symptoms.

When you have a ton of people getting their hearts checked because their watch
told them to (and only for that reason), you’re going to get a lot of false
positives. There are many reasons better explained in these comments for why
that’s not a good thing.

One major reason is the extra stress on the medical system that can’t handle
it. There has been much talk about medical genetics clinics having issues
dealing with people calling in about 24 and me (etc) test results. It’s a
major load for these clinics.

Now, an easy test like this — in the presence of other symptoms — is a great
thing to have. I just worry about all the people getting needlessly checked
out. But for those who already have a concern or family history, this type of
test can be great.

------
hatsunearu
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0sv3Kuurhw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0sv3Kuurhw)

Super underrated channel (British humor, anyone)--shows how the Apple Watch's
ECG feature can be actually _bad_ for overall health.

edit: though the amount of positive outcomes (the reddit thread) makes me
reassess this...

~~~
lucb1e
Edit: reading further in the thread, this comment said it better than I did
(though they aren't speaking about the video, it makes the same argument):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19409734](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19409734)

> It should be noted though that this study does not say that an Apple Watch
> will overall provide medical benefits. It also doesn't follow automatically
> from the fact that it detects things with a certain reliability. The
> interactions of early detection and medical benefits and downsides are
> complicated and it will require a lot more science to figure out whether a
> device like an Apple Watch can provide benefit.

The only thing I would add is the last thing I mentioned in this comment,
namely that you might consider buying one for a higher risk person like your
grandpa rather than yourself.

\--- (original comment) ---

Watched the whole thing, basically the argument is that overdiagnosis leads to
people worrying (increasing stress) when the doctor says "based on this I
can't give you drugs since the drugs aren't completely harmless", or the doc
might recommend follow up tests that give ambiguous results and escalate (in
the example) to an operation to test a certain thing where the patient has a 1
in 3k chance of dying from the procedure itself. Additionally, experiments
where they strap a bunch of such devices to healthy patients (basically what
apple's watch does as well, especially the young and modern people will buy
it) and while it lead to more diagnoses, it didn't decrease the chance of
stroke or heart attacks in that group.

I don't think any of this is a significant reason not to buy it. I'm not going
to buy one for various reasons, but this isn't one of them. It is good to be
aware of the arguments, though: it might lead to someone buying one for their
grandma rather than healthy and young(ish) self.

~~~
hatsunearu
I'd definitely buy this for my gramps or something like that, and I'd buy it
myself if I had an iPhone, just because I like smartwatches.

But what I am concerned about is that this kind of stuff is a Pandora's box
that can cause some undeserved panic...

------
dbg31415
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.

~~~
hellofunk
I don't want to live in a world where insurance companies or employers have
any need or incentive to have this data. Like most developed nations outside
the U.S. for example.

~~~
dbg31415
I'm from the US, but I live in a country with "national health care" and...
look it sucks. You know what I miss? 1990s era health care for tech workers in
the US. When you went in and everything was covered for a $20 co-pay.

You want a specific medication, or a non-generic medication in Australia? Too
bad. It's not that it costs more, you just can't get it. Things like
Wellbutrin are as illegal as crack. And if you do something like tell your
doctor that you tried a bunch of medications and Vyvanse is what works best...
they'll literally treat you like someone trying to score opiates. They don't
like it when you have an opinion on medications, and you get all sorts of
lectures about how bad drug advertising is. It's a very dated, "I'm the
doctor, you have to do what I say..." mentality.

And the wait times... "Oh, did you need back surgery? Because you're under 65
and you are over weight, that means you're now bottom on the list... and
you'll have to wait for 1-2 years to have this done." A co-worker of mine here
is a larger woman, but she just paid out of pocket rather than go on a 2-year
wait list. Oh, and the recovery room... there were like 4 people crammed in
one room sharing one bathroom. Doctors came in and were talking about care and
medical details, in front of total strangers and her visiting guests. No
privacy at all. The government would absolutely use health / fitness data to
prioritize care... it's not that everyone gets unlimited treatment, they still
have budgets.

What else? Remember those classes in college where you couldn't understand the
professor because he had such a thick accent? Yeah, that's pretty much every
doctor here now. You go to the ER and you need stitches, you end up waiting
for a few hours and when you're finally seen the doctor is like, "Why weren't
you escalated faster?" "I couldn't understand what your triage nurse was
saying, she doesn't speak English... and I haven't got a clue if she
understood me... she just told me to sit and wait..." My friend needed 14
stitches and waited over 3 hours in the ER holding a bloody towel on her hand.
Only got someone to do something when she started dripping blood on the floor
after it had soaked through the towel.

Anyway I know health care sucks in the US, and I do want to get to a point
where governments pick up the bill... but holy hell, if the choices at present
are what we have in the US or what they have in Australia... man, they both
really suck. If you're someone with a job, and with any money, the US model
works slightly better.

~~~
hellofunk
That is most certainly not the experience I've had with nationalized health
care in Europe. Sounds like an implementation problem more than anything.

~~~
sisu2019
thats kind of the issue though. If or when the implementation goes wrong you
wont have any other options. In one case the UK's NHS even prevented parents
from going abroad for treatments for their terminally ill child.

And there won't be any transparency because the people administering the
system have all the power and don't like being embarrassed. Meanwhile then
public schools and public broadcasts will bang the drum for that system on a
daily basis making sure most citizens feel dependent on it, no matter how bad
it really is.

And just to make it real, I personally know someone who was told to wait half
a year for an appointment. They personally knew a doctor who told them "you
can't wait that long, I am going to pull some strings". Turns out it was
cancer. This is in Germany, btw, and it's not an isolated case.

------
xaduha
Related [https://cardio-cloud.ru](https://cardio-cloud.ru)

Dongle+app supports Android and iOS.

No prices on En page though, but the official price for the Russian market is
3500 RUB ~ $54

------
tuxguy
Some insightful analysis here :
[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1106956668439617537.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1106956668439617537.html)

------
zzzeek
this is kind of a trivial question but is the apple watch HR monitor known to
be better than that of FitBit? I got a Charge 3 for Christmas and I barely
even wear it anymore, as it would say things like "95 bpm" when I'm working
out and I'm clearly at around 135 bpm. you can say things like "oh wear it
higher / lower / tighter" whatever but if it's that prone to being 40 bpm off
the mark, what use is it.

~~~
appleiigs
In my experience, FitBit Charge HR 2 was useless. Same issue with you where it
would 40 bpm off or provide no reading at all.

Apple Watch 3 was pretty bad too. It would give inaccurate often enough that I
couldn't use it for training in a heart rate zone. For example, I'd be walking
for warm up and it would give a reading of 160 at the beginning, then back
down to 110, then 10 mins later back to 160. I can't imagine the Apple Watch
being a medical device with lives depending on it.

Garmin 935 has been great. It has the most accurate HR and GPS readings.

~~~
zzzeek
this is the thing I wonder if the mechanism by which wrist-based HR monitors
work (seems to be optical) is just not effective for some people, for some
physiological reason.

~~~
drited
An electrical engineering friend who did some hardware development work on
these a few years back suggested that noise in the observations was a fairly
significant challenge. Seems the devices use a lot of data smoothing to
counteract this.

------
JasonADrury
If anyone is interested, I’ve spent the last couple of years trying to break
into the medical space from a consumer perspective. We are now ready to move
to the next step and I’m looking for co-founder positions to fill important
roles. Check out [https://www.kb4e.com](https://www.kb4e.com) Would love to
hear from you if our mission resonates with anyone.

------
melling
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...](https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/in-the-future-everyone-
will-wear-a-smartwatch/comment-page-1/)

~~~
MereInterest
When tech companies are subject to the same level of data protection as health
care providers, complete with with HIPAA penalties for failure, then I might
trust them with medical data.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Would HIPAA not apply to tech companies when handling health data?

~~~
danso
I don’t think so. HIPAA defines the “covered entities” — e.g. hospitals,
health plans — that must follow its regulations. Being a company that handles
health data does not automatically make you a covered entity.

[https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/faq/190/who-
must...](https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/faq/190/who-must-comply-
with-hipaa-privacy-standards/index.html)

~~~
tedivm
This isn't 100% accurate. While I can't say much about the case of the apple
watch, I can say that there are a ton of tech companies which are not covered
entities but which do fall under HIPAA guidelines.

For example, the company I work at is not a covered entity because we do have
access to PHI we have certain regulations we have to follow. Further, we have
to sign BAAs with any covered entity we work with defining who is responsible
for what.

Any company which deals with heathcare information should always assume they
fall under HIPAA until they've hired lawyers who tell them otherwise.

~~~
mbreese
If you are signing BAAs, you're probably a service provider for a covered
entity and are contractually obligated to follow HIPAA. Which is different
than what the original question was.

For example, what is Apple's exposure here? I doubt any... they keep your data
private because it's good for business (and they can then advertise how
privacy conscience they are and get people to buy more watches). They aren't
doing it because they have to follow HIPAA regulations.

A more interesting question is -- if the Apple watch was purchased as a
medical device (maybe even with insurance or a prescription), does Apple's
data processing need to change at all? What about if people got a watch as
part of a medical study (not people that already had the watch). Would that be
different?

------
ddebernardy
If there are any MDs around, I'd be curious to know if there's some kind of
data-driven baseline about there being a regular heart beat to begin with, or
if there being one is an underlying assumption that's taken for granted.

(Either way, kudos to Apple for contributing to health science.)

~~~
thornjm
Med Student here so I know just about nothing...

We’ve monitored hearts for a long time. It is common for a heart to skip a
beat or maybe double a beat occasionally (a stethoscope on your own heart for
30 mins would demonstrate that).

I don’t think Atrial Fibrillation is ever a normal sign.

~~~
sisu2019
I really like the humble attitude. When I was studying CS I was like "let me
through, I know everything" (I don't). Good for you and thanks for the info.

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

~~~
threeseed
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.

~~~
saagarjha
Although, this can matter if you are separated from a place to charge your
watch, or somehow forget to charge it.

------
xtrimsky1234
I have a watch with also an irregular heart beat detection (Garmin). It
sometimes detects irregular heart rates when I play video games. Usually in a
very intense scenario such as a top 3 in a battle royale game.

------
redsavagefiero
A lot of people are overlooking the ultimate consumers of this data or being
the usual SV shills. This data and all PHI/PII can be resold to insurance
packaged in slightly different ways. Have fun with your 20th century issues in
the 21st.

~~~
gleenn
While I think your fear is an important one to keep in mind, Apple doesn't
share your data without your consent, and the data is encrypted.

[https://www.apple.com/privacy/approach-to-
privacy/](https://www.apple.com/privacy/approach-to-privacy/)

------
ERD0L
Meanwhile WearOS is a joke both in hardware and software

~~~
pensatoio
I understand qualms with the software, but what about the hardware is a joke?

~~~
MBCook
The Qualcomm chips used are a few years old because there isn’t enough demand
for Qualcomm to make faster ones.

So it’s WAY behind the chip in Apple watches in terms of performance.

Even if wear OS was better (never used it myself) it couldn’t compete.

~~~
saagarjha
This is pretty much true. Google doesn't seem to particularly care about Wear
OS, Qualcomm can't make a decent chip for it, and manufactures aren't coming
out with anything compelling. With wearables, it really does seem like it's
mostly Apple Watch along with Fitbit, Garmin, and a few others.

------
ChuckMcM
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.

~~~
Despegar
Aren't lie detectors junk science?

~~~
varjag
In the same way statistical spam filters are junk† science. They suffer from
false positives/negatives issues, but they perform a lot better than coin
toss.

† Granted spam filters literally deal with junk..

~~~
lawn
Not arguing either or but a coin toss is a very low bar.

------
idDriven
Public Service Announcement: You can just check your pulse manually for free.
AFIB will be irregularly irregular.

As as comparing cancer to AFIB it's definitely not accurate to compare the two
directly. A very common cause of AFIB in people younger than 60 for example is
'holiday heart' short-term AFIB related to binge drinking, it is generally
self-resolving and transitory, and generally does not require treatment
especially if asymptomatic. Cancer to my knowledge generally does not self-
resolve.

~~~
abraae
I have AF and once you're aware of it it's pretty easy to tell when your
heart's "gone out". Quick check of pulse confirms it as you say.

The trouble is really when you're first getting to grips with it. That's the
scary time.

Everyone's AF is somewhat different though I imagine.

~~~
idDriven
Thanks, apparently this has been one of my less popular comments. I saw quite
a few people in the comments before i posted asking if their
charge/apple/whatever monitor was accurate and it's likely better to manually
check heart rate to see if it's accurate, as opposed to going off random
internet data on whether a device is trustworthy.

Monitors tend to be potentially less accurate than manual apical pulse when
there is an arrhythmia present, the gold standard for any cardiac is
auscultation, aka stethoscope, for a full minute by trained professional.

Medicine is really complex is the short version. Also Sinus Arrythmia is not
uncommon.

------
goombastic
Waiting for insurance providers to deny payments basis this data next.

------
jplayer01
I just want this kind of thing to finally hit consumer devices. I've been
reading about this stuff for years now, and it's really great stuff, but it's
all limited to the people who get to be in these studies.

~~~
baxtr
So the Watch is no consumer device?

~~~
DennisAleynikov
It's an iPhone accessory, not really a consumer product. It can't be used
outside of the apple ecosystem without involving an iphone in the process and
that stops it from being a widely adopted wearable product. Apple's
marketshare is dropping with every yeah and they sell only roughly double the
previous smartwatch incumbent, samsung despite apple having a generally more
affluent userbase.

I hope this tech reaches more people with less restrictive hardware options.

------
plg
When ECG in Canada?

~~~
deanclatworthy
Seems Apple is having problems getting the ECG feature approved outside the
US. I've heard nothing for a few months from the EU about this passing over
this side of the pond.

~~~
gambiting
Yeah. My wife is actually looking to buy one(here in UK) but when we
discovered in an Apple Store that it doesn't have ECG support we decided to
hold off for now. Maybe at some point once it's enabled.

------
known
Does it display systolic and diastolic numbers?

------
robertlf
I stopped reading at "funded by Apple Inc."

~~~
gatherhunterer
Most medical studies are not publicly funded[1]. You just dismissed the
majority of medical research done in the U.S. in at least the last ten years.
There are potential problems with private funding compromising studies but
without any specific complaint this is just a baseless dismissal.

1\. [https://hub.jhu.edu/2015/12/15/industry-funded-clinical-
tria...](https://hub.jhu.edu/2015/12/15/industry-funded-clinical-trials-may-
threaten-objectivity/)

~~~
MBCook
Plus, this study had 400k people in it. This isn’t exactly a small “well we
tried it on 20 people” study, it’s much higher quality.

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eecc
I don’t understand, even Reuters is giving random numbers:

A third of those whose watches detected an irregular pulse were confirmed to
have atrial fibrillation using the ECG technology, researchers said.

Some 84 percent of the irregular pulse notifications were later confirmed to
have been AF episodes, data showed.

What is it then, 1/3 or 4/5?

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Dylan16807
The ECG only confirmed 1/3, so they tried better tests and got it to 5/6.

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lez
Apple Watch is technically capable of detecting your heart rate. NSA is
capable of enforcing Apple to feed this data to them, real time if needed.
Never wear an Apple Watch during lying to powerful people, your heart rate
will give you away.

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dave84
That would be overkill considering they can extract your heart rate in real
time from a video.

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

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

