fitbit 150 billion hours of heart data reveal secrets about our health

[Ianc2]

David Pogue has written a fascinating article in yahoo finance august 27th. It is too big to copy but it is a fascinating read about resting heart rate (ideally 60-100), lower for athletes., women vs men, young vs old, hypertension, BMI , exercise, sleep, best places to live. try davidpogue.com if you can't find the article

[Kaz747]

Really interesting - thanks for sharing. Here’s the link

google.com.au/amp/s/au.fina...

My resting heartrate was around 67 and when I was put on a higher dose of heart drugs it went down to 57 (My Fitbit said I was very fit for my age 😂). After my ablation it went up to 75, then, because my drugs were increased again and Digoxin added it’s now down to 68.

[CDreamer]

Mmmm... I have several comments on the article. Interesting as I always am about this sort of use of technology. One sentence stands out for me Note, too, that this data comes only from people who own Fitbits — who are affluent enough, and health-conscious enough, to make that purchase. It’s not the whole world.)

Secondly - yesterday at Patient Day we were told NOT to trust our devices for measuring HR if we have or are in AF.

With that proviso - interesting.

[Kaz747 in reply to CDreamer]

I probably wouldn’t have bought one - mine was a birthday gift from my super healthy & fit daughter. I certainly don’t trust it for accurate HR readings, especially when in AFib but the trends are interesting. I like the sleep monitoring and exercise tracking.

[dmac4646 in reply to CDreamer]

I find fit bit useless as an HRM when moving

[beardy_chris]

Yes - since I got a Fitbit, I've found my resting heart rate to be an interesting indicator of my mental and physical well-being. A Fitbit might not give an accurate figure for someone like me in permanent AF but I think it does give trends reasonably reliably. For example, during a recent cold, my RHR went from 63 to 68.

I guess it might not be quite so responsive now I have a pacemaker stopping my heart rate from going too low!

[Ianc2]

Perhaps the big take away from this massive data sample is:

The link between body mass index and resting heartrate. I understand that a lot of people don't like the concept of BMI but this report identifies the link quite clearly.

Assuming that you accept the resting heart rate as a measure of fitness, the low amount of exercise needed to make a difference to your resting heart rate.