Good Lifestyle

The Apple Watch is equipped with several safety features, including the detection of the falls, the detection of crash, a mermaid and a medical identification page which appears on your locking screen. In addition, it offers a multitude of health characteristics, such as monitoring of the menstrual cycle, sleep monitoring and a drug application. There is also a heart health Application that can alert you to high or low heart rate frequencies, or irregular cardiac rhythms that can report atrial fibrillation (AFIB). Now Apple Watch has released a new cardiac health metric that could very well save your life.

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The FDA has just approved Apple Watch's new hypertension feature.

On September 11, Food & Drug Administration of the United States (FDA) authorized a new Hypertension (Hypertension) notification feature for Apple Watch.

The announcement was made in parallel with the unveiling of the new Apple Watch Ultra 3 And Apple Watch Series 11 , both available now and include the new hypertension feature. The feature is also available on Apple Watch Series 9 and later, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 and later, with Watchos 26.

Like the American Heart Association (AHA) explains, a traditional reading of blood pressure consists of a systolic blood pressure (the upper number, which "measures the pressure that your blood pushes against your artery walls when the heart beats) and the diastolic blood pressure (the lower number, which" measures the pressure that your blood pushes against your artery walls while the heart muscle rests between beats ").

It is important to understand that the Apple Watch does not provide these readings and cannot diagnose high blood pressure.

On the contrary, the watch has an optical cardiac sensor which uses light to detect "the amount of blood flowing through your wrist at a given time", as Apple explains . "By blinking its LED lights hundreds of times per second, Apple Watch can calculate the number of times the heart beats per minute - your heart rate."

The hypertension function uses this data and then analyzes how your blood vessels contract and develop in response to these heartbeat. "The algorithm works passively in the background, by examining data over 30 days, and will inform users if it detects coherent signs of hypertension," said a press release.

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This feature is potentially vital.

In the United States, Almost half Adults suffer from hypertension. Of these about 120 million people, almost 60% ignore that they have high blood pressure.

This is frightening statistic since hypertension considerably increases the risk of heart attack and stroke, two of the main causes of death in the country. In 2023, “high blood pressure was a primary or contributory cause 664,470 deaths In the United States, according to centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC).

"Hypertension is the main avoidable cause of heart attack and stroke, but millions of people remain unmatched", " Harlan Krumholz , MD, SM, cardiologist and scientist at the University of Yale and at Yale New Haven hospital in a statement in Apple. "Make a precise detection and part of everyday life can help people take care earlier and prevent avoidable damage."

Therefore, if an Apple Watch user receives a hypertension alert, it is recommended to use a traditional armband to follow their readings for seven days, followed by an appointment with their health care provider.

The advantages of this feature are not strictly anecdotal either.

"The functionality has been developed with advanced automatic learning and training data of several studies totaling more than 100,000 participants," says Apple. "His performances were then validated in a clinical study of more than 2,000 participants."

In this study, Apple Watch's hypertension alerts were just as precise as the blood pressure cuff.

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The heart feature is also important.

In addition to systematically monitoring your blood pressure, knowing your Heart frequency at rest Can also provide valuable information on your heart health.

"A constant and constant heart rate can exert excessive pressure on the heart, increasing the risk of high blood pressure, heart failure, stroke and heart attacks", " Erin Barrett , PHD, director of product innovation and scientific affairs Shaklee , previously explained to Best life .

"A constantly low heart rate can cause inadequate delivery of oxygen to the brain and other organs, causing fainting, confusion and, in serious cases, heart failure," she added.

However, as with all health characteristics on Apple Watch, it does not replace regular appointments and recommended by the doctor.