Apple Expects to Notify 100m People That They Have Hypertension in a Year
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Apple WatchHealth MonitoringBlood Pressure Tracking
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Blood Pressure Tracking
Apple expects to notify a large number of people about potential hypertension using its Apple Watch feature, sparking discussion about the accuracy and implications of this technology.
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It's actually cheaper for me to go to one of these labs than to talk to a doctor and deal with insurance.
Is that how we sibsidize the advertized cost of $1500 down to $200
Every time I go to the doctor and they hook me up to a blood pressure monitor, it comes back way high (like 160/90). I then request a manual check and it always comes back normal. I didn't figure this out until after they prescribed me calcium channel blockers (and they didn't do anything). Something about the shape of my arm or something.
Anyway point being that a faulty reading led to me being prescribed meds I did not need. Hoping this doesn't lead to more of the same.
At least that’s what happened to me.
To be fair though, this high readings problem at the doctors office went away when I lost weight (from a BMI of 25 to a BMI of 22. both in normal weight range).
I always end up with my arm almost shoulder height resting on some bin on the side of the blood pressure device cart thing.
I wonder why they can't use an ergonomic chair with two appropriate-height support arms.
Your doctor should see it though, unless they don't stay next to you and thus can't (but I know mine use it more like a first control test, and would always do a manual test before prescribing anything).
YMMV, I'm in France.
PS : with that said, this here is even more different since it's in a watch, and I would not trust it for anything other than "hey, maybe go check at a doctor"
Seems like lawyer speak for "please don't sue us if we get this wrong" but I suspect the ad campaign for this feature will suggest otherwise.
The breathing disturbances notifications work in a similar way. They alert you to potential sleep apnea, but then you need to do an at-home or in-lab sleep study in order to get a diagnosis.
Of course. The purpose of this feature is to tell the right people that they might have a problem, and that they should ask a doctor about it - just like they've done in the past with AFib detection.
Pretty massive implications for public health.
I wrote about some of the science behind on-the-wrist blood pressure monitoring and public health implications here:
https://www.empirical.health/blog/apple-watch-blood-pressure...