487 Fitbit Data Study [3 Sept 2018]

Do you wear a Fitbit? One of those wrist bands that records your heart rate, activity and sleep? Millions of people do and Fitbit recently looked at 150 billion hours of data to see what it could tell us about our health. Since this only includes people who own a Fitbit, the data may not apply to everyone. And relax, the data is anonymous – the researchers know your location, gender, age, height, weight, activity level, sleep habits, and continuous pulse rate, but not your name.

From previous studies we know that resting heart rate (RHR, measured in beats per minute) is a significant measure of our overall health. Most people fall in the range of 60 to 100, with athletes 40 to 50. The Copenhagen Heart Study found that, compared to someone with an RHR of under 50, your risk of death from heart disease is twice as high if your RHR is 80 and three times as high if over 90. A study from China found that for every RHR increase of 10, the risk of developing diabetes increased 23%.

This is what the Fitbit study learned:
• As we age, our RHR increases to a peak about age 40-50, then continuously declines from there for unknown reasons.
• On average, women have a higher rate than men, by 5 beats at age 20, and 2 to 3 beats from age 35-80. This is because women have smaller hearts.
• The optimal Body Mass Index (BMI) for heart function seems to be 20 to 25. RHR increases with increasing BMI above or below that range.
• RHR decreases with exercise (no surprise). After 300 minutes a week (an hour daily for 5 days), however, the decrease is small.
• The reduction in RHR from exercise declines with age. Increasing activity by 3 hours a week will lower your RHR by about 7 beats in your 30s, 40s and 50s, but only by 4 beats in your 60s and 3 beats in your 70s. Still, this shows that getting more active is beneficial at any age.
• Sleep lowers your RHR but only to an average of 7 hours after which it rises again. So get your sleep, then get out of bed and get moving!
• There are other unknown factors affecting heart rate. For the same activity level, the average RHR in the USA is 3 beats higher than Italy, and Canada is 2.5 beats higher than Ireland. Perhaps it’s our junk food diet?

See "Fitbit's 150 billion hours of heart data reveal secrets about health" by David Pogue, yahoo Finance, 27 Aug 2018 for more details and graphs that reveal these trends.

For more information on this or other natural health topics, stop in and talk to Stan; for medical advice consult your licensed health practitioner. Find this article on my website for links to sources and further reading.