The work of connected devices is no longer limited to counting steps or heartbeats. Rather, these tools are now capable of measuring blood sugar or oxygen levels or blood pressure, although the reliability of this data is still subject to debate.
About 10 years after the launch of the “Apple Watch” smart watch, several research institutions estimate the size of the global market for health data “tracking tools” – including watches, bracelets, etc. – at about 60 billion dollars, and it is expected to exceed 100 billion by the end of the decade.
Anna Barnacca, CEO of the emerging Mindmix company, said during the Las Vegas Electronics Show, which opened last Tuesday, that “before the advent of smart watches, no one would have thought about monitoring their heart rate… but today everyone has become aware of the importance” of that.
Today, the sector offers other possibilities that go far beyond that.
Mindmix confirmed, for example, that smart speakers and wave technology allow analysis of heart activity as a whole, including the position of the valves and their function.
“A person can examine his heart with the accuracy of medical devices,” Barnacca explained.
She pointed out that during clinical trials, earphones were able to “detect the murmur of a valve defect” in a patient suffering from aortic stenosis.
Medical monitoring of arterial stenosis currently requires performing a series of tests, including inserting a probe into the artery.
Smart adhesive patch
As for the Californian company Dexcom, it recently launched the “Stelo” patch, which is the first smart patch without a prescription, and provides continuous measurement of glucose levels.
Jake Leach, the second official at Dexcom, said that these devices of this type, known as “CGMs,” have become “available to anyone who simply wants to understand the effect of certain foods on their body,” whereas they were previously reserved exclusively for insulin-dependent diabetics.
Two patches, which can be used for one month, are sold for $99, and the user can read the results directly on a mobile application in real time.
About 100 million Americans suffer from pre-diabetes or high blood sugar levels, but they are below the specified level for diabetes, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Leach pointed out that most of these people “do not realize this, because they have not undergone a test,” and therefore “Stelo” for these people constitutes a preventive factor and contributes to “enhancing awareness.”
Non-rigorous tests
Other smart devices of the latest generation – which are also available to the public – provide the ability to detect sleep apnea or measure blood pressure without using a bracelet or warning of irregular heartbeats.
But some medical and scientific circles question the data provided by these “wearable devices.”
Diana Zuckerman, head of the US National Center for Medical Research, acknowledged that “some of these products are useful,” but she saw “no value in officially approving them” by the US Drug Administration.
Zuckerman added that connected devices “are not subject to rigorous testing” as are medications.
She continued, “In order for me to be able to say whether the quality of these measures is improving, access to the data must be widely available to the public (..), which is not generally the case.”
But specialized doctors and researchers have conducted independent studies on some of these products, such as those provided by “Dexcom” and “Mindmix”, and have acknowledged their effectiveness in relation to some data.
Tammy Brady, a professor specializing in pediatric hypertension at Johns Hopkins University, had reservations about the results produced by smart bracelets, watches, and other devices.
Brady welcomed the idea of ”providing information about blood pressure to an increasing number of people,” but she considered that “this information is currently too approximate to be reliable.”
As a member of the Blood Pressure Monitoring Devices Committee, Brady cooperates with the International Organization for Standardization, which has the famous “ISO” standards.
“We hope that once ISO standards are established for measuring blood pressure without a cuff, it will help manufacturers and the US FDA to rigorously test its reliability,” she said.