As our health and wellness change and evolve, how can we be proactive in understanding important shifts in our well-being? Tracking personal health metrics is a powerful tool for building a personal health timeline: a comprehensive picture of our own health, data, and fitness as they change over time. This blog will discuss the importance of tracking personal health and how understanding changing metrics can help us maintain and promote long-lasting well-being.
How Do You Measure Personal Health?
Key Health Metrics to Track
Health metrics measure vital aspects of our health and are crucial to understanding our overall well-being1. Key health metrics include heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels, body temperature, and sleep patterns. By accurately measuring these key vital signs, we can assess the impact our lifestyle is having on our wellness, understand risks to our health, and plan our personal health timelines.
Traditional vs. Digital Health Tracking
We are all familiar with traditional methods of health tracking: checkups with primary care physicians and medical assessments like blood tests. However, innovative digital methods of tracking health are an increasingly essential aid for measuring key health metrics, and tools like smartwatches, health apps, smart rings, and at-home test kits play an important role in understanding our personal health. Sophisticated tools such as Ezra full-body scans present a comprehensive picture of health to detect early signs of disease.
The Role of Data in Personalized Health Monitoring
Longitudinal data tracks how our key health metrics change over time. This is important not only for understanding how aging and lifestyle impact our well-being but also for detecting changes in vital signs that may signal potential health issues. Measuring changes in key metrics is an important tool in effective preventive medicine, and sharing health data with healthcare professionals is essential for the proactive management of health and early detection of diseases.
What Is the Best Metric to Track for Health?
A Holistic Approach to Health Tracking
Heart rate, blood pressure, glucose levels, and BMI are all important biomarkers for health and provide important information about individual aspects of bodily functions. However, it is only through a combination of these biomarkers that an overall picture of health can be appreciated. A holistic approach to health tracking takes into account individual biomarkers to build an understanding of heart health, metabolism, and hormone balance and how they work together2.
Commonly Used Health Indicators
Resting heart rate (RHR) & heart rate variability (HRV) - measure the number of times the heart beats per minute and variation in the time between heartbeats. Many smartwatches and health apps measure both resting heart rate and heart rate variability, though HRV requires more accurate measurement, and it is recommended to be performed with an electrocardiogram (EKG)3.
Blood glucose levels & metabolic markers - measure how effectively the body processes food and generates energy. Capillary blood glucose (CBG) levels can be monitored in the clinic or at home using a finger stick check4.
Body composition & BMI - aim to measure levels of body fat, a key indicator of overall health. BMI is an imprecise estimate of body fat that takes into account height and weight and can overestimate levels of fat, for example, in individuals with high levels of muscle5. More advanced measurements of body composition, such as using MRI, give a more clear picture of fat distribution throughout the body6.
The Role of AI in Health Monitoring
Novel AI-based tools have the potential to spot anomalies in health data that may be overlooked by individuals and healthcare practitioners. AI-powered technologies can assess multiple health metrics against large datasets to improve diagnosis7. Ezra’s AI-powered MRI scan technology integrates AI to aid radiologists in analyzing complex images to enable early disease detection.
What Is a Health Tracker?
Wearable Devices and Their Functions
Smartwatches are popular wearable devices that often incorporate fitness trackers to measure health metrics in real time. Brands like Apple Watch, Fitbit, and Garmin track heart rate, sleep, and physical activity and relay information to health apps on your phone. Smart rings, such as Oura and Ultrahuman, are more compact fitness trackers that can also measure health metrics. Wearable medical-grade devices, like flash blood glucose monitors, can provide real-time measurements comparable to tests performed in the clinic8.
The Accuracy Debate: Are Wearables Reliable?
Some healthcare practitioners are skeptical about the reliability of wearable devices like fitness trackers. Research has shown that smartwatches are reliable for estimating step count9 and can accurately measure heart rate at rest, although they can produce extreme, erroneous results during intense exercise10. Smartwatches estimate energy expenditure and the number of calories burnt based on heart rate and physical movement, which can lead to inconsistent results11. While wearable devices can be useful tools for understanding how your everyday activities impact your health, practitioners recommend medical-grade devices in the clinic for serious health concerns.
The Role of Wearables in Healthcare
Integrating wearables into healthcare has the potential to empower individuals to take control of their health and better understand their own personal health timelines. In the UK, the National Health Service launched a step tracker app to encourage the public to stay active, and last year, it revealed plans to provide smartwatches to patients with conditions like diabetes and heart disease12. Concerns about such wide-reaching public health programs include potential breaches of individuals’ data and reports of health trackers inducing anxiety in some users13.
What Is the Best Health Tracker?
Choosing the Right Device for Your Needs
Your choice of health tracker will depend on your individual health concerns, as well as practical considerations like size, battery life, and cost. Smartwatches and smart rings are a useful one-size-fits-all solution if you want to understand and improve your everyday well-being, while wearable blood glucose monitors or EKGs are appropriate for those with specific health concerns.
Popular Wearables in 2024
Top-of-the-range smartwatches like the Apple Watch 2 incorporate health tracking and claim to be able to detect serious heart irregularities through in-built EKG14. Popular smart rings, designed primarily as health trackers, include the Oura Ring and Ultrahuman Ring. More specialized wearables, such as the WHOOP band, are targeted at athletes.
Medical-Grade Health Trackers vs. Consumer Wearables
It is important to recognize the difference between consumer wearables, like smartwatches and smart rings, and FDA-approved medical devices. While consumer wearables can play an important role in understanding and improving our health, they shouldn’t be relied on to diagnose or manage serious medical conditions. Wearable devices can, however, work alongside regular health checkups and guidance from medical professionals to empower us to play a proactive role in managing our health.
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What Is the Meaning of Health Tracking?
The Shift Toward Preventive Healthcare
Preventive healthcare is a proactive approach to health that focuses on maintaining well-being, preventing diseases before they occur, and detecting signs of developing diseases early15. Real-time health tracking enables a personalized approach to preventive care by providing up-to-date information on changing health metrics to the individual, promoting health maintenance, and detecting changes in vital signs that might indicate the development of serious conditions.
Potential Risks and Drawbacks
The reliability of wearables in producing accurate data has been questioned, particularly in their capacity to spot serious medical conditions. While smartwatches like the Apple Watch promote their ability to spot heart arrhythmia like atrial fibrillation, some studies have shown they may miss many cases16. On the other hand, false positives may produce anxiety in users, and there are concerns that tracking everyday health indicators can increase anxiety and stress.
The Future of Health Tracking
As technologies for health tracking, both consumer wearables and tests in the clinic, continue to improve, they will be further integrated into personalized approaches to medicine. AI-driven tools that use machine learning to predict health outcomes will enable individuals and healthcare professionals to anticipate health risks. Powerful tools like Ezra’s AI-powered technologies will be integrated into preventative care to spot diseases early and allow us to take proactive control of our health timelines.
Conclusion
Tracking personal health metrics is vital to proactively manage health and understand your personal health timeline. Wearable health trackers are useful aids for maintaining health and wellness and are a useful tool when incorporated into a personalized approach to healthcare alongside regular checkups and guidance from a healthcare professional.
If you want to be proactive about your health, why not book an Ezra full-body MRI? Our annual scan catches potential cancer earlier, leveraging AI through the screening process to make it more efficient, affordable, and faster.
