Prevention

The breaking results of the unprecedented Apple Heart Study announced this week at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) conference in New Orlean, despite all the caveat of its limitations, provided a glimpse of the future of how wearable technology can be utilised to improve our health being. We are all too familiar with how wearable technology can help track our physical activity / running distances / steps taken each day, etc; but one important area that wearable technology can really transform our understanding is that tranquil few hours each night when our conscious mindfulness rests - our sleep.

Even increasing physical activity in midlife reduces mortality by a third. A study published in the JAMA Network Open this week (March 8th, 2019) provided further evidence that regular exercise reduces the risk of dying by 29% to 36%. More shockingly, for inactive individuals, even increasing physical activity during midlife was associated with 32% to 35% lower risk for mortality - this translates to a reduction of death by a third!