“I participated in the Heart Study too. Like Perlow, I forgot about it for long stretches. I’m fortunate that I didn’t receive the sort of alert Perlow did, but in September, Stanford sent me a notification that my participation in the study was ending. It turns out that over the course of 188 days, Stanford collected 1,743 heart measurements from me. Multiply that by the thousands of people in the study, and the potential the Apple Watch has for medical research is remarkable, while at the same time helping individuals like Perlow one at a time.”
How the Stanford Heart Study App Saved Jason Perlow via MacStories
I too participated in the Stanford Heart Study via the Apple Watch (my stats above). Males in my family have a history of Heart Disease and Afib, so I was nervous but eager to see if this seemingly innocuous contribution to science using my watch would catch anything. I’ve also been trying hard to “get in shape” given that I’ve just turned 40. I’ve lost 24 pounds since May and continue to try to live healthier with food and drink choices.
I was sort of relieved the day I got a notification that the study had ended. There had been no updates to contact Stanford during the study. Evidently if the Watch app detected anything that was suspicious of Afib, you were patched through to a Stanford Cardiologist via FaceTime. While that’s an amazing technological experience, I didn’t want to participate in doing so for this situation.
So, it’s amazing to read the testimony above by someone who did have the experience of catching a very deadly condition early simply because they wore an Apple Watch. The device is certainly saving my life by the daily motivation to get healthy and stay that way, and I see a bright future where conditions will be caught early by devices such as these.