Key result
Wearable electronic medical devices, particularly when combined with health professional supervision, increased physical activity, but showed mixed results for improving other cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity, glycated hemoglobin, and lipid levels.
Why the study?
It was unclear whether wearable electronic device use correlates directly with meeting WHO-recommended physical activity levels or yields additional cardiovascular benefits beyond increased self-awareness.
Do wearable electronic devices improve modifiable cardiovascular risk factors and outcomes in adults?
Systematic Review
Do wearable electronic devices improve modifiable cardiovascular risk factors and outcomes in adults?
Wearable electronic devices, particularly when combined with health professional supervision, can effectively motivate increased physical activity, though their impact on other cardiovascular risk factors remains mixed.
Supports supervised wearable use to boost physical activity; confirms consistent PA benefit while leaving metabolic and obesity effects open.
There is a developing trend of using wearable electronic devices as health aides, spurred on by telecommunication companies as fitness devices and marketed as such. They have been shown to count steps, pulse, and record arrhythmias, doubling as communication devices and prompting healthcare providers in some instances. We sought to determine if there was a direct correlation between device use and increased physical activity as recommended by the World Health Organization, or if this physical activity increase was only marginal at best. In addition, we sought to investigate if there were additional benefits to using these devices besides increased self-awareness of health. This systematic review used Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Keywords for searching articles centered around cardiovascular disease, wearable electronic devices, and their synonyms. Most of the data were obtained from PubMed, although other contributing databases were used, including ResearchGate, Science.gov, ScienceDirect, and PubMed Medical Subject Headings database. Only full-text articles were used. We identified 62 articles that met our search criteria but narrowed them down to 19 following qualitative assessment. Increased physical activity was found to be the one parameter that stood out by way of benefit from the device. Other findings, such as reduced waist circumference, obesity, glycated hemoglobin, and lipid levels, shared mixed results. At this time, we do not have a definition of what duration of device use is deemed standard for health. We have no consensus on which devices are superior health-wise. Our study, however, indicates that these devices, used with adequate health professional supervision, have a role to play in motivation and increased physical activity, enough to cause impactful gains in cardiovascular health.
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Seffah et al. (2023) conducted a systematic review in Cardiovascular risk factors. Wearable electronic medical devices vs. No device or standard care was evaluated on Improvement in modifiable cardiovascular risk factors (physical activity, BMI, lipids, HbA1c). Wearable electronic medical devices, particularly when combined with health professional supervision, increased physical activity, but showed mixed results for improving other cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity, glycated hemoglobin, and lipid levels.
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