Asking Doctor Mike About Fitness Wearables 

About four years ago, I had a stroke and I fell, and I couldn’t get up and I use the SOS feature of my watch to call 911. So, in a very real sense, my watch did help save me from a worse outcome.

My mother tripped on an uneven sidewalk and fell right on her cheek bone on the concrete. Her Apple Watch called 911 as she was concussed and confused with no one around. It truly can be a life saving device for many people. I’m forever sold.

I just got a wearable wristband for my kid who has seizures. It notifies parents when it detects a seizure. The device is just a wristband, but there is an app for apple and android watches that claim to do the same function. They all take a monthly sub for the monitoring, so it would be helpful to have studies that were run by independent sources to make sure we are getting something that actually helps.

To be completely honest I had weird heart palpitations last year, did a few ECGs on my watch over maybe an hour or so, took the readings to the hospital and they did find issues with my heart. It didn’t solve anything but the watch at least gave me something to hand to a doctor to look at.

He's just one doctor... I'm a health professional, and I can tell you most doctors have mixed opinions about this, but most agree the ECG is (incomplete, but) pretty accurate. I know of one doctor that does house calls to remote areas, and uses his own watch to take people's ECG sometimes. However, wife is an ER doctor, and she's tired of people coming in 'cause their "heart rate is lower than normal". Personally, I can't wait for the day it monitors glucose

I treat my watch as a tool, if something is irregular I’ll just ask my doctor. Never soly rely on one tool.

My mom has had afib since she was a teenager, but she didn't know it until 2020. It was getting worse, happening more often, and lasting longer. She got a Galaxy watch for free with a phone, and even though she doesn't ever wear it, she was using it to keep track of her afib before she had an ablation. It helped her doctors get a better idea of how much it was affecting her. I totally get how people become anxious over the functionalities on their watches and not understanding how helpful or harmful certain data is.

Educated patient who has learned to live with cardiac issues for 25+ years. I can easily feel tachy (SVT), PVCs, and atrial flutter but it's nice to have confirmation without reaching for my Kardia. Can I tell a PVC from a PAC? Nope, and unsure anyone can from a single-lead device. But again, it's an arrhythmia and having a record of the event and being able to track it over time is actually reassuring. Certainly, if I had a different personality I might be running to the ER every time my watch beeped and just get anxious waiting for the next alert. But short of getting my own halter or (heaven forbid) Medtronic giving me access to my pacemaker readings a smartwatch is my only reasonable option.

thanks for monitoring the audio and bringing everything back up so quick!

Retired physician. I've had intermittent A.fib for over a decade. It occurs for about 24 hours or less about every 2-3 months. I always know when I have it if I'm awake. I don't ever remember it waking me up but I have had it while I'm asleep. I got the Apple Watch and it now summarizes what % of the time I'm in A.Fib every month. That, the Activity app, and (especially) the Shazam complication on my watch face is why I continue to wear one.

It all depends on how you take the information. I'm a nurse and when I see the information I take it with my knowledge of what I have learned with my education. If I see something troubling I use it as more of a warning. You can't take maybe the 1 or 2x of high BP and panic. It's like when I have been asked by people "I have a cough. What does that mean?" Cancer! I don't know!

Totally agree with Dr. Mike...for me the only real reason I have a Apple Watch is for convience, much like a regular watch, but now I can respond to a text message, maybe look up directions, and pay/monitor stuff without needing my giant phone which I cannot have on me when working out or riding my bike as it would fly out of my pocket. The ultimate thing these smart watches can do the best at: making a phone call for an emergency (aka...old school Life Alert). Its why I wear my smart watch, just in case I fall, crash, get stranded, etc I can make a call.

I love my garmin watch because I can track my walking / hiking. But yes, I have had to turn off a lot of the health noise tracking because it was actually increasing my anxiety. On the flip side, I have my mom to turn hers on when she is walking at the park. So if she falls asleep will be notified.

I’ve gone through this fitness tracker anxiety. Before, I used to feel great but ever since I began to constantly track my head rate, oxygen level and breaths per minute, I have been having a bit of issues breathing. So it definitely can help to sometimes ignore the trackers

I had some nightly low heart rate alerts during my peak fitness form (I’m a long distance runner). I was OK with that. What I would not be OK is to miss such an alert out of bounds of my peak fitness form. Also I’m using ECG to communicate its results to my health check doctors. Which saves a lot of mine and their time. Also-also, VO2Max is AFAIK one metrics that highly correlates with life longevity. So, I keep my health and fitness in check to keep this metric above average))

I totally agreed with him. The watch has great sensors, but it’s different from proper medical gearing. If you do an EKG on your watch, you only have one lead. Standard EKG is 12 leads, just to pinpoint one of the differences. What we really need is research and a lot of AI to help understand how can we use this data and standardize it, because if Apple does something in one generation and change it in the other, results are gone be different, not to mention the variation between all the different products that do this measures. Now, it’s more of a gimmicky/enthusiast tool than a life changer.

Well it's good to know that I shouldn't take some of those health things too much to heart, but I really like the sleep thing that tells me how much sleep I got because I don't always get as much as I should and it helps and keeps shooting for 8 hours. I also appreciate that I can answer my phone or silence an alarm from my SmartWatch as well if my phone is out of my reach and I don't want it to be disruptive to others.

I have Afb. Before I was diagnosed, my heart rate is really irregular like 25% if the time. Then after taking medication, it notified me that it lessens, since then it only reads I have 2%.

Dr Mike on Waveform? I love this.

I like Dr. Mike’s medical input. It made sense and he has a point and obviously sees the benefits. Being healthy definitely requires a life style change and I think tech that helps motivate you is awesome. I personally love to track my workouts on my watch because it’s satisfying to close the rings. And I know that alone isn’t what is keeping me healthy but that little boost helps kickstart. My husband has been on a healthy journey and loves any type of data, so tracking everything is purely for his own pleasure and satisfaction.

Just bought myself a galaxy watch the other day. The unexpected benefit I've notified right away is the "Time to move" automatic feature which does work in my case. Even if I shut it down, slowly but surely it makes me stand up and move compared to spending 6-11 hours in front of my computer all day (besides the obvious rounds to the fridge, sink and toilet). Which was a surprise.

One thing I will mention as a benefit with wearable health tech (I personally use a fitbit) is that there is a direct correlation with documenting progressive habit formation and the amount of follow through you have with habit forming. I just got done reading atomic habits, a lot of people have read this book I know, but it talks about how much more likely you are to remain consistent with developing and mantaining good habits if you are actively documenting progess. That is what the fitbit has helped me with personally, more than just being a heart rate monitor and step counter.

The ECG in smartwatches actually help a lot! It is more accurate and easier that a holter monitor. I have seen people in ED print out an ecg report from their watch which shows Atrial Fibrillation and was found out to have a fib and was appropriately managed!

I happen to get anxiousness and nervousness QUITE easily, and I feel my heart pounding and I get nasuea most of the times, but now with my smartwatch sometimes I get anxious, and I get even more anxious to the thought that if I take a look at my watch I'll look at a big number like 120bpm 🙃 but then, I finally look at my watch and it's like "70 bpm :)" And it feels so weird to look at a normal number when I can feel my heart beating faster than usual 😂

I love my watch and it does warn me of some things with my heart health. However, in addition to my watch, my doctor told me to purchase a Kardia portable EKG that provides a cardiologist with a 6 lead EKG. This was much more helpful for my dr. and we finally "caught" my heart "in action"

Thanks for the review with the doctor ❤

the health anxiety conversation is interesting to me, since I had very bad health anxiety and since I started using an Apple Watch that has pretty much been eliminated. having objective and clear measurements in front of me at any point and having active encouragement to move and exercise is incredibly reassuring.

He brought a good point, does it matter to track as long as you’re doing the habits? I will say it’s nice to see that it’s working, like he said it’s a motivator.

3:05 that audio hurt👀

I have been using health gadgets for almost 10 years now. I've had 5 gadgets over the years. • Fitbit Flex • Fitbit Flex 2 • Fitbit Inspire 2 • Fitbit Inspire 3 • Vital Bracelet BE I love having health gadgets, but I've had doctors tell me not to trust them. It can start a conversation, but it won't solve anything. I love that it is WAY more fun to get out and exercise than it use to be because anything that can lead me to better health is good. Just know it isn't perfect, anything can happen and if you know the answer, then you're probably right and just trust your gut and listen to your doctor first and foremost. Active gadgets can be great, but not a solution.

People testing these health stuff like supplements and stuff would be a great show.

I purchased an Apple Watch based on my heart problems and the pacemaker I have. I didn’t expect it to be accurate to medical grade stuff. But i shown my doctor the results of my ECG readings and said is this normal because my readings looked like a child’s angry scribble. He said that is normal for someone with your condition. It shocked me how all over the place my heart is and Apple Watch was able to show me this. I’m sure the Samsung/google version would of shown me exactly the same and I only purchased the Apple Watch because I have an iPhone but still in shock what tech can show you currently

Yeah I feel like we're not really "meant" to have real-time access to this data, your heart rate is regulated by the **autonomic** nervous system, meaning automatic, meaning we can't control it. Having access to data of things you can't control is just a recipe for anxiety. However, I think there is one very useful metric - HRV. The balance between your body's relaxation response and stress response. Once you get a consistent trend of this data you can start taking lifestyle interventions to try and increase this number and thus increase the health of your nervous system. HRV biofeedback breathing is especially useful since it trains you to breathe in a way that maximizes your HRV for short sessions, then overtime your baseline HRV actually does increase.

I wouldn’t say it’s purely for entertainment, the gamification aspect of measuring your progress makes it more likely that you will stick to the activities which help you lower that number. i think that’s where the Apple Watch really shines. Also when it comes to sleeping for example, it genuinely helps me sleep better I can clearly tell if the things I’m doing to sleep better genuinely help, i modified my sleep schedule, exercise schedule, i sit in the dark an hour before going to bed, i listen to audiobooks, i wake up every day at the same time… and i know it works because i see the effect it has on my trends.

Fitness trackers are for motivation and to remember your (in) consistency over time. Very easy to misremember effort in the past, which is why tracking it allows you to better understand and improve your progress

More than entertainment, I really think this devices do help in saving lifes, either because you are overweight and need exercise to get a lower weight, or because you did have a Heart Attack and the doctor suggests exercise, regardless of brands or if it is a smartwatch or smartband. Even then, there are brands like Xiaomi that integrate those devices with smart scales for weight tracking and body composition, so we may have inconsistencies today, but they really help people in motivation and getting better

My immediate thought is a dystopia where your insurance is directly tied to the data on your Apple watch, to the extent that you can't get insurance if you're not in the Apple Product system.

I spent a year in and out of a&e multiple times a week, doctors couldn't find what was wrong with me as the readings were normal when I got there, I eventually got fed up and bought a Samsung watch a kept all the readings for the cardiologist, I was able to get my Dx a year later with the help of my watch, it literally saved my life. I now lead a fairly regular life with it. Edit: and it has saved my life since upon fainting and hitting my head when alone, it's great technology to have at fairly affordable prices.

great take and segment

Apple Watch motivated me to lose 60lbs. I’d say it was worthwhile. Turned my whole life around from a fitness and wellness perspective. I’m in my late 30s and I’ve never been stronger. I went from losing the weight to now I’m actually getting ripped. Call me daddy, lol. Nothing else kept me accountable before now.

Interesting take. Mixed feelings. When I started tracking my heart rate through a chest strap and it got high while jogging or working out, a fitness app (back in the day) alerted me and also my fitness trainier told me to go see the doctor. The doctor then took a ECG under load and said "don't worry about numbers, you're fine". I also would feel a little anxious, If I got a notification from the apple watch, that my heart rate is too low. I'm totally with him in that respect. (same goes for creatine and stuff. If you don't eat well and train hard, start doing that first.) But then I track my hiking tours with komoot all the time and it gives me the extra bit of motivation I really need on these activities. I love seeing what I achieved. I wonder If the apple watch ultra would is the right device for me.

I would say that in terms of using gear as motivation, fitness watches are better then other gear in that you can also track your progress, and you can also get the satisfaction of checking things off. So you get continual motivation from the same product by getting things done and by looking at your history. That’s unique to software gear and so in a way, it’s like buying new gear continually.

My watch alerted me to afib & I got into see my cardiologist quickly that week & confirmed it. I got a cardio inversion a week later to fix it.

I wear a galaxy watch 5 pro. It has the blood pressure and ecg function. Do i take it as medical advice? No. But as a person with high blood pressure, and the fact i have to calibrate it with a proper blood pressure cuff every 28 days. It at least serves as a somewhat baseline in between when I use said blood pressure cuff. So just for me, its something i can do every day, which is not something i would do with the cuff. Is it accurate? 🤷🏼‍♂️ but it gives me a ballpark figure

It’s so cool that you actually invited Dr. Mike The MVP

This healthcare/tech crossover is my jam. Can’t believe it took me this long to come across it 😮

I had to make myself stop wearing mine because of my panic disorder. My biggest trigger and symptom for/of panic attacks is sudden and severe medical anxiety about my cardiac health, and I have a plethora of physical discomforts that come on from it; making it a little more complicated than just knowing its anxiety and brushing it off (although I work on being able to do that lol). So when I become anxious and the stress raises my heart rate, and then the watch goes off giving me a warning, its like a positive feedback loop enabling my irrational and anxious thoughts. Just unfortunate.

I'm glad you guys covered this, and I really agree with and resonate with Mike's opinion. I myself have struggled with health anxiety which got pretty severe this last year for a number of reasons. I also bought an Apple Watch last year, and wore it pretty much every day. Having that consistent access to knowledge about my heart rate, blood oxygen level, etc. was something I thought would be comforting, but in reality it just made my anxiety worse. I haven't worn the watch in lile 5 months now, and I haven't had a severe anxiety episode since. Obviously everyone's situation is different, but I found it best not to wear the watch, as it just made my already bad health anxiety worse.

The apple watch got me to visit a doctor. Heart rate of 150+ while doing desk work isn't good. I just having cold sweats but with the watch, it told me something was wrong. Without the watch records I wouldn't been able to go further with a heart monitor through my insurance if I didn't have an records.

I just use them to tell time and to remind me to move more and to make sure I’m getting in my cardio.

I’ve used the Apple Watch for two years to track my Afib. I had an ablation and three weeks later my watch told me that I was back in Afib. I was able to send the data back to my cardiologist which created an appointment to do a a cardio version which brought me back to sinus rhythm. It’s a great tool.

Yes you can ramble on about the false alerts, but its about when it works. Obviously everyone has to the be aware of the mental blockades these reading can build, but aslong as youre aware of what the watch can do and how to read it their doing just great.

Athlete here, for me the apple watch or any wearable is crazy good for fitness information. Especially paired with proper gym tracker

I was getting these notifications and got scared myself. I was hitting 135 resting and 200+ while working out and went to the doctors, wore a halter monitor and they said that I was completely fine. Still unsure of what to think about this because my heart rate was obviously elevated byond what it should have been, but the doctors have said that I am fine.

I am really interesting what the new Apple Watch can do regarding women's menstrual cycles. An aspect often not spoken about in men's tech discussions. But more control there without pills, or complicated measurements could be a huge game changer for women.

I got into fitness and yeah the watch might not be so accurate, but it's a fun game you can play with yourself, and its better to have some kind of tracking than nothing. great interview tho.

Dr. Mike has some intelligent input, especially how he circumvents Marquez technological biases

Please check the sound at 3:17

I don’t have an Apple Watch, but I use the walking app in my iPhone, it’s great for tracking speed and distance, but I honestly use it to brag with my friends 😂

I subscribe to dr Mike and wish more doctors were like him. Great episode.

Those...."jokes".... just wowowow 😂

Wow Dr. Mike is spot on! I have type 2 diabetes and every time I eat I get a high heart rate notification on my Apple Watch and it causes me more stress and anxious state. It makes me not want to eat and increases my heart rate iconically

This is why I deactivated regular heart rate detection. I was feeling great then suddenly I had this notification I was having high heart rates. I was feeling fine but then I started having panic attacks because of the watch.

As a cognitive behavioural therapist i can 2nd what this Dr is saying of how these devices can feed into health anxiety

i have adhd and whenever I take my meds for it (adderall), I always get heart rate alerts. makes the feature kind of useless but I hope I don’t miss anything because I’m just ignoring these alerts lol

0:00-1:20 Marques hit it right on the nail 📌. I feel that way ALL THE TIME when it comes to features. Perfectly said.

awesome collab 🎉🎉

I know I can feel that my HR is high, and how to try to fix it. But what I like about the smartwatches is that I can SHOW actual data of it happening. So is not some “stupid womanly thingy feeling” but actual data. It’s actual data and not me imagining things. Just like how much certain show made my HR spike (how triggering it was for me in a non “wishy washy” way) It really helped me, being a 40 something and late dx ND woman, to explain myself to healthcare workers.

This video was hugely beneficial to me! Thanks!

What people need to think about is broader information with the heart rate monitor. My heart rate was always low (60-70) bpm...no big deal But paired with sudden weight gain, always fatigued and cold Its time to go to the doctor

I'll agree with the doctor that a lot of smart watch health functionality is for entertainment purposes, but there are people out there who have occasional bouts of afib and having a watch with ECG functionality as well as passive detection is a nice thing to have. What's bizarre is Marques not understanding ECG probably isn't for him and he shouldn't be dismissing it as not being useful because it's not useful to him. As a professional tech reviewer, he should be able to discern that.

Nice Lindberg glasses doctor. Have them too.

I use my older Garmin forerunner 35 watch as a way of gamifying exercising/fitness and habit building but never think that the HR is accurate (it sometimes measure a heart beat when I'm not wearing it).....

Any thoughts on the watch causing any issues physically? Does it emit anything that could mutate cells?

Better than the information from the watch are apps like Strava or Garmin Connect, which give more information and get you motivated with friends who share the same sports. I prefer data from my Garmin bike computer than from my Samsung Watch, The bike computer has better GPS tracking, better heart rate sensor and additional sensors for pedal rpm and speed.

I got an Apple Watch and it gave me that initial boost to start exercising. I am now running a marathon each year. It started with the Apple Watch and closing my rings.

Did an ECG reading for the first time in months and I got my first ever afib result 😬

that's what i noticed after i got a smartwatch: cool stats and info but... what do i do whit all this data about my exercises and my sleep? i turned off all the tracking and i'm just using it as a regular watch now and i will not consider buying another smartwatch in the future until we know what to do with it

The watch notifies me of low heart rates during my sleep 😅

"He has SVT, which is a type of fast heat rate that exists." Thanks for really clarifying that doc.

2:55 what happened with the sound there?

this is eye opening for someone who’s been thinking about getting their first apple watch, now i’m having doubts haha

Honestly my fav thing about wearing my Fitbit is the sleep tracker. I tend to drink a lot and black out. I like being able to go back and look at my sleep to see what time I passed out and therefore try to put together what happened before. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I use my watch to quell my anxiety, when I smoke weed sometimes I feel like my heart is beating weirdly when it’s actually not at all so I put on my apple watch knowing that if it was actually beating abnormally it would let me know. and it never has!

I have been thinking of getting a Fitbit charge 6 but don't want it to monitor my sleep because I have insomnia and know I sleep badly. I don't want a watch making me feel worse because I know I have something tracking my sleep that could tell me I get very little decent sleep. I assume I would just take it off at night. I am really after something that will tell me how far I walked this month, what my heart rate was during weight training and that sort of thing. Ideally I would be able to have an analogue looking face on it when I just want to see the time.

@Marques what is your daily calories goal?

The truth is the watch is paired with the Health app. So you can give doctor history. Because as it now you meet a new doctor how many metrics does he have to measure you other then your own perception. If you have data you have both your own perceptions and data. How much a patient move, heath rate and so on the better, doctors are sometimes flying blind because patient sometimes can’t tell you anything about them.

Although I can see where he’s coming from (more of a GP perspective) I’d say hes overgeneralizing quite a bit - we’ve used heart rate monitors in cycling for decades. When racing they were invaluable and now that i’m just an average joe they are still very useful to make sure I don’t over exert myself while still pushing myself to improve.

My Apple Watch heart notifications only go off when I'm playing Dark Souls.

You all keep lumping in VO2 Max with A-fib detection and other alerts related to health problems. Nobody is going to the doctor because of what their watch tells them about their VO2 Max. It might not match the VO2 Max you get in a lab, but you're Garmin uses that number (you can think of it as a proprietary fitness score from the watch manufacturer rather than true VO2 Max if you like) to tailor your workouts and assess the effectiveness of your training, not to tell you about health problems.

What happened to the sound here 3:17

That’s why I bought the cheapest Fitbit I could just for sleep tracking. I don’t need all the other features. (Charge 5)

Doctor Mike seems to be conflating maintaining good health on one’s own and using statistics to determine when to medically intervene. I get the point where health tech might be over-hyped to sell, but I don’t think that that makes health tracking “entertainment”. Without selling, companies won’t get actual human use cases and proper testing, in a sense every product anyone owns is a test to the efficacy of the product and those collective testing experiences produce better products. Everyone with a health tracking product is taking part in learning what uses on a human level there are to health tracking, and that learning is looping back into the products through feature requests and data trends. Instead of taking a negative stance at this whole situation, it might have been more helpful for me to hear about the negative effects and how to mitigate for them. Maybe some good use cases for tracking, and a healthier way to read the numbers (or times to avoid looking) so not to panic, and more on the effects those panics are causing to the healthcare system. “We need studies for a hundred years on rats before we test on humans” is not what tech is bringing to the table at this day and age.

If BP can be done I feel like that will actually be useful

Putting whoop in the thumbnail but not diving in on sleep and recovery is a miss thb. The heart rate gimmicks small part of daily use but strain, sleep and recovery do add a lot of value imo

3:03 what the hell happened to the audio???

I’ve been on the fence of getting an Apple Watch for a while and I’m glad I watched this to convince me not to

I don’t really trust the numbers my Apple Watch pumps out. But I think it’s still fairly consistent with how it comes up with said values. In that case it is helpful for identifying trends in my fitness over time

considering covid can CPR be done with only chest compression. meaning no rescue breath ( mouth to mouth)

The only Apple Watch feature I found useful is the noise levels. I learned to avoid loud environments. The rest is just entertainment T_T