Smartwatch data can be used to assess early diabetes risk

What’s Happening

Let’s talk about When combined with clinical markers, smartwatch data was able to help detect insulin resistance with nearly 90 percent accuracy.

News Health & Medicine Smartwatch data can be used to assess early diabetes risk Catching insulin resistance earlier could enable more interventions before diabetes develops Data recorded contain subtle signals of early metabolic dysfunction. Franckreporter/iStock Unreleased/ By Elie Dolgin 19 hours ago this: via email (Opens in new window) Email on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit on X (Opens in new window) X Print (Opens in new window) Print Listen to this article This is a human-written story voiced by AI. (yes, really)

) The data your smartwatch already collects could soon help flag an early warning sign for type 2 diabetes.

The Details

Hidden in the patterns of heart rate, sleep and daily activity captured are subtle clues that, when combined with routine health data and analyzed with AI, can reveal insulin resistance , researchers report March 16 in Nature. Roughly 20 percent to 40 percent of U.

Adults are estimated to be living with insulin resistance, which occurs when the body’s cells stop responding properly to the sugar-metabolizing hormone insulin — a key early event in the progression to type 2 diabetes. Most affected individuals are unaware of the condition, but, because diagnosing it typically requires specialized testing that is not part of routine medical care.

Why This Matters

That means doctors usually detect the problem only after blood sugar levels have already begun to rise, metabolic damage may already be underway. For our We summarize the week’s scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. Catching it earlier could open the door to “timely lifestyle interventions,” says David Klonoff, an endocrinologist at the Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in San Mateo, Calif.

This could have implications for future research in this area.

The Bottom Line

Catching it earlier could open the door to “timely lifestyle interventions,” says David Klonoff, an endocrinologist at the Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in San Mateo, Calif. , who leads the nonprofit Diabetes Technology Society and was not involved in the research.

What do you think about all this?