Most Apple Watch users won’t get health benefits from the atrial fibrillation detection tool on the watch as most wearers are in a demographic that wouldn’t be prescribed medication for the condition, The Verge reported March 2.
In most cases, physicians wouldn’t do much if atrial fibrillation is flagged on an Apple Watch as medications usually prescribed for the condition are blood thinners, which is not a medication typically prescribed to younger people, according to a Feb. 22 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
For the study, researchers collected data from 1,800 Apple Watch users and found that only 0.25 percent of people wearing the device would qualify for anticoagulants. Showing that the typical Apple Watch user isn’t the group that physicians are most concerned about — especially when it comes to atrial fibrillation, Josh Pevnick, study author and co-director of the division of informatics at Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said in the report.