Fitbit has collected 150 billion hours' worth of heart rate data from tens of millions of people across the globe, Yahoo Finance reports.
The activity tracker maker now houses the largest set of heart rate data ever collected, and gave Yahoo Finance a peek at its findings. Here are eight things to know:
1. Fitbit also collects these people's ages, sexes, locations, heights, weights, activity levels and sleep patterns, which combined with heart data, creates "a gold mine of revelations about human health," according to Yahoo Finance. However, all of Fitbit's data is anonymized.
2. Much of the data centers on resting heart rate, which helps serve as a baseline for overall health.
"The cool thing about resting heart rate is that it's a really informative metric in terms of lifestyle, health and fitness as a whole," said Scott McLean, PhD, director of human innovation research at Fitbit.
3. The data suggest that a high resting heart rate is correlated with early death.
4. Women tend to have higher resting heart rates than men because they tend to be smaller than their male counterparts, said Hulya Emir-Farinas, PhD, director of data science at Fitbit Research and Development.
5. Resting heart rate also increases when people approach middle age, before decreasing again later. This could be the result of multiple factors, such as having children, exercising less or suffering from more stress, as well as changes in metabolism.
6. As weight increases, so does resting heart rate, Dr. Emir-Farinas said. "Which makes sense, of course, because there's more tissue to support, and the heart needs to work harder," she added.
7. Although the American Heart Association recommends adults get in 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity a week, according to Yahoo Finance, after a couple hundred minutes of exercise, the benefits to your resting heart rate decrease.
8. The hours of sleep an individual gets also affects resting heart rate. The researchers recommend 7.25 hours as the perfect amount of sleep each night.
Click here to access the complete Yahoo Finance report.