Apple’s innovative new hypertension alert feature has been given FDA clearance and is set to roll out to certain Apple Watches next week, according to a report from Bloomberg.
This means the feature will be available for the full launch of the new Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3 watches, but you don’t need to have the latest Apple Watch to get hypertension detection, because it will also be available on the Series 9 and Series 10 models, as well as the Apple Watch Ultra 2.
At the launch of the new watches, Apple said it expected to get clearance from the FDA and other regulators to launch the feature in 150 countries this month, and EU clearance is likely to follow this move from the FDA.
What is hypertension detection?
The new feature does not turn the Apple Watch into a blood pressure monitor — you’ll still need to use a blood pressure cuff to get that data if you need it.
Instead the new feature uses the optical heart rate sensor on the watch to analyze how your blood vessels respond to your heartbeats. This data is reviewed over a 30-day period and if possible signs of hypertension — chronic high blood pressure — are detected, you get an alert on the watch.
If you get an alert the next step would be to check your blood pressure with a cuff for seven days and share the data with a medical professional.
The hypertension tracking feature joins ECG readings, atrial fibrillation and high heart rate alerts as part of the Apple Watch’s suite of heart health tracking features, and could be the most important addition yet given how often hypertension goes undiagnosed because it is symptomless.
Apple developed the feature using machine learning and data from multiple studies with over 100,000 participants, and then validated its performance through a clinical study with over 2,000 participants. While it won’t detect every case of hypertension, Apple expects the feature to notify over 1 million people with undiagnosed hypertension in the first year.
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