Assessment of heart rate measurements by commercial wearable fitness trackers for early identification of metabolic syndrome risk

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Metabolic syndrome increases the risks of cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers. The early detection of metabolic syndrome is clinically relevant, as it enables timely and targeted interventions. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the association between metabolic syndrome and heart rate measured using wearable devices in a real-world setting and compare this association with that for clinical resting heart rate. Data from 564 middle-aged adults who wore wearable devices for at least 7 days with a minimum daily wear time of 20 h were analyzed. The results showed significantly elevated all-day, sleeping, minimum, and inactive heart rates in men with pre-metabolic or metabolic syndrome compared with those in normal individuals, whereas sleeping heart rate and heart rate dips were significantly increased and decreased, respectively, in women with metabolic syndrome. After adjusting for confounders, every 10-beats-per-minute increment in all-day, sleeping, minimum, and inactive heart rates in men corresponded to odds ratios of 2.80 (95% confidence interval 1.53–5.44), 3.06 (1.57–6.40), 4.21 (1.87–10.47), and 3.09 (1.64–6.29), respectively, for the presence of pre-metabolic or metabolic syndrome. In women, the association was significant only for heart rate dips (odds ratio = 0.49 [95% confidence interval 0.25–0.96] for every 10% increment). Models incorporating inactive or minimum heart rate in men and heart rate dip in women demonstrated better fits, as indicated by lower Akaike information criterion values (170.3 in men and 364.9 in women), compared with models that included clinical resting heart rate (173.4 in men and 369.1 in women). These findings suggest that the heart rate indices obtained from wearable devices may facilitate early identification of metabolic syndrome.