A new study from New York City-based Mount Sinai has found that commonly used wearable devices such as Apple watches, Fitbits and Oura rings may be able to identify, differentiate and predict flare-ups, or the worsening of symptoms and inflammation, in inflammatory bowel disease, according to a Jan. 17 press release from the system.
Findings of the study were published in the Jan. 16 edition of Gastroenterology. Researchers enrolled more than 300 participants with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease from 36 states.
Participants wore devices, answered daily symptom surveys, and provided blood and stool assessments of inflammation.
Researchers determined that patterns of heart rate variability, heart rate, oxygenation and daily activity, all measured by the wearable devices, were significantly altered when inflammation or symptoms were present, according to the release.
These markers could detect inflammation even in the absence of symptoms and distinguish whether symptoms were driven by active inflammation in the intestines.
Researchers found that these metrics, measured by wearables, changed up to seven weeks before flares developed.
"Current disease-monitoring methods rely on patients directly interacting with their doctors, either through office visits, blood or stool testing, or by undergoing a colonoscopy. These methods also only assess the disease at one point in time, and can often be invasive or inconvenient," Robert Hirten, MD, clinical director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health and associate professor of medicine and artificial intelligence and human health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and research lead, said in the release.