I find it both strange and reassuring that some of the best developments in health tech don't really do anything. Take the latest news from Apple, where Australian Apple Watch owners can now get hypertension alerts, after the feature was approved by the TGA late last year.
For most people, the best thing about this new feature is to never receive one of these alerts, because hypertension is the leading modifiable risk factor for heart attack, stroke, and kidney disease.
Hypertension is a silent threat. It impacts approximately 1.4 billion adults globally, and it's frequently undiagnosed because it often has no symptoms. Many people don't see a doctor regularly, and even during a clinical visit, it can be easily missed with a single measurement.
Professor Garry Jennings, chief medical adviser at the Australian Heart Foundation, put it plainly:
"Hypertension awareness in Australia is far too low, so we welcome new technologies that advise people that they might have hypertension and should seek confirmation from their doctor. Despite high blood pressure causing a greater risk of heart attack and stroke, only about a third of adults with hypertension are aware of it and have their blood pressure lowered to satisfactory levels."
How it works
The new feature uses data from your Apple Watch's optical heart sensor to analyse how your blood vessels respond to the beats of your heart. The algorithm works passively in the background, reviewing data over 30-day periods, and will notify you if it detects consistent signs of hypertension.
It's available on Apple Watch Series 9 and later, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 and later. The feature isn't intended for people under 22 years old, those who have been previously diagnosed with hypertension, or pregnant people.
If you receive a hypertension notification, Apple recommends logging your blood pressure for seven days using a third-party blood pressure cuff and sharing the results with your doctor at your next visit. This aligns with the latest guidelines for the diagnosis and management of hypertension.
The science behind it
Like all of Apple's health features, hypertension notifications are grounded in rigorous scientific validation.
The feature was developed with advanced machine learning and training data from over 100,000 participants, with its performance validated in a clinical study of over 2,000 participants.
While hypertension notifications won't detect all instances of hypertension, Apple estimates the feature will notify over one million people with undiagnosed hypertension worldwide within its first year of availability.
For a condition that's so often missed, that passive monitoring could make all the difference.
How to set it up
To check if you have hypertension notifications set up on your Apple Watch, open the Health app on your iPhone and navigating to Browse > Heart > Hypertension Notifications.
From there, you can confirm the feature is turned on and review the information about how it works.
Once enabled, there's nothing else you need to do. Your Apple Watch will monitor in the background and alert you if it detects consistent signs of hypertension over a 30-day period. Hopefully you won't receive any alerts, but if you do, go visit your doctor.
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