by For several years Apple has been working on innovations aimed at caring for the health of the users of its devices, an example of this has been the constant improvements that the Apple Watch receives to more accurately monitor vital signs.
But recently it became known that the company would be directing its efforts to the development of a new technology that helps to continuously check blood glucose without the need to extract a sample.
The technology company’s bet is to achieve a system that allows glucose levels to be monitored in the human body, but without the need to puncture the skin to extract blood and be able to do the analysis.
Specialized media point out that said innovation would eventually be incorporated into the Apple Watch In order to perfect its health care device, the brand’s smart watch would be an item of interest for thousands of people suffering from diabetes.
The development that Apple is advancing would be based on the use of a monitoring process by optical absorption spectroscopy, which is produced through the interaction of a silicon photonic chip, lasers that emit a specific light wave towards a fluid that is under the skin that reacts with glucose.
Subsequently, an algorithm would enter to establish the user’s blood glucose level and said information would be presented through the interface of the brand’s smart watch.
However, it is important to clarify that This development would still be in the testing phase and it may take years to be applied to humans.Therefore, it is a project that is not yet within the reach of those who use the products of the Apple ecosystem.
On the other hand, it should be noted that Apple is also working on new features for cardiac health care, among which are warnings of irregular heartbeat or monitoring of the so-called aerobic capacity during exercise.
The company has recalled that it has spent years focused on developing functionalities related to this field, a work demonstrated with projects like ResearchKit and CareKitlaunched in 2015, thanks to which “research, medical and development professionals have found innovative ways to study, control and treat all kinds of diseases”.
To promote new discoveries focused on improving health, Apple has commented that it launched the Investigator Support Program, a program that makes Apple Watch available to researchers so that they can advance their scientific studies.
Among some of the features of the ‘smartwatch’ related to heart health is, first of all, the estimation of aerobic capacity. It is a characteristic that offers the maximum amount of oxygen that the body can consume during exercise, based on data from the American Heart Association.
With this functionality, users can choose to receive notification if your rating drops to ‘low’, in order to avoid risks of serious health conditions long-term.
Apple Watch devices can also passively check for unusually high or low heart rates when the body is at rest and allow adjustment of the beats per minute (bpm) threshold.
Another of Apple’s notorious features around heart health is irregular rhythm alerts. For this, the ‘smartwatch’ routinely measures heartbeat and notify users in case it has some irregularities. This is because atrial fibrillation does not cause any symptoms, and if it goes undetected, heart failure or blood clots can develop, leading to a stroke.
The ECG app, meanwhile, uses a heart sensor built into the Digital Crown of the watch. This studies the waveform, results, date, time and other symptoms that are recorded in the Health application.
*With information from Europa Press
