Polar Ignite 3
A study undertaken across the UK and Canada has found a wearable fitness tracker watch can be helpful in treatment of those who have been recently diagnosed with diabetes.
The randomly controlled trial published by the BMJ looked to discover how much the use of a wearable would affect the outcomes of patients diagnosed with diabetes within the previous two years.
Part of that early treatment is about getting a person to be more active.
“Increasing physical activity (PA), both through purposeful exercise and unstructured lifestyle behaviours is fundamental to the initial treatment of type 2 diabetes,” reads the study.
125 people were initially recruited for the study, and those that followed through were monitored over the course of a year. 61 were in the core group, dubbed MOTIVATE-T2D. The other 64 were the “active control” group, meaning they did not receive the fitness tracker that was at the core of the study.
The main group of participants used a Polar Ignite fitness tracker, which is available for anyone to buy right now — the Polar Ignite 3 is the latest model.
The goal was to get patients up to 150 minutes of exercise a week, which would be monitored using the Polar Ignite’s heart rate sensor and a Polar Verity Sense HR strap. And to increase physical activity more generally.
That advice was given to both groups, those with the fitness tracker and those without. It’s pretty standard advice anyway for those wanting to become fitter, after all.
All participants were also supplied with a GENEactive tracker, an accelerometer-based step counter that, while advanced in its own way, does not have a screen or the other appealing smarts of the Polar watch. It was used to empirically monitor general activity. They all got the Polar Verity Sense heart rate strap too.
How Does A Fitness Tracker Help Those With Diabetes?
The study found having access to that Polar fitness tracker did indeed improve a person’s ability to stick to the exercise plan. Its fitness tracker group exercise “more regularly than active control during the 6month-intervention period and the 6- to 12-month follow-up.”
It notes “promising effects on adherence to purposeful exercise” thanks to the use of a wearable.
Tests indicate there was also a positive effect for that group’s blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar level.
“The results from this trial suggest that the MOTIVATE-T2D approach of using biometrics from wearable technologies to support a home-delivered, personalised behavioural counselling service was promising for the promotion, uptake and adherence to purposeful exercise in people with newly diagnosed T2D,” reads the study write-up.
What’s next? There’s a suggestion for a larger study, one almost five times the size, that looks more specifically into potentially clinically significant effects to blood sugar levels, and to assess the cost-effectiveness of these measures.
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