Essential Insights
- AI harnesses smartwatch data to identify structural heart diseases.
- Training involved over 266,000 readings sourced from hospitals.
- The AI achieved an 88% accuracy rate in detecting heart conditions in a cohort of 600 smartwatch users.
TUESDAY, Nov. 4, 2025 (HealthDay News) — A groundbreaking study reveals that artificial intelligence (AI) can analyze smartwatch data to detect heart diseases.
According to forthcoming findings to be unveiled on Nov. 7 at the American Heart Association’s annual conference in New Orleans, AI, utilizing heart sensor information from an Apple Watch, successfully identified cardiac issues such as impaired pumping function, valve damage, or hypertrophied heart muscle.
This accomplishment is particularly noteworthy given that the Apple Watch is equipped with only a single-lead electrocardiogram (ECG), in stark contrast to the 12-lead ECG assessments typically employed in clinical settings to evaluate cardiac health, researchers highlighted.
“A single-lead ECG on its own has limitations,” stated senior investigator Dr. Rohan Khera, who leads the Cardiovascular Data Science Lab at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.
“However, when augmented by AI, it gains sufficient capacity to screen for significant heart disorders.”
“This innovation could enable large-scale early detection of structural heart disease, leveraging devices many individuals already possess,” Khera emphasized.
Structural heart diseases refer to ailments that originate within the heart muscle, impacting its valves, walls, and chambers, as per the Cleveland Clinic.
The AI was trained using a substantial dataset comprising over 266,000 12-lead ECG recordings from more than 110,000 adult patients.
Researchers isolated a lead closely resembling those present in smartwatches, thereby teaching the AI to discern heart disease based solely on single-lead data.
Subsequently, the AI was evaluated on 600 new participants, each receiving a 30-second ECG utilizing an Apple Watch.
The results exhibited that the AI attained an impressive 88% accuracy in differentiating between individuals with and without heart disease, according to the data.
Furthermore, the AI demonstrated an 86% success rate in identifying individuals with heart disease and a remarkable 99% accuracy in excluding those who did not suffer from heart conditions.
“Millions are donning smartwatches, which primarily serve to detect arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation,” remarked researcher Dr. Arya Aminorroaya, an internal medicine resident at Yale New Haven Hospital, in a news advisory.
“In contrast, structural heart diseases typically necessitate an echocardiogram, a specialized ultrasound imaging technique that depends on specific equipment and is not readily available for routine screenings,” Aminorroaya elaborated.
“Future studies will focus on assessing the AI tool in broader contexts and examining its potential integration into community-based heart disease screening initiatives to evaluate its efficacy in enhancing preventative care,” Aminorroaya concluded.
It is important to note that findings presented at medical conferences are considered preliminary until they undergo scrutiny and publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
Additional Information
The Cleveland Clinic provides extensive information on structural heart disease.
SOURCE: American Heart Association, news release, Nov. 3, 2025
Implications for You
Your smartwatch may soon possess the capability to detect structural heart disease, leveraging the data it continuously gathers.
Source link: Albianews.com.
