Earbuds Level Up
In the latest Rundown, earbuds monitor your heart rate, fitness trackers meet telemedicine, and researchers talk muscles.
Earbuds Level Up. In-ear heart rate monitoring hasn’t made it to your Apple AirPods yet, but a recent Orbis Research market report (request it here) suggests that the tech is on the rise. Several brands of headphones, including Amazfit PowerBuds, Jabra Sport Pulse, Bose SoundSport Pulse and Philips ActionFit SN503, are capable of tracking changes in your heart rate as you run and logging the information into a mobile app. The tech has several benefits over data that is collected from a watch or a smart ring like Oura. If you work out in cold weather, blood flow to your hands and fingers may be reduced which could impact the accuracy of smart watches and smart rings. Thanks to the darkness of your ear canal, no ambient light is able to interfere with the LED light that is reflected from your skin and detected by the optical heart rate sensor. Consistent blood flow to your ears also gives a strong signal for the sensor to detect and data is not impacted by the movement of your arms, as it could be on a watch or a ring. What’s missing right now is any form of GPS but it may not be too far in the future, as in-ear tech continues to develop.
Telehealth Meets Fitness Trackers. Combine the global market for wearable fitness devices (valued at more than $36 billion in 2020) with the increase of remote telehealth due to the pandemic, and you get a digital health system interested in a wide range of medical data. Many of the wearable health devices that nearly 30% of Americans use are able to track, monitor and transmit data on everything from heart rate to blood pressure to levels of blood sugar. But to make the leap from a wearable to a medical diagnosis, physicians need to trust the data coming from your device. Recognizing the opportunity, some of the top wearables makers are teaming up with independent researchers to investigate the efficacy of their devices, apps and data. In November 2019, Apple began three health studies using the Apple Watch, including a heart and movement study, in partnership with Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the American Heart Association (learn about it here). The research is examining how specific mobility signals, along with details about heart rate and rhythm might be used to warn of potential atrial fibrillation, heart disease or declining mobility. Proven to be reliable, the data from digital health tools could mean a future where doctors monitor your health in real time.
Muscle vs. Weight Loss. If you’ve ever been on a diet while strength training and wonder why you’re not seeing results in muscle gain, researchers Karsten Koehler and Chaise Murphy from the Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences at the University of Nebraska have an answer. Their study (read it here) recently posed the question: Can you gain muscle and lose weight at the same time? What they discovered was that if you conduct resistance training to gain lean mass while you are restricting your calories (in other words, putting yourself in an energy deficit), you will diminish your gains. However, if you are looking to increase your strength, restricting your calories will not impact your gains, at least if you are new to resistance training. For experienced weightlifters, they note, the jury is still out.
Plant vs. Animal. Protein is the building block of muscles and with the growing interest in plant-based diets, researcher Luc J.C. van Loon, Professor of Physiology of Exercise and Nutrition at Maastricht University, Netherlands, set out to study the impact of plant-based protein versus animal-derived protein on muscle conditioning (read it here). He notes that so far, research has shown that eating plant-based protein, like soy and wheat protein, does not stimulate muscle protein synthesis to the same degree as an equal amount of animal-derived protein.
What’s muscle protein synthesis? It’s a naturally occurring process in which protein is produced to repair muscle damage caused by intense exercise. It’s the opposite of muscle protein breakdown, where protein is lost as a result of exercise. So to build muscle, your synthesis must be greater than your breakdown.
Additionally, the lower anabolic properties of plant-based proteins versus animal-derived ones have been connected to differences in protein digestion and amino acid absorption. To make up for this, van Loon suggests that you can consume more of a single plant-based protein or use blends of different plant-based proteins to create a more balanced amino-acid profile. The good news is that most active, healthy athletes typically consume enough protein per day, so switching to a more plant-based diet will probably not compromise their muscle conditioning. For the rest of us considering transitioning to a plant-based diet and thinking about muscle growth, it’s worth considering how much and in what combination, we consume our plant-based protein.