Smartwatches have gotten pretty good at detecting atrial fibrillation, the most common heart rhythm disorder in the world, affecting nearly 38 million people globally. But many people brush off the alert, assuming that if they feel fine, it probably isn’t a big deal. New research presented at EHRA 2026 in Paris suggests that’s a mistake worth reconsidering.
The study is a post-hoc analysis of two large Swedish screening programs, STROKESTOP and STROKESTOP II, in which adults aged 75 to 76 were screened for atrial fibrillation using an ECG. Researchers tracked participants for several years to see who went on to develop heart failure.
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The numbers are hard to ignore. In STROKESTOP, about 23% of people whose atrial fibrillation was caught through screening later developed heart failure. STROKESTOP II returned a similar figure of around 20%.
What does this have to do with your smartwatch?
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