If you’re checking your sleep score , and step count every morning like it’s a ritual, you’re not alone. But the longevity doctors who study how to stay healthy for decades? They say you may be obsessing over the wrong numbers. Also read | Cardiologist reveals why extreme fitness doesn’t always mean good health; stress may be the real culprit
Translation: how efficiently your body uses oxygen when you’re pushing hard. Research on large treadmill cohorts found that people in the lowest fitness category had a mortality risk that was comparable to — or even worse than — smoking or having diabetes, he explained. The best part? It’s fixable. “A ring or watch is excellent at trends. Your ring’s sleep stages? Your watch’s VO2max? And blood tests have the opposite problem: “A blood test is a snapshot of one morning. Even trendy tests like biological age clocks and DNA risk scores often aren’t validated in diverse populations, including those of Indian ancestry, he added. Wearables tell you which direction you’re moving and why. Put them together, and they point to the same boring-but-true formula: aerobic exercise, lift heavy things, sleep consistently, and keep visceral fat in check. No smart ring can do that for you.
“The good news is that it is highly trainable at almost any age,” Dr Mittal said. Dr Mittal said your ring and watch are amazing for one thing: trends. Where wearables fall short is absolute accuracy,” he said. “A reasonable estimate, not a sleep study,” he said. “Modelled from heart rate and movement, and in validation studies they can be off by a meaningful margin,” he added. Clinical tests tell you where you stand, according to him.
