Last Updated on April 7, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org
Smartwatch accuracy tester Rob ter Horst uses a paper which was partly funded by Polar as a scientific justification for the choice of the Polar H10 as his reference device for his scientific tests:
RR interval signal quality of a heart rate monitor and an ECG Holter at rest and during exercise
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31004219/#full-view-affiliation-1
The paper has been cited 326 times on the 7.4.2024:
- Gold Standard for heart rate measurement
- A key scientific paper in this context is this one:
Lin LI. A concordance correlation coefficient to evaluate reproducibility.
- Biometrics 1989
- ;45:255-68. 10.2307/2532051
This paper has been cited 8580 times to this date:
- Why has this paper been so often cited?
- It is a key paper which say something about what is required so that heart rate measurement is gold standard.
These requirements are:
- A three lead (or 3 channel) ECG device.
- The Mason-Likar electrode placement.
- ECG-based HR has to be determined by visual assessment of a trained research personnel.
- the Polar H10 does not fullfill the requirements mentioned in the above paper. In the the paper about the Polar H10 it says:
« A simple chest strap such as the Polar H10 might be recommended as the gold standard for RR interval assessments if intense activities with strong body movements are investigated.»
- This contradicts the information of the paper mentioned above about gold standard, and therefore:
the statement:
« A simple chest strap such as the Polar H10 might be recommended as the gold standard for RR interval assessments if intense activities with strong body movements are investigated.»
is controversial.
2. The g.tec medical support write us a while ago, that they do not know of a manufacturer who has solved the problem of ECG motion artifacts.
- Rob ter Horst claims the Polar H10 has «the best heart rate» with 99,6 %.
- If Polar with the Polar H10 would have solved the problem of ECG motion artifacts, would not the g.tec medical support know about this and mention this?
- But the g.tec medical support did not mention the Polar H10 chest strap.
3. The European Journal of Applied Physiology in which the Polar H10 paper has been published is is not a journal at the highest level:
https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=23402&tip=sid
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Journal_of_Applied_Physiology
- A journal of a higher level is the
«The Journal of Physiology»:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journal_of_Physiology
- Why was the paper about the Polar H10 not published in «The Journal of Physiology»?
- Would «The Journal of Physiology» have rejected the paper about the Polar H10?
- Why did Rob ter Horst not choose a paper about the Polar H10 which is at least at the level of the «The Journal of Physiology»?
- Shouldn’t we expect that from someone who is as well trained as a scientist as Rob Ter Horst?
- Is there no such paper about the Polar H10 in a higher level journal available?
4. Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org does not know of a second group of reseachers who whould have reproduced the data in the the paper mentioned above about the Polar H10.
5. New information is available which would require a new paper about the Polar H10
- Only a view month after the paper mentioned abouve about the Polar H10 has been published, a paper written by Cardiologists of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio has been published.
- This second paper comes to a different conclusion about the Polar H 7 and 3 channel ECG devices than the first paper mentioned above.
- It is the paper:
Accuracy of commercially available heart rate monitors in athletes: a prospective study
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6732081
- Such treadmill studies are not mentioned in the first paper about the Polar H10.
- Would these treadmill ECG studies not make a new paper necessary about the Polar H10 accuracy against ECG treadmills?
6. Is it worth to study the above paper about the Polar H10 in even more detail?
- Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org did not study the above papers in every detail.
- He is not an expert in the field of heart rate accuracy validation papers.
- The satements of Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org given here might contain some errors.
- But after the information which is given here, the question arrises, is it wroth to study and discuss the above paper about the Polar H10 in more detail, as Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org has done it here?
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