Is the Polar H10 ECG chest strap the «gold standard in science» for heart rate measurements as Rob ter Horst claims?

Last Updated on November 22, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org

Rob ter Horst claim is in this:

or in one of his other YouTube video reviews. His statements are based on the following paper:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31004219/

Published in the Eur J Appl Physiol 2019. Is this a journal which accept almost every submission? The Journal of Meditation Research of the MRIS would not accept the above paper for publication. And the reason: the paper dos not discuss papers of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio which uses 3 channel ECG devices and compares those for instance to a Polar H7 chest strap on a treadmill:

We did not check if the above paper was eventually published before the paper with the treadmill of the Cleveland Clinic. But still there was another paper of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio which was not mentioned and discussed either.

The papers of the Cleveland Clinic leave not doubt that the gold standard is the Quinton Qtel 3 channel ECG device which costs thousands of dollars an not the Polar «ECG» chest strap heart rate monitor. These papers are not discussed at all in the above paper which we think is a big issue, and for us personally a reason not to accept to publish this paper in our journal if it was submitted today to the MRIS.

Papers of the Cleveland Clinic are not discussed in the paper.These papers use 3 channel ECG devices at the highest level. A paper which studies the accuracy of ECG devices and does not mention and discuss these papers is incomplete. And the definition of «gold standard for HR measurement» as used in the paper is controversial.The papers of the Cleveland Clinic in Oho use a different definition for gold standard for HR measurements which accepted among cardiolgists and wideley used. The conclusion of the paper is misleading if high quality ECG devices as used by the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio are not mentioned and discussed. These devices eventually have issues at higher speeds, but at lower speeds these are gold standard for HR measurement and not the Polar H10, else medical doctor would use the Polar H10 in hospitals which they don’t. Not to mention this is misleading since reviewers such as Rob ter Horst use this paper as a scientific paper to entitle the Polar H10 as “gold standard in science”. This is a statement which is controversial.

To have a gold standard in research for HR measurements the papers of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio write that a 3 channel ECG device is required and a correct placement of the electrodes. Furthermore a trained person is required to check every ECG peak. In the paper mentioned above every ECG peak was checked. But the Polar H10 has not the electrode placement which is required for a «gold standard in science».

3 channel ECG reference devices work up to about 15 km/ h on a treadmill, at higher speeds issues with ECG motion artefact appear as mentioned in the above paper. For a 3 channel gold standard ECG device we need for instance an OpenBCI module with at least 3 channels.Then we need additionally a software to analyse the ECG data. This can be for instance HeartPy.

The following paper says that OpenBCI Cyton can be used instead of an Adinstruments channel recorder for HRV measurements:

Adinstruments channel recorders are well established in science and used in many scientific papers. The MRIS will use 3 channel ECG devices instead of the Polar H10 or optical HRMs as soon as possible or will eventually use both in parallel.