A recent review study published in NPJ Digital Medicine suggests that digital tools, such as health and fitness apps, can significantly improve health and wellbeing.
The umbrella review and meta-meta-analysis included 47 meta-analyses that featured over 500 randomized controlled trials and over 206,000 participants. All of the included analyses focused on apps or other digital tools that were meant to improve physical activity, sedentary behavior, diet, or sleep in adult populations. The goal of the study was to see whether digital tools can improve health and wellbeing by promoting healthy behaviors.
The results of the analysis showed that digital tools improved all of the healthy behaviors mentioned above. Digital tools increased steps per day by an average of 1329, increased moderate-to-vigorous physical activity by 55 minutes per week, decreased sedentary behavior by 7 hours per week, decreased calories consumed per day by 103 calories, increased fruits and vegetables consumed per day by 20%, increased weight loss by 1.9 kilograms over 12 weeks, improved sleep quality, and lessened the severity of insomnia. These results remained consistent across different age groups and health states.
The authors of the study stated that these results indicate potential ways to decrease the risk of several chronic diseases, including obesity, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and some mental health disorders. These chronic conditions are preventable and respond well to increases in physical activity, decreases in sedentary behavior, and positive changes in diet and sleep habits. Because the results were consistent across various populations, digital health apps may prove useful in large public health campaigns to change unhealthy behaviors and prevent chronic diseases. While more research is needed to confirm these results in specific populations, digital tools such as health and wellness apps appear to be an effective and relatively low-risk option to improve health and wellbeing.
Sources: NPJ Digital Medicine, Science Daily