Healthy Habits: Withings Scale

Connected health device leader, Withings, launched today the world’s most advanced at-home connected scale. Body Cardio goes beyond just weight management, by accurately assessing a person's cardiovascular health, turning every day weigh-ins into an annual physical.

It is the world’s first home scale to be able to measure Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV), which is one of the best indicators of cardiovascular health. Until now, this type of technology is generally only found in clinical settings. PWV is a measurement of arterial stiffness that is a key indicator of cardiac health and associated risks of cardiac incidents such as hypertension, high cholesterol, organ failure, stroke and heart attack. A high PWV indicates stiff arteries or high blood pressure.

Body Cardio is currently available exclusively at Apple stores, apple.com and Withings.com for $179.95. For your convenience, below is a press release with more information about the new scale, along with links to additional information about PWV, images and a video for Body Cardio.

I had a chance to interview the Withings team to learn more.

Why is it important to consider other markers of health besides weight?

Weight is a good measurement benchmark for losing weight, but it does not provide detail insight into overall health. Body Cardio gives people a look at their overall health by measuring BMI, heart health and the body’s percentage of fat, muscle, water and bone mass.  It also measures pulse wave velocity a measure of arterial stiffness that is a key indicator of cardiac health and associated risks of cardiac incidents such as hypertension, high cholesterol, organ failure, stroke and heart attack.    Now you can get a mini-annual physical every day when you keep an eye on your weight.

Also taking steps to improve your pulse wave velocity makes people healthy overall, which results in weight loss.

How does body composition factor in?

Understanding your body composition is important to understanding your overall health. Everyone’s bodies are different from height and weight to body fat and muscle mass percentages.  Body composition statistics provide people with a powerful tool to help with weight loss and management strategies. People are encouraged to benchmark their readings and focus their attention on how their measurements evolves over time. This provides important directional information that can help motivate people to achieve and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

 

Also different people have different health and weight outcomes.  Athletic or performance focused individuals will want to see how their body is changing rather than specific weight.   It could be perfectly acceptable for weight to be gained if it’s due to more muscle mass.  Knowing these stats helps people to track and amend training schedules. 

 

What is Pulse Wave Velocity?

Pulse Wave Velocity is the speed at which heartbeat-generated vibrations spread out along the arterial wall. Having a high Pulse Wave Velocity indicates stiff arteries or high blood pressure.

 

How can consumers use the readings they get from this scale?

Body Cardio was created to give people the ability to understand and track their overall health from home. Body Cardio provides both the actual PWV reading as well as an indication of whether it is optimal, normal or not optimal based on a person’s age, weight and height.  It also provides practical advice on how to improve results such as diet and exercise interventions.