Apple donates 1,000 watches for eating disorder study

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Man’s brand new Apple Watch turns out to be toilet plunger
Apple Watch is being used in yet another research study.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple is donating 1,000 Apple Watches for a new study intended to track binge eating. The Binge Eating Genetics Initiative (BEGIN) is being run by the University of North Carolina. The Apple Watches will be used to track the heart rate of participants when they binge on food.

This is just the latest example of how Apple’s wearable device is being used in research studies.

For the BEGIN project, University of North Carolina researchers are hoping to recruit 1,000 participants. They are looking for people with experience of eating disorders in the form of binge eating disorder or bulimia nervosa. Participants, who must be over the age of 18, will receive an Apple Watch to help track their data.

According to CNBC, “It’s likely that a binging and purging episode would cause some biological change that would show up in the Apple Watch data.”

Participants will also be asked to sign up to an app called Recovery Record, which lets them log their emotional responses during the course of the project.

“We’re interested to find out what happens in the time period leading up to the binge and the purge,” said Jenna Tregarthen, CEO of Recovery Record. “And we hope we can anticipate and ultimately change the course of that episode.”

Apple’s new focus on medical research

As noted, this isn’t the first time the Apple Watch has been used as part of research studies. At present, a large-scale study into heart health among Apple Watch owners is busy wrapping up. Called the Apple Heart Study, the initiative was a collaboration between Apple and Stanford Medicine. It launched in November 2017.

Most notably, Apple has also played a big part in helping to revolutionize research through the launch of ResearchKit. First introduced in March 2015, ResearchKit is an open iOS software frameworks designed to crowdsource volunteers for medical research studies. It helped turn every iOS device into a medical crowdsourcing tool.

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