In a new study, researchers synthesized data from 206,873 people across 47 studies and found that digital health tools (such as mobile apps, websites, and text messages) can significantly improve health and well-being by keeping you active, increasing steps, and improving your diet and sleep.
Specifically, e-health and mobile interventions can help people achieve:
- 1329 more steps / day
- 55 more minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise/week
- 45 more minutes of general physical activity/week
- 7 fewer hours of sedentary behavior/week
- 103 fewer calories consumed/day
- 20% more fruits and vegetables consumed / day
- 5.5 grams less saturated fat consumed/day
- 1.9 kilograms of weight loss in 12 weeks
- Improves sleep quality
- Less severe insomnia.
The global economic burden of chronic diseases is estimated to exceed US$47 trillion by 2023, creating a high demand for effective interventions. According to the World Health Organization, one in eight people is currently obese; 422 million people have diabetes; and cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide.
Lead researcher Dr Ben Singh from UniSA says people’s health behaviours need to change if we are to reduce the incidence of chronic diseases.
“With the rise in preventable chronic diseases such as obesity, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, it is important to find mechanisms that can help reduce people’s risk,” says Dr. Singh.
“Our study found that digital and mobile health interventions can have a positive effect on people’s health and well-being, not only by helping them increase their physical activity and reduce sedentary behaviour, but also by improving their diet and sleep quality.
“Given the widespread accessibility and popularity of health apps, their ability to tailor information and provide timely reminders and prompts, and their scalability to diverse populations, they could be a highly effective intervention to promote better health.
“Making positive changes to your health and wellbeing can be challenging (it’s always easier to add pounds to your waistline than to reduce them), but by incorporating digital tools into your everyday life, you’ll be more likely to achieve positive results.”
The research identified consistent findings across different age groups, health behaviors, interventions, and healthy populations, indicating that digital health apps could help support broader public health campaigns. While the researchers recommend further research to better understand the impacts among specific groups of people, overall, digital health apps appear to be beneficial for everyone.