Apple is donating 1,000 watches for a new study to track binge eating

CNBC:

The University of North Carolina’s medical school will soon be starting a study called BEGIN, which stands for Binge Eating Genetics Initiative, to better understand overeating. People with binge eating disorder often eat large amounts of food uncontrollably in a small period of time.

And:

Each participant will be given a free watch, courtesy of Apple, and researchers will monitor their heart rate using the device’s sensor over the course of a month to see if there are spikes before binge eating episodes. It’s likely that a binging and purging episode would cause some biological change that would show up in the Apple Watch data, according to Bulik.

As the capabilities of the Apple Watch grow, as more sensors are added, we should see more and more of these sorts of studies. Terrific use of technology.