AliveCor wearables may detect unsafe potassium levels in the future

High blood potassium levels constitute a condition known as hyperkalemia. It can be related to a number of causes, including kidney disease, dehydration, injury and diabetes and hyperkalemia can affect heartbeat rhythm. Yesterday, during the American College of Cardiology conference, AliveCor presented work done with the Mayo Clinic showing that its technology can detect hyperkalemia through EKGs. The researchers used electrocardiogram data collected from 709,000 patients over the course of 23 years, which included 2.1 million EKGs and 4 million blood potassium measurements. Two-thirds of that data were used to train a neural network to detect hyperkalemia through EKG readings.