Pokémon Go: digital health interventions to reduce cardiovascular risk

• Published in: Cardiology in the young Vol. 27; no. 8; p. 1625
• Main Authors: Krittanawong, Chayakrit, Aydar, Mehmet, Kitai, Takeshi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England 01-10-2017
• Subjects: Cardiovascular Diseases - epidemiology; Cardiovascular Diseases - physiopathology; Cardiovascular Diseases - prevention & control; Exercise - physiology; Humans; Leisure Activities; Mobile Applications; Morbidity - trends; Primary Prevention - methods; Retrospective Studies; Risk Factors; Sedentary Lifestyle; Survival Rate - trends; United States - epidemiology; Video Games; Pokémon Go; exercise; social media; data mining; physical activity
• ISSN: 1467-1107
• DOI: 10.1017/s1047951117000749

Physical activity is associated with a lower risk of coronary heart disease/cardiovascular disease mortality, and current guidelines recommend physical activity for primary prevention in healthy individuals and secondary prevention in patients with coronary heart disease/cardiovascular disease. Over the last decade, playing classic video games has become one of the most popular leisure activities in the world, but is associated with a sedentary lifestyle. In the new era of rapidly evolving augmented reality technology, Pokémon Go, a well-known augmented reality game, may promote physical activity and prevent cardiovascular disease risks - that is, diabetes, obesity, and hypertension. Pokémon Go makes players willing to be physically active for regular and long periods of time. We report on an assessment of regular walking and playing Pokémon Go by performing data mining in Twitter.