Life is undoubtedly more than a string of statistics, yet modern living can make it feel otherwise. With the rise of wearable technology, health monitoring and the pursuit of optimisation, many of us are inching closer to becoming data points rather than people.
Armed with a handful of unobtrusive gadgets, it is now possible to transform oneself into a kind of living spreadsheet. We can monitor, almost minute by minute, our blood oxygen levels, respiration, glucose, REM sleep, skin temperature, heart rate variability, body composition and countless other biomarkers. Diet, mood, menstrual cycles – even digestive habits – can all be logged if one wishes.
The idea behind gathering all this information is simple enough: that by understanding ourselves better, we may enhance both the quality and longevity of our lives. Yet the challenge remains – how do we interpret this ever-growing mountain of data without turning our daily routine into a full-time administrative job? Few of us, after all, aspire to function as human Excel files.
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Researchers at Northwestern University in the United States may have brought us a step closer to clarity. In 2025, they presented a method of combining two commonly measured indicators that could offer deeper insight into everyday fitness and long-term health risk. The calculation, known as Daily Heart Rate per Step (DHRPS), is straightforward. It involves dividing your average daily heart rate by the average number of steps you take. Although you need a device such as a Fitbit or Apple Watch to track these figures continuously, the arithmetic itself takes mere moments.
According to lead researcher Flynn Chen, the measure appears to correlate more strongly with conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart failure and heart attacks than either heart rate or step count in isolation.
To illustrate: if your average monthly heart rate is 80 beats per minute and you record around 6,000 steps a day, your DHRPS is 0.01333. Increase your step count to 10,000, and the score drops to 0.008 – and in this system, a lower number indicates better cardiovascular health.
The team monitored more than 7,000 Fitbit wearers for five years, collectively capturing in excess of 50 billion steps. Participants were categorised into three groups – low, medium and high DHRPS – and the results were telling. Increasing your daily steps proved to be one of the simplest ways to improve your score.
Step count has long been shown to predict cardiovascular risk and mortality. What the new research suggests is that the relationship between heart rate and steps may be an even stronger independent indicator of cardiovascular health. By increasing activity levels, you are not only improving your step count but also naturally lowering your DHRPS.
Chen notes that at least a week’s worth of reliable data is required to produce a meaningful score. Since the study’s publication, the health-tracking community has begun to adopt the metric, potentially paving the way for further discoveries.
Notably, DHRPS was found to correlate with VO2 max in a smaller subset of participants. VO2 max – a key measure of aerobic fitness – typically requires a specialist treadmill test, making it less accessible. If DHRPS is eventually shown to be a reliable proxy, it could help democratise access to fitness insights previously confined to clinical settings.
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In a world drowning in data, DHRPS may prove to be a rare and welcome development: a simple number with the potential to tell us something genuinely meaningful, no spreadsheets required.
