New research suggests smartphone apps could help people make healthier lifestyle choices.

Researchers revealed that currently, one in five American adults use some technology to track health data and the most popular health apps downloaded are related to exercise, counting steps, or heart rate. However, scientific evidence of mobile health technologies' effectiveness for reducing risk factors for heart disease and stroke is limited.

"The fact that mobile health technologies haven't been fully studied doesn't mean that they are not effective. Self-monitoring is one of the core strategies for changing cardiovascular health behaviors. If a mobile health technology, such as a smartphone app for self-monitoring diet, weight or physical activity, is helping you improve your behavior, then stick with it," Lora E. Burke, lead author of the review and professor of nursing and epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh, said in a statement.

For the study, researchers reviewed the small body of published, peer-reviewed studies about the effectiveness of mobile health technologies (mHealth) for managing weight, increasing physical activity, quitting smoking and controlling high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.

The mHealth technologies examined in the statement correspond to the goals in the American Heart Association's Life's Simple 7, which are seven simple ways to improve your heart health -- eating better, being more active, managing your weight, avoiding tobacco smoke, reducing blood sugar, and controlling both cholesterol and blood pressure.

"Don't dismiss the possibility that these devices and apps can help you be heart healthy," Burke said.

The review, which is published in the journal Circulation, also encouraged researchers to embrace the challenge of producing the needed evidence regarding how effective these new technologies are and how we can best adopt them into clinical practice to promote better patient health.