
via Caltech
There are numerous things to dislike about going to the doctor: Paying a copay, sitting in the waiting room, out-of-date magazines, sick people coughing without covering their mouths. For many, though, the worst thing about a doctor’s visit is getting stuck with a needle. Blood tests are a tried-and-true way of evaluating what is going on with your body, but the discomfort is unavoidable. Or maybe not, say Caltech scientists.
In a new paper published in Nature Biotechnology, researchers led by Wei Gao, assistant professor of medical engineering, describe a mass-producible wearable sensor that can monitor levels of metabolites and nutrients in a person’s blood by analyzing their sweat. Previously developed sweat sensors mostly target compounds that appear in high concentrations, such as electrolytes, glucose, and lactate. Gao’s sweat sensor is more sensitive than current devices and can detect sweat compounds of much lower concentrations, in addition to being easier to manufacture, the researchers say.
The development of such sensors would allow doctors to continuously monitor the condition of patients with illnesses like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or kidney disease, all of which result in abnormal levels of nutrients or metabolites in the bloodstream. Patients would benefit from having their physician better informed of their condition, while also avoiding invasive and painful encounters with hypodermic needles.
“Such wearable sweat sensors have the potential to rapidly, continuously, and noninvasively capture changes in health at molecular levels,” Gao says. “They could enable personalized monitoring, early diagnosis, and timely intervention.”
Gao’s work is focused on developing devices based on microfluidics, a name for technologies that manipulate tiny amounts of liquids, usually through channels less than a quarter of a millimeter in width. Microfluidics are ideal for an application of this sort because they minimize the influence of sweat evaporation and skin contamination on the sensing accuracy. As freshly supplied sweat flows through the microchannels, the device can make more accurate measurements of sweat and can capture temporal changes in concentrations.
Until now, Gao and his colleagues say, microfluidic-based wearable sensors were mostly fabricated with a lithography-evaporation process, which requires complicated and expensive fabrication processes. His team instead opted to make their biosensors out of graphene, a sheet-like form of carbon. Both the graphene-based sensors and the tiny microfluidics channels are created by engraving the plastic sheets with a carbon dioxide laser, a device that is now so common that it is available to home hobbyists.
The research team opted to have their sensor measure respiratory rate, heart rate, and levels of uric acid and tyrosine. Tyrosine was chosen because it can be an indicator of metabolic disorders, liver disease, eating disorders, and neuropsychiatric conditions. Uric acid was chosen because, at elevated levels, it is associated with gout, a painful joint condition that is on the rise globally. Gout occurs when high levels of uric acid in the body begin crystallizing in the joints, particularly those of the feet, causing irritation and inflammation.
To see how well the sensors performed, the researchers ran a series of tests with healthy individuals and patients. To check sweat tyrosine levels, which are influenced by a person’s physical fitness, they used two groups of people: trained athletes and individuals of average fitness. As expected, the sensors showed lower levels of tyrosine in the sweat of the athletes. To check uric acid levels, they took a group of healthy individuals and monitored their sweat while they were fasting as well as after they ate a meal rich in purines, compounds in food that are metabolized into uric acid. The sensor showed uric acid levels rising after the meal. Gao’s team also performed a similar test with gout patients. Their uric acid levels, the sensor showed, were much higher than those of healthy people.
To check the accuracy of the sensors, the researchers also drew blood samples from the gout patients and healthy subjects. The sensors’ measurements of uric acid levels strongly correlated with levels of the compound in the blood.
Gao says the high sensitivity of the sensors, along with the ease with which they can be manufactured, means they could eventually be used by patients at home to monitor conditions like gout, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. Having accurate real-time information about their health could even allow a patient to adjust their own medication levels and diet as required.
“Considering that abnormal circulating nutrients and metabolites are related to a number of health conditions, the information collected from such wearable sensors will be invaluable for both research and medical treatment,” Gao says.
Learn more: Wearable Sweat Sensor Detects Gout-Causing Compounds
The Latest Google Headlines on:
Wearable sensor
The Latest Bing News on:
Wearable sensor
- Wearable Sensors Market Size, Share and Analysis to Register Remunerative Growth Through 2025 - Industry Newson March 2, 2021 at 11:41 am
The report Wearable Sensors Market Size and Analysis maintains enhanced dynamics and is overshadowed by a top player across the globe. The research report provides Wearable Sensors Market Growth and ...
- Shimmer launches upgraded wearable for remote patient monitoringon March 2, 2021 at 6:36 am
The Verisense Pulse+ can measure heart rate, oxygen saturation, emotional responses, and activity and sleep levels of at-home clinical trial participants.
- Shimmer launches Pulse+ the first line extension for its Verisense® wearable sensing platform for clinical trialson March 2, 2021 at 6:33 am
Shimmer Research, a global leader in wearable technology for research applications, today launched Verisense Pulse+, a new sensor for the Verisense platform. Verisense Pulse+ provides ...
- Fiber-junction design for directional bending sensorson March 2, 2021 at 4:05 am
Flexible sensors in wearable electronics have become increasingly multifunctional due to the development of materials synthesis and structure design. In particular, structural design can not only add ...
- Wearable sensor developed to detect COVID-19, other diseaseson February 26, 2021 at 11:05 pm
Control Engineering - One day, a wearable, bioelectronic device could wirelessly transmit a person’s vital signs — potentially providing critical information for early ...
- Wearable, All-in-One Health Monitor: New Skin Patch Continuously Tracks Cardiovascular Signals and Biochemical Levelson February 26, 2021 at 3:19 pm
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a soft, stretchy skin patch that can be worn on the neck to continuously track blood pressure and heart rate while measuring the ...
- COVID-19 patients are testing wearable sensors to catch worsening symptoms before it’s too lateon February 26, 2021 at 1:48 pm
Researchers are testing a monitoring device that could detect COVID-19 symptoms before they become severe, so they can be treated more quickly and successfully.
- Medidata introduces Sensor Cloud wearables platformon February 22, 2021 at 11:46 pm
The technology is designed to streamline and simplify integration, data collection and analysis, and digital biomarker discovery with wearable sensors.
- Wearable chemical sensor can measure the concentration of lactate in sweaton February 17, 2021 at 10:39 pm
With the seemingly unstoppable advancement in the fields of miniaturization and materials science, all sorts of electronic devices have emerged to help us lead easier and healthier lives.
- Do sweat it! Wearable microfluidic sensor to measure lactate concentration in real timeon February 17, 2021 at 6:51 pm
Lactate, a compound present in sweat, is an important biomarker to quantify during exercise. However, available wearable sensors can cause skin irritation, which calls for the use of different ...
The Latest Google Headlines on:
Sweat sensors
The Latest Bing News on:
Sweat sensors
- Best true wireless earbuds: top hearables 2021on March 2, 2021 at 2:25 pm
We told you a long time ago that hearables would blow up and it's fair to say from startups to the big names, everyone is making smart earbuds and ...
- A novel device for detecting anaerobic threshold using sweat lactate during exerciseon March 2, 2021 at 8:52 am
The lactate threshold (LT1), which is defined as the first rise in lactate concentration during incremental exercise, has not been non-invasively and conveniently determined in a clinical setting. We ...
- Shimmer launches upgraded wearable for remote patient monitoringon March 2, 2021 at 6:36 am
The Verisense Pulse+ can measure heart rate, oxygen saturation, emotional responses, and activity and sleep levels of at-home clinical trial participants.
- Shimmer launches Pulse+ the first line extension for its Verisense® wearable sensing platform for clinical trialson March 2, 2021 at 6:33 am
Shimmer Research, a global leader in wearable technology for research applications, today launched Verisense Pulse+, a new sensor for the Verisense platform. Verisense Pulse+ provides ...
- Gatorade announces retail availability of its sweat analysis patchon March 2, 2021 at 2:47 am
Gatorade has started selling its sweat patch. The wearable uses lab-testing protocol to provide information on your unique sweat profile.
- Wearables don’t work the same on dark skin. It’s time to change thaton February 28, 2021 at 4:14 pm
Melanin, a natural skin pigment, is also very good at absorbing green light, and the increased presence of melanin in darker skin tones reduces the accuracy of green PPG sensors. Green light can also ...
- Barometric pressure sensor allows wearables to be submerged in wateron February 25, 2021 at 5:47 am
Bosch Sensortec has introduced a new barometric pressure sensor for wearables that is resistant against liquids. The BMP384 sensor is a robust sensor that can be used in wearables, home appliances and ...
- Watch a wearable medical monitor that multitaskson February 24, 2021 at 4:00 pm
A skin patch engineered at the University of California San Diego is a true multitasking medical health monitor. The wearable tracks blood pressure, measures lactate, caffeine and alcohol in sweat, ...
- A new microfluidic sensor measures lactate concentration during exerciseon February 19, 2021 at 6:04 am
Researchers at the Tokyo University of Science have created a new wearable microfluidic sensor that can measure lactate concentration in sweat in real-time. Lactate is a compound present in sweat ...
- Wearable chemical sensor can measure the concentration of lactate in sweaton February 17, 2021 at 10:39 pm
With the seemingly unstoppable advancement in the fields of miniaturization and materials science, all sorts of electronic devices have emerged to help us lead easier and healthier lives.