A Dental Floss That Can Measure Stress
9 hours ago
- #biomarkers
- #stress-monitoring
- #health-tech
- Researchers developed a floss pick system with built-in sensors to measure cortisol, a stress hormone, in real time.
- The device uses electropolymerized molecularly imprinted polymers (eMIPs) to accurately detect cortisol and other biomarkers in saliva.
- Potential applications include monitoring stress, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and fertility by detecting multiple biomarkers simultaneously.
- The floss pick design is simple, resembling common floss picks, and uses capillary action to draw saliva into the sensor.
- eMIP technology allows for quick adaptation to detect new biomarkers without extensive bioengineering.
- While highly accurate for monitoring, saliva-based sensors are not intended for initial diagnosis due to individual variations.
- The team is working on commercializing the product through a startup.
- This innovation builds on previous thread-based sensor developments by the research team.