Sweat can reveal a lot of things, but you still have to give it time to talk. A medical test that has been used for a long time requires you to sit in a chair for half an hour, waiting for it to pass. It will soon be history thanks to a new connected bracelet system. This does not count your steps but could be used to diagnose certain diseases and monitor others, explains the study published in the Proceedings of the American National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The bracelet promotes perspiration by stimulating the sweat glands that produce it with microprocessors. All that remains is to collect it to analyze it. The sensors can detect, for example, chloride ions which generate a particular electrical charge. The more they are present, the greater the risk that the person suffers from cystic fibrosis, a disease that affects the respiratory system.
It can also monitor the blood sugar of diabetics
Another application: detecting diabetes by measuring glucose, as is done today in the blood. Eventually, this system could make it possible to monitor the blood sugar levels of people with diabetes or at risk of being diabetic and thus avoid repeated finger pricks. “This system can be used to measure virtually anything in sweat,” enthuses Ronald Davis, one of the lead authors, professor of biochemistry and genetics at Stanford University.
The data from the bracelet is then sent to a server or a mobile phone and can be analyzed quickly, in order to adapt a treatment, for example. The research team is now working on clinical studies to evaluate the system.
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