Researchers have developed artificial intelligence capable of predicting different diseases by analyzing the color of patients’ tongues.
- In 98% of cases, AI was able to match the color of the tongue to a particular disease: diabetes, stroke, anemia, asthma, liver and gallbladder diseases, Covid-19, or even vascular and gastrointestinal problems.
- People with diabetes have a yellow tongue, those with cancer have a purple tongue with a thick, greasy coating, and acute stroke patients have an unusually shaped red tongue.
- A white tongue can indicate anemia, a dark red tongue a serious case of Covid, and an indigo or purple tongue could be a sign of vascular, gastrointestinal or asthma problems.
Say “Aaaaaahh” : Showing your normally pink tongue is a must to check for signs of certain diseases, and doctors could soon be relying on artificial intelligence (AI) to assist them. A team of engineering researchers from Middle Technical University in Iraq and the University of South Australia have just developed a computer algorithm capable of diagnosing different diseases simply by analyzing the patients’ tongues.
Tongue color and shape can reveal health problems
As part of their work, published in the journal Technologiesscientists used 5,260 images of tongues to train machine learning models to detect tongue color. Two hospitals in the Middle East provided 60 images of tongues from patients with various health conditions – also to train the AI.
As a result, in 98.7% of cases, AI was able to match tongue color to a particular disease: diabetes, stroke, anemia, asthma, liver and gallbladder disease, Covid-19, as well as a range of vascular and gastrointestinal problems. Also during the study, cameras placed 20 centimeters from a patient captured the color of their tongue, and the imaging system predicted their health status in real time.
“The algorithm replicates a 2,000-year-old practice widely used in traditional Chinese medicine, which involves examining the tongue for signs of disease, explain the researchers in a press release. The color, shape and thickness of the tongue can reveal a litany of health problems.”
Diagnosing diseases using your smartphone?
Typically, people with diabetes have a yellow tongue, those with cancer have a purple tongue with a thick, oily coating, and patients who have had an acute stroke have an unusually shaped red tongue. A white tongue can indicate anemia, a dark red tongue a severe case of Covid, and an indigo or purple tongue could be a sign of vascular, gastrointestinal or asthma problems.
“These findings confirm that AI-assisted tongue analysis is a safe and effective method for disease screening, drawing on both modern methods and centuries-old practice, estimate the authors of the study, who hope that“Eventually, it will be possible to diagnose diseases using your smartphone.”
