New wearable device uses sweat to monitor your health

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

A new lightweight device that wraps around one finger uses SWEAT to monitor health.

The state-of-the-art wearable provides vital information - such as glucose and vitamin levels - literally at our fingertips as easy as wearing a plaster, say scientists.

And they believe it could eventually revolutionize the treatment of diabetes.

American engineers developed the electronic finger wrap that monitors vital chemical levels - such as glucose, vitamins, and even drugs - present in the same fingertip sweat from which it derives its energy.

Project leader Professor Joseph Wang, of the University of California, San Diego, explained that the device, which wraps snugly around the finger, draws power from the fingertip’s sweat.

He said that fingertips, despite their small size, are among the body’s most prolific sweat producers, each packed with more than a thousand sweat glands.

The glands can produce up to 1,000 times more sweat than most other areas of the body, even during rest.

Wang said: "This constant trickle of natural perspiration - without any stimuli or physical activity - offers a reliable energy source, fuelling the device even during periods of inactivity or sleep.

"The device is constructed from several electronic components printed onto a thin, flexible and stretchable polymer material."

He says the design allows it to conform to the finger while being durable enough to withstand repeated bending, stretching and movement.

Wang added: “It is based on a remarkable integration of energy harvesting and storage components, with multiple biosensors in a fluidic microchannel, along with the corresponding electronic controller, all at the fingertip."

Central to the wrap's operation are biofuel cells that are positioned where the device contacts the fingertip.

These cells have been specifically engineered to efficiently collect and convert chemicals in sweat into electricity.

Wang explained that the electricity is stored in a pair of stretchable, silver chloride-zinc batteries, which power a suite of sensors - four in total - each tasked with monitoring a specific biomarker: glucose, vitamin C, lactate and levodopa, a drug used for treating Parkinson’s disease.

As sweat is wicked through tiny paper microfluidic channels to the sensors, the device analyses the biomarker levels, all while drawing energy it needs from the very sweat it’s sampling.

A small chip processes signals from the sensors and wirelessly transmits the data via Bluetooth low energy to a custom-designed smartphone or laptop app, according to the research published in the journal Nature Electronics .

Study co-first author Dr. Shichao Ding said: “This is automatic health monitoring at your fingertips.

"The wearer can be resting or asleep, and the device can still harvest energy and track biomarker levels.”

During testing, someone wore the device throughout the day to track glucose levels during meals, lactate levels during both desk work and exercise, vitamin C levels while drinking orange juice, and levodopa levels after eating fava beans, a natural source of the compound.

Dr. Ding says that the device can be customized to cater to individual health needs by detecting different sets of biomarkers.

The research team is working on developing a "closed-loop" system that not only monitors biomarkers but also administers treatments based on the collected data.

For example, in the case of diabetes, such a device could continuously monitor glucose levels and automatically deliver insulin as needed, then assess the treatment’s effectiveness by further monitoring biomarker levels.

Dr. Ding added: “Autonomous power, sensing and treatment all in one device - that’s the ultimate goal."

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