Sweat Detectors?

A new study says sweat can be used to analyze what’s going in the body with the help of a tiny adhesive sensor. This new type of discovery could work as a substitute for blood tests which can assess people's health one day, according to the researchers.

This sweat can also be used by the doctors to diagnose certain diseases, uncover drug use and reveal insight into athletic performance. Sweat also can be gathered far less invasively than blood, said study senior author John Rogers, a materials scientist and director of Northwestern University's Center for Bio-Integrated Electronics in Evanston, Illinois.

In the new study, scientists embedded chemical sensors and other devices into a soft, flexible silicone rubber disc, about the size and thickness of a quarter that can easily stick to skin. This device is basically designed to collect and analyze sweat for key markers of health. We've been developing various thin, soft and flexible skin-mounted devices as a next-generation platform for wearable technologies for a few years now,"

This amazing lab contains "microfluidics" which helps in giving away to the fluids inside themselves in the same way that microelectronics do with electrons. Certainly, the sensor directs sweat down a number of microscopic channels that are about 0.02 inches wide into compartments about 0.16 inches in diameter. Each chamber has a specific work of measuring specific biomarkers, such as pH, lactate, chloride and glucose levels.

"We chose these four biomarkers because they provide a characteristic profile that's relevant for health-status determination," Rogers said in a statement.It is believed that this device can also be used to determine sweat rate and loss.

Levels of biomarker are determined by the change in color which is visible by the Chemical reactions within the sensor's compartments. Whenever a smartphone is placed near the sensor, near-field communications technology within the smartphone - the same kind used in mobile payment systems such as Google Wallet and Apple Pay - use short-range radio waves to power and talk to electronics within the sensor. The electronics in the sensor cause a smartphone app to take a photo of the sensor, and the app can then analyze this image to calculate biomarker levels, the researchers said.

“The sweat analysis platform will help people monitor their health without the blood sampling and this would also not require a battery but only a wireless connection with a smartphone", Yonggang Huang, a professor of engineering at Northwestern University, said in a statement.

These other sensors rely on absorbent patches so they don’t analyze the rate at which the people sweat unlike the Sweat sensors that other scientists have developed

In several other experiments, Rogers, Huang and their colleagues placed their sensor on the forearms and backs of 21 healthy volunteers to analyze their sweat. Out of 21, nine of the participants cycled indoors in a fitness center under controlled conditions, while the other 12 took part in the El Tour de Tucson, a long-distance bicycle race in arid and complex outdoor conditions. The data from the sensors that the indoor cyclists wore reliably matched those from conventional methods of analyzing their sweat, according to the scientists. The sensors on the outdoor cyclists also performed as expected

The scientists said they can see this device used for fitness, wellness and exercise. "We're also working with a large biomedical device company to use these to noninvasively track glucose in sweat in the context of diabetes," Rogger said.

The researchers further said that they could potentially extend to other bodily fluids, such as tears and saliva.