Skin Patch Measures Sweat to Check Your Health

An international team of scientists has developed the first stick-on patch that analyses sweat to provide detailed information about dehydration, electrolyte, sweat rate, and fatigue levels, they report in the journal (Science Translational Medicine).

    "Sweat is rich in body chemistry that can provide insights into health, fitness and physiological state," a professor of material science engineering at Northwestern University John Rogers said, who was part of the research team that helped develop the device.

    "This device canmonitor patterns of exercise, helping people determine when they may need to rehydrate, when their electrolyte composition is getting out of balance, when they're getting into anaerobic regimes of exercise," he said.

    The circular device which about the size of a 10-cent coin has four indicators that measure lactate, glucose, chloride ions and the sweat's pH, according to (ABC) News.

    The colour of the chemicals in the device change depending on the composition and concentration of those chemicals in a person's sweat. These colour changes, and sweat levels indicated by changes in a squiggly channel, are then captured and analysed by a smartphone app that connects with the patch wirelessly. 

    Professor Rogers said the new device was better than the current technique for measuring sweat loss, which involves taping fabric to a person's body, letting it soak up sweat, then weighing it to find out how much has been produced.

    "It makes the process of sweat analysis a lot more quantitative, a lot more reproducible, and from the standpoint of the individual, just a lot easier to accomplish," he said.

Source: QNA