Skin patch that collects sweat could predict ovulation — SkimNews
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- Wei Gao's team at Caltech built a wearable patch that uses a mild electrical current to induce sweating, then detects oestradiol and progesterone via DNA-engineered sensors that produce distinct electrical signals, with the estimate sent to a smartphone app.
- The patch requires about 9 microlitres of sweat and 90 minutes per reading, and includes a dried buffer that rehydrates to standardize each sample's pH and salt concentration before measurement.
- In testing on nine women, sweat-based hormone readings closely matched blood tests, with correlations of 0.83 for oestradiol and 0.93 for progesterone; a separate 28-day trial on three women reproduced the expected age-related hormonal patterns, including consistently low levels in the postmenopausal participant.
- Gillian Goddard at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, who wasn't involved in the research, said the patch has the potential to be less invasive than blood tests and sonograms while offering more useful information than currently available fertility wearables.
- Next steps include larger trials across different ages and reproductive stages and head-to-head comparisons against established ovulation measures such as urine tests, Gao said.
Why it matters: If validated in larger trials, the patch could give people trying to conceive a continuous at-home read on oestradiol and progesterone — replacing clinic-based ultrasound and the after-the-fact temperature spikes current consumer trackers rely on. Goddard cautioned the key unknown is whether sweat readings predict ovulation early enough to be useful given individual hormonal variability.
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