Chronic stress is more than just an unpleasant experience. It can raise blood pressure, increase the risk of heart disease, weaken the immune system, and contribute to mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety. Unfortunately, the tools most often used to measure stress are either imprecise or costly, relying heavily on self-reported questionnaires and psychiatric evaluations.
At Tufts University, a team led by Sameer Sonkusale, professor of electrical and computer engineering, has created a simple yet innovative solution: dental floss that tracks stress. As reported by ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces and Tufts Now, their device measures cortisol, the hormone most closely linked to stress, directly from saliva in real time.
On the surface, the floss sensor looks like a familiar floss pick with a plastic handle and string stretched across two prongs. Inside the handle, however, is advanced sensing technology. It uses electropolymerized molecularly imprinted polymers (eMIPs), which form a custom mold of the cortisol molecule. Once the mold is created, the sensor can accurately recognize and bind the hormone for measurement.
The Tufts team highlights that this approach could easily be adapted to monitor other molecules found in saliva, including estrogen for fertility tracking, glucose for diabetes management, and biomarkers for cardiovascular disease or cancer. Sonkusale describes eMIPs as a major step forward because they eliminate the need for time-consuming antibody engineering, allowing new sensors to be created much more quickly when new biomarkers are identified.
The floss sensor is intended primarily for health monitoring rather than diagnosis. Blood testing remains the gold standard for diagnosing medical conditions, but once a diagnosis has been made, tracking changes with daily flossing could provide patients and clinicians with valuable real-time feedback.
The researchers are now working on a startup to bring this device to market, with the goal of making stress and health tracking part of everyday life. This latest innovation adds to other wearable technologies developed in the Sonkusale lab, including fabrics that sense body movement, detect sweat chemicals, and identify gases when integrated into clothing.
