Artificial biosensor can better measure the body's main stress hormone

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-07-artificial-biosensor-body-main-stress.html

by PaulHoule • 12 months ago

79 32 12 months ago

I would apply the usual grain of salt approach to studies like these, but this one sounds insanely promising. Watching it closely

avidiax2• 12 months ago

This is certainly an improvement over a lab test, but a continuous monitoring solution would dramatically expand the utility.

You could rate employers on the median cortisol levels of their employees during and after the work day.

At an individual level, those of us that are not very self-aware of our stress levels could monitor it objectively and determine stressors and implement and monitor interventions to reduce stress.

IHLayman• 12 months ago

Oh sure! While we’re at it, let’s increase the existing dystopia by giving employers the ability to track our stress levels and let them “compensate” as they see fit…

perching_aix• 12 months ago

People being able to measure it on their own != employers being given the right to require doing so and handing over the data. Matter of fact, you could outright ban employers from doing so. But then the topic of moan would become that regulations bad, and this would be then quickly portrayed as an industry backsetting obstacle.

Never a boring day.

Etheryte4• 12 months ago

This is one of those ideas that might sound good when you don't think about secondary effects, but is actually commonly accepted to be a bad idea in the medical community. Similar to white coat hypertension [0], measuring your stress can induce stress, whether that's worrying about whether you're in a good range, getting more stressed when you find out you're already stressed, or etc. This is why continuous monitoring is usually applied as little as reasonably possible, unless absolutely necessary like diabetes, ER, etc.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_coat_hypertension

NoPicklez• 12 months ago

Smartwatches have been measuring all sorts from our bodies for a long time and whilst some people develop this type of thing, the majority have not. These watches have been monitoring stress in the form of HRV for many years now.

heisenbit• 12 months ago

as little …

This is exactly the opposite of what which is written in the quoted wikipedia article:

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and patient self-measurement using a home blood pressure monitoring device is being increasingly used to differentiate those with white coat hypertension or experiencing the white coat effect from those with chronic hypertension

Continuous monitoring is a viable workaround wrt. white coat symptoms. It is just a lot more effort and expensive.

amelius• 12 months ago

It can be measured in a blind way.

brookst• 12 months ago

This is what the kids call gatekeeping, not a whole lot different from the old “if the proles are allowed to read the religious texts they will get it wrong, better limit such things to priests.”

Yes, during the transition phase where information becomes available, some people will handle it badly, misinterpret, and generally be worse off.

But that’s a terrible reason to withhold knowledge, especially about peoples’ own bodies.

alphazard• 11 months ago

There's no reason to think that continuous monitoring with a comfortable wearable would contribute to a white coat syndrome. The Wikipedia link that you cited actually says that at-home blood pressure readings are more reliable than those taken by a professional in a clinic because (it is believed) that the presence of another human administering a single test is what causes stress concerning the test. With the multiple, self-administered approach, there is no single test to fixate on, and no other human administering it.

This is why continuous monitoring is usually applied as little as reasonably possible

The reason it is applied as little as possible is because it has been prohibitively expensive. For most things there is a benefit to sampling more often, and what sampling rate is adequate is entirely dependent on the maximum frequency that you need to observe. Another way of phrasing that is if it can change quickly, then you need to sample more often.

cgannett• 11 months ago

I suppose to mitigate that you could have that data not immediately viewable to the patient because seeing "stress line go up" would be pretty stressful and would skew the data anyway.

pstuart• 11 months ago

Obligatory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

cheald• 11 months ago

This would end up having effects like causing employers to discourage their employees from drinking coffee or exercising, both of which acutely raise cortisol levels.

grumpy-de-sre2• 12 months ago

I wonder if a similar technique could be used for Melatonin in saliva so that noninvasive circadian phase testing could be performed outside of the lab.

I'm convinced that if we actually looked at the circadian phase of the general population more closely we'd find A LOT of people with wonky clocks [1][2].

I've come to realize in recent months that I'm rocking a ~3h phase advance. Not terrible but it can sometimes make getting enough total sleep time challenging (bright light therapy in evenings really helps).

1. https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2025/07/16/depre...

2. Circadian Genes, Rhythms, and the Biology of Bipolar Disorder - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSL5hC8bzcU

avidiax2• 11 months ago

I've come to realize in recent months that I'm rocking a ~3h phase advance.

How did you figure that out? And having a phase advance should just mean that you could shift your bedtime and waking time forward but still get a similar amount of sleep compared to someone with a "neutral" phase, whatever that means.

grumpy-de-sre2• 11 months ago

Shifting waking time forwards is straightforward but getting into bed early enough can be tough.

As for the phase shift, I've always had what I thought was maintenance insomnia but at some point I realized I always waking at exactly 4:30am. Going to bed early resolves the maintenance insomnia (also travelling eastward more than a few hours or so). My father and brother are the same.

I'd love to get a DLMO done to confirm. Thinking about experimenting with tracking core body temperature monitoring soon.

FWIW a 24h ambulatory blood pressure study actually showed a phase advanced nocturnal dip.

bradleyy• 12 months ago

As a Type 1 Diabetic, I'd love to have a continuous version of this to pair with my Continuous Glucose Monitor, mainly because I'm convinced that glycogen output from the liver is what's causing a lot of variability, and would explain, e.g. early morning fasting increases in blood sugar.

ethan_smith• 12 months ago

What you're describing is likely the dawn phenomenon - cortisol's morning spike triggers hepatic glucose production, and continuous monitoring could finally give diabetics actionable data to adjust treatment timing accordingly.

lenerdenator• 12 months ago

I was in the study but my patch kept catching on fire when they put it on me.

strongpigeon• 11 months ago

I think it’s worth emphasizing that this is a “mix and read” test (like a COVID test), not something you could integrate in a smartwatch for example.

Still cool nonetheless.

eximius• 11 months ago

Oh I don't need this, I'm well aware of how stressed I am.

Artificial biosensor can better measure the body's main stress hormone

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