Humans have long sought after an easy way to track their food and beverage intake to help with weight loss and other dietary restrictions. While food journals and health coaches have generally been the popular option, there may finally be an easier, more automatic way to track calorie intake. Researchers at Tufts University School of Engineering in Massachusetts have developed a miniaturized sensor that can be mounted directly on a tooth and can communicate wirelessly with a mobile device to transmit information on glucose, alcohol, and salt intake.
In research published on March 23 in the journal Advanced Materials, the researcher team noted that future adaptations of these sensors could permit the detection and recording of a wide variety of nutrients, chemicals, and physiological states.
Previous wearable devices for monitoring dietary intake were plagued with limitations such as requiring the use of a mouth guard, bulky wiring, or demanding frequent replacement as the sensors rapidly wore out. Tufts engineers set their sights on a more malleable technology and developed a sensor with a microscopic 2mm x 2mm footprint that can flexibly conform and bond to the irregular surface of a tooth. Having been compared to “the way a toll is collected on a highway,” the sensors transmit their data wirelessly in response to incoming radiofrequency signal.
