The chemical composition of human sweat tells us a lot about our health, but collecting it for analysis can be tricky. Current devices worn on the skin fill reservoirs one at a time but do not reflect how our rate of sweating changes throughout the day as we perform different activities.
The circadian cycles of our bodies also make it important to know when the samples are gathered. Cortisol, for instance, is a biomarker that can measure stress levels, but cortisol levels are high in the morning and decrease in the afternoon.
Researchers at Binghamton University have developed a better method for collection at specified time periods that gives a more accurate picture of how a person sweats.
In a recent article published in the journal Sensors and Actuators, titled “Dual-valved skin-interfaced microfluidic device for programmed time-control sweat collection”, Ph.D. candidate Ji Hyun Yang and Associate Professor Ahyeon Koh from the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science’s Department