[HN Gopher] Artificial biosensor can better measure the body's m...
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Artificial biosensor can better measure the body's main stress
hormone
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 69 points
Date : 2025-08-08 14:06 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (medicalxpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medicalxpress.com)
| camillomiller wrote:
| I would apply the usual grain of salt approach to studies like
| these, but this one sounds insanely promising. Watching it
| closely
| avidiax wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| Etheryte wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| A recent studied shows that Garmin watches like the one I
| have give HRV stress readings that don't correlate well to
| self-reports of stress
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/08/smartwat
| c...
|
| The stress paradigm is probably the most holistic idea in
| medicine and I think any attempt to break it down to a
| number is reductivist.
| m463 wrote:
| I have a garmin watch and my take is that stress is not
| really a spot reading.
|
| However, I am certain that some really bad days I've had
| have shown very high stress on the watch across the day.
|
| also relaxing can show low stress during a window (like
| sleep is low stress)
| morkalork wrote:
| I felt like I was trapped in a cycle of bad sleep -> stress
| -> worse sleep. And the two things that helped the most
| were exercising to burn of extra, nervous energy, and my
| fitbit breaking so I couldn't look at it and worry about
| how bad my sleep was.
| heisenbit wrote:
| > 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.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Measuring your blood pressure at home is not continuous
| monitoring.
| gessha wrote:
| _Continuously_ measuring blood pressure at home _is_
| continuous monitoring.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Unless you plan to sit at your desk all day and do
| nothing but press the button on your monitor, it isn't.
| These are two very different things.
| curmudgeon22 wrote:
| There are devices called "holter monitors" that a person
| wears continuously and which measure your blood pressure
| frequently. I would call this continuous though it's more
| like every 15 minutes or whatever it's programmed for.
| It's all without your intervention. My ex bought one when
| they wanted more data about their high blood pressure.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Because I fainted, I wore a holter monitor for a month
| that did not measure blood pressure but instead my EEG,
| uploading the data via the cellular network. My
| cardiologist said it measured about 1 million heatbeats
| in that time.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I'm well aware of this, but this is different from what
| we're discussing here. While Holters measure
| continuously, they don't give you continuous feedback.
| The general procedure is that the data is either gathered
| and downloaded or sent over network and the patient sees
| it only after the gathering is done.
| amelius wrote:
| It can be measured in a blind way.
| brookst wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| m463 wrote:
| I wonder why these kinds of arguments gain such wide
| acceptance.
|
| specifically - measuring x has negative consequences, so
| don't measure x.
|
| then at some point it becomes, don't bother measuring x
| ever.
|
| Normally I hear abotu this like tests that can find cancer
| early, or full body MRIs.
|
| I think these measures might actually be really good to
| establish a baseline and changes over time, or catch things
| early.
|
| If the problem is that knowing leads to stress, maybe there
| could be a solution in the portrayal of the data. Maybe it
| could be "doctor, don't tell me unless there is a trend"
|
| Doctors frequently give a disclaimer before ordering PSA
| tests, for example.
| cgannett wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Obligatory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| 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
| bradleyy wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| I was in the study but my patch kept catching on fire when they
| put it on me.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Oh I don't need this, I'm well aware of how stressed I am.
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