A team of engineers at Tufts University has developed a new kind of dental floss that does more than clean your teeth—it can actually measure your stress levels.
The special floss detects cortisol, a hormone in saliva that rises when you’re feeling stressed. This invention could make it much easier to track how stress affects your health in everyday life.
Stress is linked to serious health problems like high blood pressure, weakened immunity, anxiety, and depression.
Yet, most tools for measuring stress are either expensive or rely on surveys and self-reporting, which aren’t always reliable.
This new floss provides a simple, low-cost alternative that fits into your daily routine.
The lead researcher, Professor Sameer Sonkusale, explained that while saliva isn’t ideal for diagnosing diseases (blood tests are still more accurate for that), it works well for ongoing monitoring.
For example, if someone is being treated for heart issues, this floss could help keep an eye on stress levels over time and help doctors make quicker decisions if things change.
The smart floss was designed to be stress-free to use. It looks just like a regular floss pick: a small handle with string stretched between two prongs.
When you floss, a tiny amount of saliva moves through the string into the handle.
Inside, the saliva passes over special sensors that detect cortisol using a high-tech process called eMIP, short for electropolymerized molecularly imprinted polymers.
This technique works like making a mold. Scientists shape a material around the cortisol molecule, then remove the molecule, leaving behind little pockets that perfectly match cortisol.
When saliva flows over the sensor, any cortisol in the sample fits into these pockets and is measured.
This system can also be adjusted to detect other things in saliva, such as glucose for people with diabetes, estrogen for fertility tracking, or even cancer markers. It’s even possible to measure multiple things at once, giving a fuller picture of a person’s health.
According to Sonkusale, eMIP is a breakthrough because it doesn’t require expensive or complex development of antibodies or other special sensors. Once researchers know what molecule they want to track, they can quickly make a custom sensor for it.
The accuracy of the cortisol readings is as good as some of the best sensors available today. And since the floss is easy to use at home with no special training, it could change the way people monitor their stress and other health conditions.
Sonkusale and his team are now working on turning this idea into a real product through a startup company.
