Bodily Fluids As The Basis For Digital Health

Blood, saliva, urine, sweat or even ear wax can carry valuable information about an individual’s medical state. Until now, even simpler tests on such bodily fluids had to be carried out at medical facilities, but with the recent uptick in the development of digital diagnostic technologies, more and more solutions appear on the market which enable the patient to do such tests at home. Here we take a look around the bodily fluid business. From bloodletting to digital sweat measurement Blood, yellow bile, black bile, phlegm. Although it doesn’t sound appealing, the ancient Greek already thought that bodily fluids make up the fundamentals of the human body and that diseases only appear when the organism, or rather these liquids lose their balance. The humoral theory was central to the teachings of Hippocrates, and it became the dominant theory of medical thinking and practice in Europe until the late 1800s. For example, in the rather barbaric practice of bloodletting. Medical professionals believed that letting out “bad blood” would stimulate the body to produce fresh and healthy blood and stop hemorrhages. Modern medicine still bases healing on bodily fluids: blood, mucus, feces, saliva, semen, sweat, tears, urine, and even ear wax contain valuable information about a person’s health. Physicians use a swarm of tests during diagnosis (e.g., urine tests), therapy (e.g., stool sample culture tests), or monitoring (e.g., blood tests during chemotherapy). With the ...
Source: The Medical Futurist - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Future of Medicine Health Sensors & Trackers Portable Diagnostics blood bodily fluid digital digital health digital solutions digital tattoo saliva smart smart healthcare sweat technology urine Source Type: blogs