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With one other sizzling Texas summer season underway, the specter of dehydration at all times looms. Although this situation can vary from inconvenient to life-threatening, it is powerful to trace.
Researchers from The College of Texas at Austin are working to alter that with the invention of a brand new noninvasive, wearable sensor designed to measure a consumer’s hydration ranges repeatedly, in actual time. Such a tool might assist a soccer participant keep hydrated on a sizzling September afternoon, maintain a firefighter battling a blaze from getting too dried out, or simply let an workplace employee know when it is time to make a visit to fill their water bottle.
“Dehydration is a silent threat that affects millions of people every day,” mentioned Nanshu Lu, professor within the Cockrell Faculty of Engineering’s Division of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, who led the examine printed within the Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences.
“Our wearable sensor provides a simple, effective way to monitor hydration levels in real time, empowering individuals to take proactive steps to stay healthy and perform at their best.”
It makes use of bioimpedance, a method that measures how electrical alerts go by means of the physique, to trace hydration ranges. Utilizing strategically positioned electrodes, the sensor sends a small, protected electrical present by means of the arm.
How {the electrical} present flows by means of the physique will depend on the quantity of water within the tissues. Water is an efficient conductor of electrical energy, so hydrated tissues permit the present to go extra simply, whereas dehydrated tissues resist the move.
Information collected by the sensor is wirelessly transmitted to a smartphone, permitting customers to observe their hydration ranges.
Researchers performed a number of experiments to check the system, together with a diuretic-induced dehydration examine and a 24-hour free-living trial. Within the dehydration examine, members took a diuretic medicine to advertise fluid loss, and their hydration ranges had been monitored utilizing the wearable sensor after which examined towards a urine pattern. The outcomes confirmed a robust correlation between adjustments in arm bioimpedance and physique weight reduction attributable to water loss.
“Our experiments demonstrated that arm bioimpedance is not only sensitive to hydration changes but also aligns closely with whole-body hydration measurements,” mentioned Matija Jankovic, co-author of the examine and a postdoctoral researcher in Lu’s lab. “This means the sensor can be a reliable surrogate for tracking hydration levels, even during everyday activities like walking, working, or exercising.”
Conventional strategies for assessing hydration, comparable to urine assessments or blood evaluation, are sometimes invasive, time-consuming and impractical for steady monitoring. Industrial hydration evaluation gadgets sometimes require cumbersome tools and stationary setups, limiting their use in on a regular basis life.
Hydration is crucial for human well being. It performs a essential position in sustaining organ operate, regulating physique temperature, and supporting very important physiological processes.
But dehydration—a situation attributable to inadequate water within the physique—stays a standard and infrequently missed difficulty. Even gentle dehydration can impair cognitive operate, bodily efficiency, and thermoregulation, whereas extreme dehydration can result in life-threatening situations comparable to kidney stones, cardiovascular points and heatstroke.
Along with defending employees in excessive environments, the system has potential functions in well being care. Steady hydration monitoring might help in diagnosing and managing situations comparable to kidney illness, cardiovascular points and persistent dehydration.
“And hopefully, it could help our Longhorn student athletes compete and stay healthy on hot days,” Lu mentioned.
Whereas the present model of the sensor tracks relative adjustments in hydration, future analysis goals to determine reference knowledge for absolute hydration ranges. This may contain accumulating bioimpedance measurements from a big inhabitants to create a baseline for comparability.
The researchers additionally plan to discover new designs, comparable to breathable e-tattoos or sweat-wicking wearables, to enhance consolation and efficiency throughout prolonged use. They hope to broaden testing to bigger teams and discover functions for different physique segments, such because the forearm or thigh.
“This is just the beginning,” Lu mentioned. “Our goal is to make simple hydration monitoring accessible to everyone.”
Extra data:
Lu, Nanshu, Wi-fi arm-worn bioimpedance sensor for steady evaluation of whole-body hydration, Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2504278122. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2504278122
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