Dental floss that can measure stress while cleaning your teeth is developed
Saliva-Sensing Dental Floss: An Innovative Tool for Assessing Stress via On-Demand Salivary Cortisol Measurement with Molecularly Imprinted Polymer and Thread Microfluidics Integration | ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.5c02988
A Dental Floss That Can Measure Stress | Tufts Now
https://now.tufts.edu/2025/05/23/dental-floss-can-measure-stress
New Smart Dental Floss Can Detect Your Stress From Saliva : ScienceAlert
https://www.sciencealert.com/new-smart-dental-floss-can-detect-your-stress-from-saliva
People experience various stressors in their daily lives, but chronic and long-term stress can cause various health problems such as elevated blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, weakened immunity, depression, and anxiety disorders. Many of the tools used to monitor stress rely on self-reporting questionnaires and psychiatric assessments by patients, but these have problems such as inaccuracy and high cost.
So a team of researchers at Tufts University has devised a simple and accurate device that uses specially designed dental floss to measure the stress hormone cortisol in saliva.
'We wanted to avoid the measurement being an additional stressor, so we wondered if we could create a sensor device that could become part of a daily routine,' said Samir Sonkhsar, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Tufts University. 'Cortisol is a stress marker that is present in saliva, so flossing seemed like a natural choice for taking a daily sample.'
Below is the dental floss with saliva sensor developed by the research team. It looks not much different from ordinary dental floss, with two protrusions extending from a flat plastic handle about the size of an index finger, between which the floss thread is passed. Saliva is sucked up by capillary action through a very thin channel in the floss, reaches the handle and the attached tab, and diffuses to the electrode that detects cortisol. The results of the stress measurement are sent from the dental floss to a smartphone app.
by Atul Sharma and Nafize Ishtiaque Hossain
The key to the saliva-sensing dental floss is a material for detecting cortisol called
'The eMIP approach is revolutionary,' said Sonkusser. 'eMIPs don't require huge investments in antibody or receptor manufacturing. If we discover a new marker for stress or another disease or condition, we can create a polymer cast in a very short time.'
Because eMIP is so versatile, it could be used to measure other molecules present in saliva, not just cortisol. For example, researchers could develop dental floss that tracks the hormone estrogen to help determine whether a woman is likely to become pregnant, glucose to track diabetes risk, or even biomarkers associated with cancer tumors.
By Nafize Ishtiaque Hossain
Because biomarkers in saliva vary from person to person, the research team believes that measuring biomarkers using dental floss is best suited for monitoring, rather than for early diagnosis of disease. 'Blood is still the gold standard for diagnosis,' said Sonkusser. 'But once a diagnosis has been made and medication administered, if we need to track, for example, cardiovascular status over time to see if it's improving, monitoring with sensors is easier and allows for timely intervention if necessary.'
Sonkusar and his colleagues have founded a startup to bring the dental floss they developed to market.
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