A Wearable Vitamin C Sensor

A team at the University of California San Diego has developed a wearable, non invasive Vitamin C sensor that could provide a new, highly personalized option for users to track their daily nutritional intake and dietary adherence.

Wearable sensors have traditionally been focused on their use in tracking physical activity, or for monitoring disease pathologies, like in diabetes. This is the first demonstration of using an enzyme-based approach to track changes in the level of a necessary vitamin, and opens a new frontier in the wearable device arena.

In vitro testing and testing in four human subjects who had consumed vitamin C supplements and vitamin C-containing fruit juices showed that the device was highly sensitive to detecting changes in the levels and dynamics of the vitamin when tracked across two hours. The researchers also tested the electrode detector’s ability to detect temporal vitamin C changes in tears and saliva, demonstrating its cross-functionality. Differences observed in the vitamin C dynamics across different human subjects indicates that the device has promise for personal nutrition applications.