{"id":671811,"date":"2025-05-27T22:47:22","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T19:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/touchscreen-tech-tracks-body-water-levels\/"},"modified":"2025-05-27T22:47:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T19:47:22","slug":"touchscreen-tech-tracks-body-water-levels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/touchscreen-tech-tracks-body-water-levels\/","title":{"rendered":"Touchscreen tech tracks body water levels"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n By measuring how skin interacts with a touchscreen, this innovative sensor monitors the body’s hydration status in real time. Credit: 2025 KAUST
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The holy month of Ramadan is a sacred time when millions of Muslims around the world embark on a profound spiritual journey of fasting, prayer, and reflection. But it is also a time when many face serious health risks, as going without food or water from sunrise to sunset\u2014often in scorching heat\u2014can lead to dangerous levels of dehydration.<\/p>\n

Now, scientists at KAUST have found a surprisingly simple way to track the body’s water levels during fasting: by measuring how skin interacts with a touchscreen.<\/p>\n

The study is published<\/a> in the IEEE Sensors Journal<\/i>.<\/p>\n

It is not only useful when fasting. The research team, led by electrical engineer Tareq Al-Naffouri and colleagues at KAUST, showed that the same method app<\/a>lies to athletes, who often experience dehydration due to intense exertion and fluid loss through sweat.<\/p>\n

“It is also reasonable to expect that the approach could one day benefit other vulnerable groups, including the very old, the very young, and those with kidney disease,” says Al-Naffouri.<\/p>\n

To demonstrate the concept, Al-Naffouri’s team used a basic capacitive sensor\u2014the same type found in smartphone screens\u2014capable of detecting subtle shifts in skin moisture. When a fingertip touches the sensor, it registers changes in skin capacitance, a measure of how well the skin stores electric charge, which varies with hydration levels.<\/p>\n

The researchers suggest that this data could eventually allow people to monitor their hydration in real time\u2014no needles, wearables, or lab work required. A quick touch could alert someone to drink water or replenish fluids before symptoms like dizziness or fatigue begin to set in.<\/p>\n

“We envision real-time, everyday, user-friendly hydration monitoring, where users simply place their finger on their smartphone screen to assess their hydration status,” says study author Soumia Siyoucef, a former visiting student in Al-Naffouri’s research group.<\/p>\n

To validate their technology<\/a>, the KAUST team collected more than 4,000 fingertip readings from people either observing Ramadan and fasting much of the day or athletes engaged in a game<\/a> of ultimate Frisbee or working out at the gym. They trained machine-learning models to convert small changes in skin conductance into a measure of the body’s water content.<\/p>\n

When put to the test, the system delivered impressive results\u2014accurately distinguishing between hydrated and dehydrated states up to 92% of the time among athletes and 87% among fasting individuals.<\/p>\n

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More information:<\/strong>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSoumia Siyoucef et al, Noninvasive Monitoring of Dehydration of Fasting and Sportspeople Subjects via Skin Capacitance, IEEE Sensors Journal<\/i> (2025). DOI: 10.1109\/JSEN.2025.3538758<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n Provided by
\n King Abdullah University of Science<\/a> and Technology
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\n Citation<\/strong>:
\n Dehydration warning at your fingertips: Touchscreen tech tracks body water levels (2025, May 27)
\n retrieved 27 May 2025
\n from https:\/\/techxplore.com\/news<\/a>\/2025-05-dehydration-fingertips-touchscreen-tech-tracks.html\n <\/p>\n

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