which came from a\u00a0TedTalk Hossein gave\u00a0in\u00a0September\u00a02025,<\/a>\u00a0Hossein was talking about research he is working on that uses\u00a0continuous protein monitoring to track inflammation within the body.\u00a0Maybe you\u00a0track your steps and heart rate using a fitness\u00a0tracker, or\u00a0know someone with diabetes who wears a continuous glucose monitor. In the world of wearable\u00a0technology,\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0come a long way since the pedometers we used to put on for gym class. Wearable tech is part of a broader shift in health care towards precision medicine, or patient care that relies heavily on data to deliver the most personalized treatments possible.\u00a0technology,\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0come a long way since the pedometers we used to put on for gym class. Wearable tech is part of a broader shift in health care towards precision medicine, or patient care that relies heavily on data to deliver the most personalized treatments possible.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nFor one category of patients, wearable tech could allow inflammation to be stopped before it spins out of control. This episode is going to focus on the significance of wearable tech for patients with autoimmune inflammatory disorders of the digestive system.\u00a0This cluster of conditions is often referred to as inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, and includes Crohn\u2019s disease and ulcerative colitis.\u00a0According to the CDC, between 2.4 and\u00a03.1 million people\u00a0in the United States have a form of inflammatory bowel disease. To understand more about the\u00a0potentials\u00a0of this technology, I spoke with a patient, doctors and researchers working on the tech.\u00a0You\u2019ll\u00a0hear from them directly, but first, here are a few definitions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gastroenterology, or GI in medical\u00a0speak, is the branch of medicine\u00a0that diagnoses and manages\u00a0disorders\u00a0relating to the stomach and intestines, including IBD.\u00a0Your immune system is supposed to fight off intruders, but if you have one of these conditions, your immune system acts inappropriately, attacking healthy bacteria and cells in digestive tissue. This causes swelling and inflammation in the digestive tract.\u00a0IBD is a lifelong condition that is typically managed by medications.\u00a0When patients have gone\u00a0a long period\u00a0of time without severe symptoms, they are classified as \u201cin remission.\u201d If someone in remission starts experiencing symptoms again, it is called a \u201cflare-up.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now\u00a0let\u2019s\u00a0turn to the experts. First, a patient. Jenna Fattah is a New York City attorney\u00a0who was diagnosed with Crohn\u2019s disease in her late teens.\u00a0Here\u2019s\u00a0her describing what a flare feels like.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jenna\u00a0Fattah: I\u00a0kind of describe\u00a0it like a thunderstorm;\u00a0where\u00a0it starts, the sky starts getting a little gray, cloudy, the temperature drops, you start to feel an increase in the wind.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0kind of what\u00a0a flare is like. You start seeing the signs, but\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0subtle, and if\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0not looking, you can miss them. And then\u00a0all of\u00a0a\u00a0sudden\u00a0you hear the clap of thunder and, you know,\u00a0OK,\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0in a thunderstorm,\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0in a flare-up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Henrickson: When an IBD patient realizes\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0starting a flare, their medical team can provide interventions to prevent it from getting worse. Here\u2019s\u00a0Dr. Rebecca Yao, a gastroenterology fellow at University of Chicago,\u00a0explaining more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rebecca\u00a0Yao: When someone has flare symptoms, so when someone is calling in and says, you know, they\u2019re having a lot more abdominal pain recently, diarrhea\u00a0\u2026\u00a0and especially when they tell us like, this feels just like a flare that I\u2019ve had before, because IBD patients tend to have a very good understanding of their body and what their flares feel like, and when something is wrong that doesn\u2019t feel like a flare\u00a0\u2026 when it feels like a flare, we can typically start anti-inflammatory medications pretty early on. Sometimes\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0just in the form of\u00a0oral pills, like steroids that calm down the inflammation in their gut.\u00a0But sometimes when it\u2019s really severe, we can also use stronger forms of suppressing the immune system.\u00a0So\u00a0IV steroids, and even in, like\u00a0sort of last-ditch efforts, there\u2019s even stronger,\u00a0sort of immune-calming\u00a0things that we can use.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Henrickson: Typically, the state of one\u2019s inflammation is measured through invasive testing procedures such as\u00a0colonoscopy or endoscopy, where a camera is inserted into a person\u2019s body, or through biopsies, or through blood tests.\u00a0According to Dr.\u00a0Yao,\u00a0one limitation of these methods is time. Often, patients\u00a0have to\u00a0wait days for results, which delays clinicians\u2019 abilities to prescribe interventions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yao: As you can imagine, these tests\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0come back with results instantly. In fact, especially with the stool tests, they sometimes take many days to result. And\u00a0so\u00a0in that time frame, if you don\u2019t have any idea about what\u2019s going on, it can be really hard to make decisions early.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Henrickson: These invasive methods may soon be replaced by\u00a0new technologies\u00a0under development, which would not only be less invasive, but could offer continuous real-time information.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yao: When it comes to things like biosensors, the promise that they\u00a0hold\u00a0is\u00a0to really help, one is if they can give you information about inflammation as\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0happening, you could provide treatment earlier. And\u00a0so\u00a0someone\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0have to be, you know, as miserable as they potentially could be as their flare gets worse,\u00a0and you could potentially prevent unnecessarily hospitalizations, potentially even emergency surgeries,\u00a0if\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0able to intervene on the flare sooner rather than later. And when it comes to using biosensors to even predict inflammation before someone even starts getting symptoms, you know, there\u2019s the thought that if a patient were to know about it sooner, before they start having diarrhea or abdominal pain, or any of the other symptoms that are associated with a flare, they could potentially do some of these other things, like watching their diet a little bit more and maybe sleeping more, maybe focusing on stress management.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Henrickson:\u00a0Dr. Alvin George, a GI fellow at University of Chicago, is adapting fitness tracker technology, which has already shown promising results for measuring cardiac conditions, to the GI space. Have you ever wondered how fitness trackers work? It all has to do with a small beam of light emitted from the device. Here\u2019s how Dr. George explained it to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alvin\u00a0George:\u00a0(Analyzing the)\u00a0data,\u00a0(it)\u00a0finds\u00a0different characteristics\u00a0in your blood just by knowing how the blood is interacting with that light and how\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0absorbing it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Henrickson:\u00a0This mode of data collection is called photoplethysmography, or PPG, and collects data in waveforms. I know what\u00a0you\u2019re thinking.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a02026.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0listening to a podcast about technology. I\u00a0haven\u2019t\u00a0heard the words artificial intelligence yet. Well, that comes into the analysis of the data collected by the trackers, and what\u00a0Dr.\u00a0George is working on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
George:\u00a0We\u2019re\u00a0able to, you know, use some of the data that these devices are already gathering and use our own algorithms, which all use some sort of AI technology. Analyzing, using our own proprietary way of analyzing that, and showing, and proving that, this way of analyzing it is correlating to relevant IBD symptoms and outcomes.\u00a0(That,)\u00a0I think is the way to go about doing it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Henrickson: Another technology under development is the\u00a0IBD Aware device. According to its developer,\u00a0EnLiSense, this device consists of a small plastic reader that attaches to the body with a sweat-sensing strip.\u00a0You might not have thought about it like this before,\u00a0but sweat is\u00a0actually a\u00a0biofluid that\u00a0contains\u00a0proteins, including inflammatory markers, which are\u00a0similar to\u00a0those present in the blood.\u00a0The IBD Aware device would allow for continuous remote monitoring of protein levels that currently require blood tests. It could also allow doctors to see how patients\u2019 bodies respond to treatments in real time.\u00a0According to\u00a0EnLiSense, IBD\u00a0Aware is only currently available for investigational\u00a0use, but\u00a0is\u00a0anticipated\u00a0to undergo FDA regulatory submission. If cleared by the FDA, clinicians would be able to prescribe it to their patients.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Interstitial fluid, which is fluid\u00a0located\u00a0within tissue, has also been shown to be a potentially\u00a0viable\u00a0alternative to blood testing because of its similar composition to blood plasma.\u00a0In the beginning of this episode, I introduced you to Hossein\u00a0Zargartalebi, who is developing a biosensor technology that would be dependent on this fluid. The biosensor Hossein is working on would be a minimally invasive, implantable wearable. According to Hossein, a tiny microneedle would insert into the dermis layer of the skin, drawing interstitial fluid from the tissue. This would minimize tissue disruption and would have a wide variety of uses, from tracking small molecules to large proteins and enzymes. Patients would wear it continuously, collecting real-time data on how their biomarkers fluctuated throughout their days.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zargartalebi: Depending on what type of\u00a0disease that\u00a0we are targeting, we can select a specific type of\u00a0the preliminary\u00a0biomarkers and then try to track them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Henrickson:\u00a0Here\u2019s\u00a0what Hossein had to say about his goals for the technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zargartalebi: With\u00a0the continuous\u00a0monitoring, we could allow physicians to\u00a0kind of adjust\u00a0therapy based on\u00a0the molecular\u00a0activity rather than just delayed symptoms. And finally, I would say that the vision is not just, just more data.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0like better timing of intervention, reducing hospitalization, for sure.\u00a0And also more, personalized treatment decisions, according to the information that we receive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Henrickson: This device is being developed for a wide range of uses. Jenna, the person with Crohn\u2019s who we heard from earlier, said that she currently tracks her symptoms manually, which consumes a lot of time and mental energy.\u00a0She\u2019s\u00a0hopeful about the\u00a0new technologies\u00a0that are under development.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fattah: A sense of peace. Knowing that I don\u2019t have to be thinking about this, knowing that I can rely on a piece of technology to keep track of this for me, and to be confident that, oh, if I, if it\u2019s, my numbers are not going up, it doesn\u2019t mean that the sensor is not working, it means that I\u2019m\u00a0OK\u00a0and that things are\u00a0OK.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Henrickson: It comes back to what Hassan said in his TEDx talk about time. Isn\u2019t that our most\u00a0valuable asset?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fattah: Any move towards that sort of progress, to be able to tell as early as possible when I may be in a flare-up, that is worth its weight in gold.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Henrickson: This reporting was partially enabled by a grant from Biohub. Thank you to Dr. Alvin George and Dr. Rebecca Yao, both of the University of Chicago, Hossein Zargartalebi of the Biohub and Jenna Fattah. This has been Kimberly Henrickson for Medill Reports.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kimberly Henrickson is a health,\u00a0environment\u00a0and science specialization graduate student at Medill.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By\u00a0Kimberly HenricksonMedill Reports\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe you\u00a0track your steps and heart rate using a fitness tracker, or\u00a0you\u00a0know someone with diabetes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[163,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-405916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}