Saliva-Sensing Dental Floss for At-Home Stress Biomarker Monitoring
A new sensor-loaded dental pick could help individuals monitor their cortisol levels in minutes.
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Researchers have designed a dental flosser that can detect cortisol in saliva, enabling users to monitor stress hormone levels as part of their daily hygiene routine.
Described in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, the device could allow for frequent, non-invasive stress assessment without the need for specialist equipment or appointments.
Conventional stress detection methods face practical barriers
Chronic stress is associated with numerous health conditions, including cardiovascular disease and mental health disorders. Early detection is vital, but many of the current diagnostic approaches, such as blood sampling or self-report questionnaires, are either invasive, inconvenient or prone to bias.
Saliva-based testing offers a more accessible alternative, since salivary cortisol levels are known to correlate with those in blood. However, existing technologies often rely on mouthguards or complex procedures, which may be uncomfortable or impractical for daily use. Some users may also find the testing process itself to be stress-inducing.
Cortisol
Cortisol is a hormone produced by the adrenal glands in response to stress, preparing the body for a "fight or flight" response.
It also plays a role in various important physiological processes, including metabolism and immune response.
Integrating cortisol detection into a familiar object
To address these challenges, a team led by Sameer Sonkusale embedded a microfluidic cortisol sensor into a handheld dental flosser. The device uses floss to collect saliva during normal oral hygiene. This sample is drawn through a microfluidic thread to an electrochemical sensor located in the pick's handle.
The sensor is made using an electropolymerized molecularly imprinted polymer (eMIP), which is designed to selectively bind cortisol. The eMIP is formed by first imprinting cortisol molecules into a conductive film and then removing them, leaving binding sites that match the hormone’s shape and size.
When saliva containing cortisol passes through, the hormone fits into these sites, altering the electrical current across the sensor. This change is then wirelessly transmitted to a mobile device for analysis. A nearby absorbent pad collects the used saliva.
Performance and future applications
The flosser device provides cortisol readings within 10 minutes. In tests using artificial saliva spiked with cortisol, the sensor demonstrated sufficient sensitivity to detect small changes in hormone levels. Similar performance was observed when the sensor was tested with real human saliva samples. The results aligned with those obtained using a standard enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test, a commonly used laboratory method for hormone detection.
While the research is still in early stages, the authors suggest that the platform could be adapted to measure other biomarkers found in saliva, potentially broadening its application beyond stress monitoring.
Reference: Sharma A, Hossain NI, Thomas A, Sonkusale S. 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 Appl Mater Interfaces. 2025;17(17):25083-25096. doi: 10.1021/acsami.5c02988
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