On mobile phones, health, and fitness are rapidly becoming big business. The latest idea? A concept from researchers at Cornell which demonstrates how your phone could be used to check your cholesterol levels, no visit to the lab required. In a paper published in the medical technology journal Lab on a Chip, the researchers describe a simple test strip that users drop a bit of blood on. You then snap a photo of this strip (using a special flash diffuser to correct for light levels) and use an app to analyze the results. Because blood changes colors ever so slightly based on the amount of cholesterol in it, the app can determine your cholesterol level through a simple image analysis of the picture of the test strip. That's good news, since Yahoo! reports that up to 60 percent of American adults suffer from high cholesterol. Presumably a good portion of them aren't even aware of it and don't want to undertake the hassle of a doctor visit. As Bloomberg Businessweek notes in the above story, cholesterol testing is hardly the first example of a medical or health-related technology being developed into app form. Today's app-based heart rate monitors make old-fashioned finger clips look like medieval gear, and you can now download an app that diagnoses what's wrong with your sleep patterns. Expectant mothers can get a daily report on their fetus's development, and that's not even mentioning the scads of apps that let you manage your workout and diet routines. Medical related... Continue reading at 'PC World'
[ PC World | 2013-12-21 00:00:00 UTC ]