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Optical sensors monitor urine flow at each visit for early diagnosis
Cutting-edge technology can now detect your urine for early signs of diabetes, chronic kidney disease, bladder cancer, UTIs (urinary tract infections) and dehydration – every time you go to the bathroom.
Sensors installed on the toilet seat can measure the way light reflects off the urine flow in real time, which allows for accurate diagnosis of various diseases.
It visually analyzes the 3,000 molecules in urine – each of which interacts with different frequencies of light.
The Israeli startup that developed the technique describes it as “the world’s first AI and spectroscopy-based device” for continuous, non-invasive monitoring of urine output.
The technology is already being used in assisted living facilities in the Netherlands for elderly patients and collects a lot of data every time they use the toilet.
“We’re trying to catch diseases before you go to the doctor,” Guy Goldman, CEO of Olive Diagnostics, the company behind the product, told NoCamel.
“We’re enabling the medical community to start developing preventive medicine and reactive medicine.”
Olive has incorporated a small spectrometer into a raised toilet seat – a device that detects and analyzes the wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation.
The device, Olive KG, emits 64 light frequencies as it moves through the urine, sensitively identifying the molecules and collecting data to identify health problems.
A sensor that can be attached to any toilet, has lights on one side and photodiode lights on the other, which measures how much light is transmitted inside.
Olive KG identifies protein, red blood cells, nitrates, pH and density of urine as well as other characteristics (volume, pressure, color, frequency).
“Urine monitors the amount of minerals you should have in your body, making it an excellent biomarker for detecting many diseases,” Goldman said.
“People think urine is just like waste, but it actually regulates the body. For example, if there is too much sodium, your body removes it through your urine.
The company is currently working on precision urinalysis – the medical term for urinalysis – for elderly patients and especially their children who worry about their offspring being dehydrated or infected.
Goldman lived in London and worried about his mother, Karen, who was diagnosed with uterine cancer and eventually died of dehydration at her home in Jerusalem.
“She sleeps 22 hours a day. We didn’t know she wasn’t well,” he says.
A serial entrepreneur in data analytics, Goldman realized there was no way to realistically track her condition and design technology to help. He used his late mother’s initials KG in the brand name.
Despite advances in science and technology, urine testing remains primitive, Goldman says. Workers in hospital laboratories still nurse sticks into cups of urine.
The accuracy of identifying certain molecules using traditional methods can be as low as 70 percent, he said. In contrast, Olive says it achieves full accuracy because it tracks every visit a patient makes to the bathroom, not the analysis of a single sample.
No other organization claims to use optics for urine testing. Pregnancy tests, for example, use reactive paper to measure the hormone hCG, which is produced after fertilization.
Goldman says the optical urine test can measure levels of cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone, and has potential applications in nutrition, mental health and beyond.
However, it cannot detect all conditions such as muscle disorders – only those that pass through the kidneys.
The data collected from the Olive KG is sent directly to the clinical departments of the assisted living facilities where it is implemented. It can connect to the new Apple Watch app, Olive WatchOS, which brings AI-based urine test results to smartwatches.
The company is developing a new sensor that will begin selling directly to customers by the end of 2023, complete with an app that provides user diagnostics.
Olive recently began selling the product in the US, is being tested in a large assisted living facility, and is monitoring high-functioning people with intellectual disabilities on the East Coast. It has launched a $10 million round A fund.
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