Health & Wellbeing

Myexposome wristband detects personal exposure to chemicals

Myexposome wristband detects personal exposure to chemicals
The lightweight, nondescript bracelet is made of specially prepared silicone designed to absorb chemicals around it in the same way your body does
The lightweight, nondescript bracelet is made of specially prepared silicone designed to absorb chemicals around it in the same way your body does
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The lightweight, nondescript bracelet is made of specially prepared silicone designed to absorb chemicals around it in the same way your body does
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The lightweight, nondescript bracelet is made of specially prepared silicone designed to absorb chemicals around it in the same way your body does

While our awareness that potentially harmful chemicals lurk unseen in our environment may have grown, most of us still have no idea these substances might be or whether we are exposed to them. A bracelet called MyExposome is designed to answer that question by helping determine exactly which chemicals we’re exposed to during everyday life.

The MyExposome bracelet is based on technology originally developed at Oregon State University. The lightweight, nondescript bracelet is made of specially prepared silicone designed to absorb chemicals around it in the same way your body does.

The idea is that you keep the bracelet on for one week, then mail it to a lab where tests will be conducted to seewhich chemicals it has been exposed to.

The tests cover more than 1,400 chemicals, including pesticides and organic compounds (MyExposome has published the full list). The focus is on chemicals that may pose a concern to human health or that people surveyed by the company most wanted to know about.

Of course, the bracelet will not measure every chemical that the user is exposed to. For example, it won’t detect if the user ingests a chemical in their food, unless it is excreted through their pores, as can be the case when it comes to caffeine.

This information will be presented to the user in a report showing these chemicals and a comparison to other participants. Details of how this report will look are still being worked on, but at this stage they will not include any indication of exposure levels, just which chemicals are detected.

"We created this company to bring theability to know your chemical exposure to the general public,” says MyExposome CEO Marc Epstein. "Right now the scientific community is using this technology tomonitor chemical exposure in segmented groups. We wanted to bringthis cutting edge technology to the individual—to make theinvisible visible."

It’s important to note thattesting the bracelet isn’t as easy as simply popping it into amachine that spits out the results. Eachwristband has to be processed manually, and the results interpretedby experts to correctly determine which chemicals the bracelet wasexposed to.

That takes a lot of time, effort, and money.

The company has turned to Kickstarter in an effort to get the project rolling and a pledge of US$995 is required to put you in line for the standard 1400 chemical test (tests covering flame-retardant exposure costs an extra $500). If all goes well MyExposome plans to start shipping the bands in September. Eventually, the company hopes that increased demand will drive down the cost.

The MyExposome Kickstarter pitch is below.

Source: MyExposome

Simple wristband: Know your personal chemical exposure!

2 comments
2 comments
Bob Flint
At that price, going for a blood test is a bargain, results within 24 hours far more accurate.
Maybe if it was $99 and came with the safety sealed return packaging & shipping.
johnnylucid
So the scaremongers have found a way to monetize their efforts.