This tiny implant monitors your blood and will work with your smartphone to warn you about heart attacks

Having a smartphone in your pocket might be more than a luxury - it may become a necessity as scientists from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have now developed an extremely small implant that warns you about potential life-threatening conditions like a heart attack. The implant, only 14mm large, measures as much as five five indicators, including the protein troponin that the heart release as it struggles for oxygen just before a heart attack.

The data from the implant is transferred via Bluetooth to mobile devices and when it rings, that warning might save your life.

It’s not just troponin, though. Right now, the implant can monitor levels of glucose, lactate, and ATP for diabetes or other conditions. But the number of sensors can easily increase. The implant does not have its own battery and is instead conveniently charged wirelessly using a patch on your skin. It really sounds like a huge step towards that magical tricorder sci-fi movies and books have been dreaming about.

As to the technical details, the skin patch delivers 100 milliwatts of power via inductive wireless charging.

All the data the implant collects is sent to a mobile device and can then be quickly redistributed to health professionals. This could become a truly indispensable gadget, but it requires a shift in the way the system works, so that there is always someone who can look at your data.

What’s even better is that the EPFL implant is not the only one. BlackBerry’s co-founder Mike Lazaridis has set up a $100 million start-up in Ontario focusing on quantum computing in health.

source: Extreme Tech