A startup called Eli Health has unveiled something it calls a Hormometer (a term that’s just begging for a ™) at this year’s CES. It’s a dipstick-like device that inserts itself into the human body — no, not like that — to measure specific data.
It’s like an oral thermometer except that it analyses two hormone levels via the saliva in your mouth. A 60-second bout behind your teeth lets the device total up the cortisol and progesterone levels in your system. Cortisol, commonly known as the stress hormone, is the one your dogs can detect and match. If your puppy has ever launched off a couch and directly at an annoying neighbour, it was just doing what you were thinking.
Horton hears a Hormometer
The chemical reaction that makes up the modern stress response is fascinating. The internal interactions that turned us into the greatest apex predators ever to walk slowly and menacingly after animals that weren’t expecting us to have pointed sticks render many modern-day humans useless in the face of things like whether strangers will like us. Or phone calls. Maybe we should have stuck with the sticks.
The Hormometer is a modern-day stick that, upon suctioning up enough saliva to do its thing, will chew over the data for about twenty minutes before returning a result via the app. Eli Health says that, in addition to cortisol and progesterone levels, support for other hormones will be added to the device.
The startup hopes to use the Hormometer to make hormone monitoring “as accessible and routine as checking your heart rate-paving the way for a new era of personalized health”. What isn’t mentioned is how the company intends to monetise this human data that nobody else is collecting (yet). It’s only a matter of time before Meta, Apple, Samsung, and insurance companies like Discovery start trying to suction up hormone data if the means to do so becomes readily available.
