This New Dental Floss Can Tell You How Stressed You Are

Would you be more inclined to floss if that little bit of string could warn you that you are about to have a nervous breakdown? Or would that further deter you from flossing by suddenly adding stress to something that is already physically painful and monotonous? Regardless of whether or not you’re ready for it, Smart Floss is going to do it.

Developed by researchers from Tufts University, this high-tech floss has a little saliva-sucking channel built into it that’s fitted with electrodes and a sensor that detects cortisol. This hormone courses through your body when you’re stressed.

Think the same kind of stress you feel when you remember that you haven’t flossed in 2 months, and your dentist appointment is in an hour.

Smart Floss is Here to Help You Battle Stress

Publishing their findings in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, electrical engineer Sameer Sonkusale and his team didn’t just want to shove more health tech in your face. They wanted to ensure that their stress-detecting device was as non-stressful as possible.

It turns out that saliva is a solid source of cortisol detection. Now, all they needed to do was find a way to test cortisol levels in saliva, maybe with a mostly noninvasive tool used in what (should be) a regular part of everyone’s daily dental maintenance routines.

Smart Floss’ real innovation comes in the form of something called electropolymerized molecularly imprinted polymer, or eMIP. It’s a material that acts as a microscopic mold made to recognize cortisol molecules.

In tests, it worked just as well as traditional cortisol sensors that you’d have to send off to a lab. Since eMIP is basically a plug-and-play with not much of a learning curve, the same system could potentially be used to monitor fertility hormones, glucose levels, or anything else your body’s leaking into your spit, and it can be used by anyone who can remember to floss.

Of course, the researchers want to make it very clear that this is not a diagnostic tool; it’s just used for day-to-day monitoring. It’s mostly for those curious about what’s going on in their bodies and heads. If you suspect something’s up, you wouldn’t use this thing to self-diagnose.

That’s what highly experienced, highly educated doctors are for. But, should it one day make it to market, you may be able to clean the gunk from between your teeth and find out if you’re in the middle of a complete psychological breakdown at the same time. How convenient.