Through a new application, his idea began with the aim of detecting lies; researchers were able to determine the blood pressure values of people by recording a "selfie video" of no more than two minutes.
The app only works accurately at the moment with people with light skin tone, who must have relatively normal blood pressure values, and those with very light or very dark skin, or those who have uncontrolled blood pressure should wait a little while The latest version of the application.
The new app is the result of a joint effort by researchers from the University of Toronto and others from the Chinese universities of Hangzhou and Zhejiang.
The application, dubbed "Anura", is based on a new technology called "transdermal optical imaging".
So far, 1,328 Canadians and Chinese adults have been screened through a two-minute face video recording using an iPhone. For certain types of blood pressure, the accuracy of the data obtained from the application was about 95 and 96% after the results were compared with standard instruments used to measure blood pressure, according to a report of the University of Toronto on the project and published on the university website.
Coincidence
Interestingly, the technique of measuring blood pressure reached by researchers by accident; where the research was mainly focused on finding a way to devise a device to detect polygraph without contact with the person to be tested, which led the team of researchers to change the direction of the research completely.
The application takes advantage of the fact that the human facial skin is semi-transparent, where light penetrates the top layer of the skin down to the red blood pigment beneath it. The sensors in the smartphone can measure the amount of red light reflected from the hemoglobin to measure changes in blood flow under the skin.
"We can see how blood flows in different areas of the face and draw conclusions from the increase and decrease in this flow," said Professor Kang Li, senior researcher at the project. Develop a new lie detection technique.
Professor Lee is a professor of applied psychology and human development at the Ontario Institute of Education Studies, working alongside researchers from the Department of Physiology at the University of Toronto School of Medicine, as well as researchers from Hangzhou and Zhejiang Universities in China.
Blood pressure is one of the main health indicators used to know a person's health. When blood pressure is too high or too low, it can lead to major health problems such as heart attacks and strokes, which is why Professor Lee says that access to these measurements is easy Is very useful.
Further research
The application is currently available on phones running the operating system "iOS" and "Android", and the free version of it can analyze videos with a maximum of thirty seconds and give data on the level of tension and pulse, to be issued from the app later version can measure blood pressure.
The researchers stress that more research is still needed before the application can be used accurately, and provide reliable data through it, especially in the case of high blood pressure.
The researchers hope that in the future they will be able to expand the possibilities of the innovative analysis method to include more measurements, such as blood sugar, hemoglobin and cholesterol.