You could say that Michael Snyder is obsessed with learning about the inner workings of his own body. The Stanford University geneticist once tracked himself as he developed diabetes.
Now, in a new paper, he took repeat blood samples every day for a week – 14 a day, 98 times in total. He used a new method he and his team developed, using a drop collected from a finger prick, rather than vial after vial taken from the crook of his arm.
The study, published Thursday morning, showed that Snyder and his colleagues were able to get nearly the same results as a typical blood draw from a sample 1,000 times smaller.
In addition to learning more about your own biology, Snyder thinks this offers a new way to track health measures, and could eventually replace blood draws at your local doctor’s office. Such microsampling, he said, is convenient, can be done more often than an annual or semi-annual blood draw, and does not require visiting a clinic with sick people.
“I think it’s going to take over the way we do health monitoring,” Snyder said.
Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, who was not involved in the work, said the sampling is provocative but not yet ready for widespread use.
“It’s an unprecedented depth of data collection,” Topol said. “Whether that’s useful is another question.”
‘It’s Theranos that works’
Snyder compared the technology to the totally discredited approach of the company Theranos, whose former CEO and chairman is now behind bars.
“It’s Theranos that works,” Snyder said of his own technology.
Theranos also used a drop of blood, but in Snyder’s approach, the blood is sent to a conventional lab that sorts molecules based on their mass and electron charge, while Theranos promised a new analytical process that never worked.
Other companies are currently developing blood tests based on a single drop, but Snyder envisions this being done more regularly at home rather than during an occasional doctor’s visit.
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What the study found
Snyder and his colleagues examined a wide range of factors from each sample, including those involved in metabolism, the immune system, blood sugar and other measures of health.
In his own samples, he was able to see how his body metabolizes aspirin and how long it takes for his glucose to rise after eating, which is helpful for someone like him with diabetes.
He saw an association between caffeine consumption and lack of sleep. “Now I have a little less and I try to stop earlier,” he said, although he’s not sure that’s making a difference.
The researchers also examined the blood of 28 people four hours after they had drunk a bottle of Assurar nutritional shake. One group, perhaps those with insulin resistance, responded very quickly to the drink and in some it increased their levels of inflammation, suggesting they weren’t doing well.
Others processed the shake more slowly, and in some, markers of inflammation went down, suggesting a benefit. Knowing which foods cause or reduce inflammation “would be really, really powerful,” Snyder said, helping people make more personalized decisions about which foods to eat or avoid.
What are the challenges?
Snyder has launched two companies based on the research: RTHM, which is using the approach to analyze long-term COVID, and Iollo, a metabolic testing company that is working to make these blood tests available to the public. It’s not clear how much the test will cost.
But computer technology still can’t fully analyze such a complex set of repeatedly collected data, Topol said, and not everyone is going to want to draw their own blood or send it in the mail.
“That’s attractive,” Topol said, but “it’s too complicated for the person. It’s expensive. These practical issues will have to be validated to make it worthwhile.”
What is the potential for this type of blood test?
Wearable devices such as watches focus on collecting physical parameters, while the molecular information available in Snyder’s method “is critical for personalized health monitoring,” said Wei Gao, assistant professor of medical engineering at the California Institute of Technology. , by email.
“This technology provides a viable way to collect rich molecular information in people’s daily lives using easily accessible finger prick blood collection,” said Gao.
Snyder said this approach could eventually be used to track stress, watch for early signs of illness and see which foods are problematic for which people.
He and his team have already started tracking patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, also called myalgic encephalomyelitis, to see what triggers their bouts of exhaustion and to spot signs of an impending accident.
They are also preparing to release a study on how the “exposome” – pollution, chemicals, bacteria, pollen and mold in the environment – affects someone’s blood chemistry.
“I can see almost every blood test being run in the (person’s) home in the future,” Snyder said. “Makes sense.”
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Please contact Karen Weintraub at kweintraub@usatoday.com.
Patient health and safety coverage in USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial information.
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