OXFORD, England, & PASADENA, Calif.– Rockley Photonics Holdings Limited (NYSE: RKLY) (“Rockley”), a global leader in photonics-based health monitoring and communications solutions, today announced that the company has successfully completed its preliminary human study measuring hydration levels using Rockley’s non-invasive biomarker sensing platform. Rockley has also created a new hydration index for reporting relative hydration levels with the potential to simplify the complex process of measuring personal hydration.
Preliminary results of Rockley’s human study examining active hydration levels before, during, and after exercise show that the miniaturized photonics-based sensor in the Rockley biosensing platform can monitor water absorption and is sensitive to water concentration changes in different layers of the dermis. The study shows that a Rockley wearable device was able to correctly predict dehydration in human subjects 99% of the time and detect the normal state of body water content (euhydration) 82% of the time. The ability to monitor changes in body water levels on a routine basis through a Rockley-powered device has the potential to help people and healthcare professionals make better-informed choices about their personal and patient hydration needs, respectively, including the amount and timing of fluid consumption.
Until now, there has been no single “gold standard” method for measuring hydration. Using current methodologies, properly measuring a person’s hydration level involves a combination of costly and time-consuming laboratory tests to assess the osmolality and electrolyte concentrations in physiological fluids, such as urine and blood.
To fill the need for a monitoring solution that assesses hydration levels and doesn’t impinge on a person’s lifestyle, Rockley has developed a photonics-based technique with the potential to monitor hydration levels on a more routine basis and simplify the reporting of relative hydration levels. The Rockley Hydration Index™ will examine laboratory and field-appropriate hydration assessment techniques and correlate their output to the spectral data generated by the Rockley biomarker sensor. By expressing hydration as a number, the Rockley Hydration Index has the potential to make it easy for people to check if they are over- or under-hydrated and deliver insights or recommendations tailored to each person’s individual hydration needs.
“The need to maintain hydration is important for overall wellness. However, maintaining healthy hydration habits can be challenging, and most people are not aware of if or when their bodies may experience a dehydration-related problem,” said Dr. Stavros Kavouras, professor of nutrition and director of the Hydration Science Lab at Arizona State University. “By routinely monitoring hydration using a wearable device and simplifying how hydration levels are reported, Rockley has provided a simple yet powerful method for people to understand their hydration levels and take action based on those insights.”
“The results of our hydration study are promising and show how our wearable sensing platform can measure hydration levels,” said Dr. Andrew Rickman, chairman and chief executive officer of Rockley. “Our consumer healthtech and medtech customers recognize that measuring hydration levels non-invasively on a regular basis has far-reaching use cases and potential.”
As a solitary biomarker, assessing hydration can provide important insights about certain health conditions. By integrating the non-invasive, real-time monitoring of a broad range of multiple biomarkers — including core body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, blood oxygen, lactate, ethanol, urea, glucose, and more — the Rockley biosensing platform will analyze the data from all these biomarkers holistically, leveraging Rockley’s cloud-based analytics and AI capabilities. This combined analysis has the potential to provide valuable new insights about an individual’s overall health.
Rockley’s in-house hydration study represents the third in a series of studies designed to evaluate and refine the performance of Rockley’s biomarker sensing platform. The hydration study was conducted at a dedicated Rockley research laboratory, overseen by full-time research staff with extensive experience and credibility in the fields of clinical research and study management. The study included men and women over the age of 18 and people of varied races and skin tones. The hydration study has been approved by the WIRB – Copernicus Group Institutional Review Board.
