Washington, July 25 (ANI): Thanks to a new device - fitness fanatics may soon be able to gauge if their hard work is paying off without the need for weighing scales.
The portable, pocket-sized sensor, produced by a group of researchers in Japan, works by measuring increased levels of acetone on the breath - a good indicator of when the body has begun to break down fat.
Acetone is primarily produced in the blood when fat is broken down; however, it is also expelled through tiny sacs, called alveoli, in the lungs during exhalation and is therefore present in exhaled breath.
This new device, which is capable of detecting acetone concentrations in the range of 0.2 to 50 parts-per-million, is just 10 cm long, weighs 125 g and requires two AA batteries to operate.
Developed by a group of researchers from NTT DOCOMO Research Laboratories, the device consists of a pressure sensor to detect the exhaled breath and two types of semiconductor-based gas sensors to detect acetone.
After a user blows into the device, the acetone concentration levels can be calculated and sent to a smartphone, either by Bluetooth or a cable, within 10 seconds.
The research has been published in the Journal of Breath Research. (ANI)
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