We are recapping CES 2023 with a series of articles highlighting the innovations we saw at the show. See our first article, CES 2023: A Whirlwind Tour of Climate-Smart AgTech and Sustainable Food.
One of the highlights of CES this year was getting to see and experience the innovations in digital health. With poor nutrition accounting for more than $50 billion in U.S. healthcare costs each year, there is a tremendous opportunity for the food system to drive down costs, improve patient lives and complement existing healthcare systems.
A key driver of new food as healthcare solutions is the ability to easily and scaleably track the impact on specific metrics of human health. New digital monitoring technologies are being developed to meet this need and not only empower people to have more insight into their health than ever before but to have the knowledge and tools to make positive changes. Our team was excited to experience many of these technologies first-hand at CES.
Abbott showcased a variety of solutions including a first-of-its-kind rapid test for Traumatic Brain Injury, a remote monitoring platform for people living with heart failure, and FreeStyle Libre 3 - the most accurate continuous glucose monitoring system which sends readings to a smartphone every minute. The company announced at CES its new consumer biowearable, Lingo, designed for a more general audience looking to manage weight, improve sleeping patterns, increase energy and think more clearly.
Beyond the Abbott booth, health wearables took many forms at CES, such as the style-forward NoWatch, a wearable with swappable gemstones that measures stress, temperature, heart rate, movement and sleep that aims to improve mindset and mental well-being. Epicore Biosystems showcased a wearable hydration monitor, and Aevice Health presented its AeviceMD, a smart wearable AI-powered stethoscope that can detect abnormal lung sounds and is designed for patients with asthma and COPD.
The dizzying array of devices may leave consumers wondering where to start and spark questions about the validity of the data and the ability of consumers to appropriately interpret the results. This year, Movano Health demoed its latest wearable ring, Evie, designed to help women have a full picture of their health. It's one example of a company working to put rigor behind its claims through clinical trials, with Movano citing successful results from its pivotal hypoxia trial to assess the accuracy of the ring’s blood oxygen saturation and heart rate data. But though these new products are exciting, the wearable space is quite mature, and companies are now considering the next white space opportunity.
This might be the reason why urine technologies were generating so much buzz at CES and were dubbed by Engadget as “an unexpected highlight” of the show. Withings’ U-Scan and Vivoo showcased different takes on urine testing in adjacent booths on the show floor. U-Scan is a device that is attached to the dry part of a toilet bowl and captures a urine sample that is run through a microfluidic cartridge. The results are sent to your phone complete with suggestions on how to improve our health. Vivoo is building a toilet-mounted hardware which pushes a pee stick into the toilet bowl. An optical scanner reads the reaction squares and results are analyzed through a smartphone app.
Companies are also developing digital tools to augment the telemedicine and virtual clinical trial space and provide more personalized care. Nuralogix showed off its Anura Telehealth, a platform that continuously measures a person’s health and vital signs during video telemedicine calls. The health monitoring system uses “selfies” and transdermal optical imaging technology to identify key regions of interest in a person’s face and extract blood flow information.
Neutrogena launched its collaboration with Nourished, a company that produces 3D-printed “super nutrient” gummies, at CES. Users can take photos of their skin using the Neutrogena Skin360 app and answer a few questions about their skin and skincare goals, and Nourished will 3D print its vegan, sugar-free gummies and ship them in daily compostable packets. Matthew Rees, founder of Food and Health Facts, demoed this technology and shared his thoughts on the powerful potential of personalization for optimal health.
At S2G we believe that food choices and access are crucial to improving individual and public health and there were a number of companies at CES working at that intersection. Companies in the food, health, and wellness sectors can use Edamam, a leading provider of nutrition data and analytics to develop nutrition solutions. For consumers looking to make healthier dietary decisions, Doinglab, Inc. is a mobile dietary app that uses an AI food recognition tool that can calculate calories through photographs.
It was encouraging to see so many technologies that can help people gain control of their health outcomes and wellbeing, and we look forward to continuing to explore innovations and opportunities for collaboration in the digital health space.
