Cholesterol: this test can measure your level on your hand – Medisite

It is now possible to measuring cholesterol on your hand! Indeed, while monitoring cholesterol levels normally requires taking a blood sample, scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the China University of Science and Technology have revealed that they have found a way to measure your cholesterol level only thanks to your hand. In a communicated published last November 17, the researchers clarify how “lipid monitoring in patients with coronary heart disease is important to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular events”. However, “the invasive detection of routine blood lipids fluctuates according to diet, exercise and weight”, remind the authors of this study. Scientists have therefore developed “a method for long-term lipid management” which consists of “a rapid and non-invasive detection of cholesterol skin ”on your hand.

A detector measures skin cholesterol on your hand

“Just put your hand on it and the system will tell you the cholesterol data”Said Professor Wang Yikun, who led the Chinese research team. In practice, a detector is able to read the amount of cutaneous cholesterol present on your skin thanks to a reagent placed on the palm of your hand. The authors of the study used a fluorescent reagent for this. It is a chemical applied to the skin of the palm of the patient’s non-dominant hand because the skin is softer and easier to “read” than the skin of the dominant hand more often used. This reagent is able to bind to skin cholesterol and then the person just needs to run their hand over a detector that sends out a specific light to analyze the light spectrum of the skin. According to the scientists, “the amount of binding reagent on the skin surface is positively correlated with the content of cholesterol in body”. It is thus possible to determine the patient’s cutaneous cholesterol level, which corresponds to that of the blood circulation, thanks to a simple imaging technique.

A “more reliable indicator” than the blood test

“This non-invasive system can potentially be used for long-term surveillance e blood lipid levels in cardiovascular disease, providing innovative detection methods for the evaluation of drugs ”, assure the authors of the study. According to Chinese researchers, this method would be even more reliable than the blood test because the cutaneous cholesterol level evolves more rarely and more slowly. The traditional indicator, Low Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (LDL-C), is indeed subject to false positives under specific conditions, while routine invasive blood lipid detection fluctuates with diet, exercise and weight. “Cutaneous cholesterol fluctuates less and less quickly than LDL-C and could therefore constitute a more reliable indicator”, indeed assures Yikun Wang, who led the team of researchers.

This technology detection of cholesterol on the hand was found to be accurate when tested on 121 patients suffering from acute coronary syndrome, whose blood cholesterol level had previously been measured by traditional methods. Scientists now hope that the system can be used for long-term non-invasive monitoring of these patients.