Precision Medicine for Women through Hormone Monitoring via Wearables

Introduction:

Healthcare technology has rapidly evolved in the past five years particularly the use of wearables incorporated into many people’s lives to collect data to help manage their health better.  Alongside the global expansion of FemTech solutions which refers to technology designed to meet the health needs of women. Ranging from diagnostic tools, online platforms, wearable devices to connected mobile apps, all targeting different health conditions and reproductive phases across a women’s life. Often they are designed to empower women in the management of their health by providing them with personalised health data, supporting informed decisions and encouraging improvements in their health. 

One area that could have an impact upon better prevention, diagnostics and optimising treatment for women those FemTech solutions addressing hormonal health and specifically monitoring hormonal levels. Could these technological advancements deliver precision medicine for women through more accurate assessment and monitoring of their hormonal health. 

Hormones are essential for maintaining overall health and well-being, acting as chemical messengers that regulate key bodily functions such as metabolism, growth, mood, and reproduction. When hormone levels become unbalanced, they can contribute to various health concerns. For example, research shows the link between the digestive disorder, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and oestrogen and progesterone hormones by affecting the epidemiology, symptoms and treatment outcomes . Women are twice more likely than men to suffer from IBS .    

A women’s hormone levels will fluctuate across her life and even within a 24 hour cycle, with some stages like puberty, pregnancy and menopause causing more dramatic changes. 

These fluctuations can create challenges for measuring hormonal levels, often assessments involve blood tests to measure hormone levels. This means a ‘snapshot’ result of the individual’s hormone level on that specific time and day which doesn’t address hormonal fluctuations across the 24 hour cycle. Individual variability is also not accounted for as the comparison against the “normal” range is usually so wide that the women is unlikely to get “abnormal” results. However, the standard menopause assessment within NHS primary care pathways for women aged over 45 years will usually include one or two blood tests to measure levels of various hormones (e.g. oestrogen, follicle-stimulating hormone) .

The impact of unreliable blood tests upon women has anecdotally created huge variations in diagnosis. The UK government’s call for evidence to develop their women’s health strategy in 2022 found that many women often had their symptoms dismissed because they were written off as ‘too young’ to be going through the menopause or not displaying the ‘obvious’ symptoms such as hot flushes, with their preferences ignored, particularly when requesting hormone replacement therapy (HRT) . 

Consequently, this issue with understanding menopausal symptoms could reduce the likelihood of preventing health conditions like osteoporosis amongst women. Osteoporosis causes bones to become less dense and more likely to break and a significant risk factor for women a decrease in oestrogen levels during and after the menopause. If a women has early onset menopause and does not fit the standard criteria particularly based upon their age, the standard assessment may result in under-diagnosis of menopause with women unable to access HRT to reduce the risk of osteoporosis occurring.  

It is worth noting within the FemTech market the focus upon reproductive health is likely due to the knowledge amongst founders that generating revenue is more easily achieved by selling their solutions directly to consumers rather than to healthcare providers. Particularly as women are responsible for 85% of consumer spending.  Hence the concentration of solutions that support women with their fertility, perimenopause / menopause and contraception choices. For example, the global menopause market is valued at nearly $18 billion at the end of 2024 and projected to reach $27 billion by 2030, creating a huge economic value . 

A significant gap in the FemTech market is within hormonal health with many start-ups developing innovative solutions using a variety of biomarkers.  

Technological advancements provide an important opportunity to address the challenge of monitoring hormonal levels due to fluctuations. There are now a number of technologies specifically wearables that have potential to more accurately monitor a women’s hormonal levels for various health conditions as well as expanding the focus beyond solely the field of reproductive health. 

The OvuSense Class II sensor have recently come onto the market, their vaginal sensor takes continuous core body temperature measurements whilst the individual sleeps overnight. The algorithm then uses the data to provide ovulation cycle patterns and predictions. This solution can detect and confirm ovulation, even with irregular cycles or PCOS, and their independent clinical studies show 99% accuracy. 
https://www.ovusense.com/uk/ 

Another growth area is biomarkers that monitor hormone levels through testing of a person’s salvia. Mint Diagnostics have built a solution Hormonix to monitor female hormone monitoring through a salvia testing and visualisation platform. The self-sampling testing kits sent to a women’s home take 20 measurements for oestrogen and progesterone over each menstrual cycle. The tests are sent to lab for analysis and via the Hormonix mobile app cycle symptoms are recorded and overlaid onto hormone data for comparison and analysis. Currently the company supports elite sports people and has a partnership with The English Institute of Sport to use real-time hormone data to improve the performance of their female athletes across different sports. 

Another company Eli Health have also developed a technology solution that continuously monitors hormone levels using salvia test and it is currently in beta testing. Their solution uses salvia to measure cortisol (a hormone produced by the adrenal glands) and progesterone.  The sixty second saliva is collected using a finger-slim cartridge, however rather than requiring lab analysis uses the users’ smartphone camera and artificial intelligence analysis to give insights into the users’ hormonal health. 

Although both are not currently regulated for medical purposes, it demonstrates the future potential of salvia testing to accurately monitor hormone levels in women.

Sweat is another biomarker that is gaining interest. Developed by Epicore Biosystems a patch sensor analyses the users’ sweat to identify different biomarkers including hormones. Although the company has focused upon the sports and wellbeing industry, recently they have announced they are expanding into new targets markets including women’s health. This type of patch sensor gives women (and their clinicians) a more accessible route for women to monitor their hormonal levels for longer periods of time.    

Similar to the continuous glucose monitoring patches used with diabetes care, Level Zero Health have designed a remote and continuous hormone monitoring via a wearable patch. Their technology measures hormones in interstitial fluid which surrounds cells and tissues. Worn on the arm, the patch device takes tiny samples sporadically of the interstitial fluid to take real-time measurements of cortisol, progesterone, oestrogen and testosterone. The sensor detects the molecule density of the hormone by analysing how much of it binds to stands of aptamer DNA .  

All these technologies provide scope in the future for greater monitoring of hormonal health within clinical pathways to address some of the diagnostic and treatment challenges women face within healthcare provision. 

In the past few years countries such as the UK have recognised that women disproportionately experience great health inequalities in accessing certain services like gynaecology and reproductive health. Endometriosis UK undertook research in 2023 which found that in the UK the average length of time to diagnose endometriosis in women was 8 years 10 months.   
If wearables could analyse hormonal levels across longer periods of time using technological solutions, this data could help clinicians to make more accurate and quicker diagnosis and could be used to better predict treatment outcomes. 

Additionally, other conditions that impact women more than men partly due to hormonal levels could benefit from the adoption of wearable technology. If clinicians could use the data gathered on hormonal levels to more accurately diagnose and certain conditions.  For example, could wearables that monitor core body temperature enable female IBS sufferers to monitor their hormones variations and empower them to manage their IBS symptoms more effectively and potentially prevent extreme episodes. 

Besides improving women’s health, there are potential savings associated with the use of wearables and technology for hormonal health. If clinicians could at an earlier stage diagnose, monitor symptoms and predict treatment outcomes for those health conditions impacted by abnormal hormonal levels, this could reduce the need for repeat clinical visits or women requiring expensive diagnostic tests.  By using wearable tech, those healthcare systems like the UK’s NHS could alleviate pressures on their clinical services like gynaecology and enhance patient outcomes through real-time data collection. 

References

1. Mulak A, Taché Y, Larauche M. Sex hormones in the modulation of irritable bowel syndrome. World J Gastroenterol. 2014 Mar 14;20(10):2433-48. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i10.2433. PMID: 24627581; PMCID: PMC3949254.
2. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg61
3. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng23
4. https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/womens-health-strategy-call-for-evidence/outcome/85ac4eea-d13f-4942-9ccb-f3c439fe548e#the-menopause-1
5. The WHAM Report: The Business Case for Accelerating Women’s Health Investment, 2025. 
6. https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/28/level-zero-health-is-working-on-a-potentially-life-changing-device-for-hormone-health/
7. https://www.endometriosis-uk.org/diagnosis-report