The present invention relates to the technical field of the optical system for triglyceride inspection, and more particularly to an optical system for triglyceride inspection installed on a toilet seat and a toilet containing the system.
Triglycerides (TGs, often referred to as neutral fats) are a type of blood fat in the human body. When a person eats, the body converts any calories it does not need to use immediately into triglycerides. The triglycerides are stored in fat cells of the human body. Later, hormones release triglycerides for energy between meals. If the person regularly eats more calories than he burns, particularly from high-carbohydrate foods, then he may have high triglycerides, i.e. hypertriglyceridemia, resulting in visceral fat and subcutaneous fat and leading to obesity, fatty liver, cardiovascular disease, etc. High levels of triglycerides in the blood are usually a high-risk factor for atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, and stroke, so triglyceride levels can be used as one of the biochemical indicators to assess the risk of cardiovascular disease.
In general, the normal levels of triglycerides in adults are less than 150 mg/dL, the borderline high levels are 150 to 199 mg/dL, the high-risk levels are 200 to 499 mg/dL, and the very high-risk levels are greater than 500 mg/dL. Usually, the levels of triglycerides can only be obtained by a blood test. For the conventional technique of blood test, an invasive blood sampling is required to perform on the subject after a subject fast for 8 to 10 hours and must be carried out by a professional medical institution for biochemical analysis to obtain the levels of triglycerides. Therefore, the triglyceride test by blood sampling lacks immediacy and cannot monitor the triglyceride levels in the human body in real-time to achieve home health monitoring and to prevent and reduce the incidence of diseases.
Although the current blood sampling for triglycerides test is usually performed when the subject is fasting (on an empty stomach), triglyceride levels usually increase significantly after eating and drinking, and in the case of cardiovascular disease or stroke occurrence, the patient is not always on an empty stomach. Therefore, it is of some medical significance to perform triglyceride tests immediately, randomly, or without restriction to fasting to help prevent and reduce the occurrence of cardiovascular disease
From the above description, the conventional method of blood sampling for triglyceride test is limited by the location and method for implementing the test and cannot monitor the levels of triglycerides in the human body in real-time, so there is still room for improvement. In view of this, inventors of the present application have made great efforts in research and eventually provide the optical system for triglyceride inspection according to the present application.
The prime objective of the present invention is to disclose an optical system for triglyceride inspection, which can be partially integrated into a toilet seat, or integrated into a toilet. When a user sits on the toilet seat, a light source generates an emitted light that is projected onto the local skin of the thigh of the user. The emitted light will penetrate part of the skin depth, and a scattered light generated therein will be received by an optical sensor. Then the scattered light received by the optical sensor will be used to analyze the signal strength (levels) of triglycerides. In particular, the skin surface characteristics of different users, such as skin tone, skin roughness, number of hairs, etc. may cause the variation in the degree of absorption of the emitted light and the variation in the degree of direct scattering and may subsequently result in a detection error. In response to the skin surface characteristics of different users, the present invention also performs an adaptive compensation for the skin surface characteristics to improve and enhance the accuracy of triglyceride optical detection. In addition, the optical system for triglyceride inspection according to the present invention is a home health monitoring device that can automatically detect the triglyceride levels of the user in real-time without invasive blood sampling. The optical system for triglyceride inspection according to the present invention can help the user to monitor his or her health condition and then proactively prompt the user to adjust the diet immediately to slow down the increase of triglyceride content in the blood and prevent the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases.
For achieving the prime objective mentioned above, the present invention provides an embodiment of an optical system for triglyceride inspection, which can be partially integrated into a toilet seat and comprises:
In one embodiment, the first light source is a white light source and the second light source is a near-infrared light source.
In one embodiment, the sensing signal is an adaptive calibration function.
In one embodiment, the adaptive calibration function is described in the following steps:
C=(Counts_white light)/(Counts_baseline)
In one embodiment, the wavelength of the near-infrared light source is between 700 and 2500 nm and preferably between 700 and 1100 nm.
In one embodiment, the controlling and processing module is coupled to said plurality of optical sensor modules by wired transmission. In another embodiment, the controlling and processing module may also be coupled to said plurality of optical sensor modules by wireless transmission.
In one embodiment, the communication unit is an Ethernet interface and communicates with the display unit via a local area network and/or the Internet to transmit said inspection value of triglyceride to the display unit.
In one embodiment, the communication unit is a first wireless signal transmission interface and communicates with a second wireless signal transmission interface of the display unit.
In one embodiment, said first wireless signal transmission interface is a Bluetooth communication interface, a ZigBee communication interface, a Wimax communication interface, an NBIoT communication interface, a LoRA communication interface, a WiFi communication interface, a 4G mobile communication interface, a 5G mobile communication interface or a 6G mobile communication interface.
In one embodiment, the display unit is a smart toilet control panel, a smartphone, a tablet computer, a smartwatch, a smart bracelet, a door phone, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, an all-in-one computer, or a server computer. The inspection value of triglyceride displayed on the above-mentioned electronic or computer devices can be further uploaded to a cloud server for storage and analysis by health care organizations to provide users with appropriate health care advice or take necessary medical measures to prevent or reduce the occurrence of cardiovascular disease.
In another embodiment, the present invention further provides a toilet comprising an optical system for triglyceride inspection as described above.
The invention, as well as a preferred mode of use and advantages thereof, will be best understood by referring to the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
To better illustrate the advantages of the optical system for triglyceride inspection according to the present invention and its contributions to the art, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail concerning the attached drawings hereafter.
In a feasible embodiment according to the optical system 1 for triglyceride inspection, the first light source 111 is a white light source and the second light source 112 is a near-infrared light source. In addition, the wavelength of the near-infrared light source is between 700 and 1100 nm.
Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the sensing signal is an adaptive calibration function, and the adaptive calibration function is described in the following steps:
C=(Counts_white light)/(Counts_baseline)
In another feasible embodiment according to the optical system 1 for triglyceride inspection, the second light source 112 may further be a green, red or mid-infrared light.
In a further feasible embodiment, as shown in
In addition, in the embodiment of the present invention as described above, the communication unit 121 is an Ethernet interface and communicates with the display unit 13 via a local area network and/or the Internet to transmit said inspection value of triglyceride to the display unit 13.
Further, the communication unit 121 is a first wireless signal transmission interface and communicates with a second wireless signal transmission interface of the display unit 13. The first wireless signal transmission interface is a Bluetooth communication interface, a ZigBee communication interface, a Wimax communication interface, an NBIoT communication interface, a LoRA communication interface, a WiFi communication interface, a 4G mobile communication interface, a 5G mobile communication interface or a 6G mobile communication interface.
Moreover, the display unit 13 is a smart toilet control panel, a smartphone, a tablet computer, a smartwatch, a smart bracelet, a door phone, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, an all-in-one computer, or a server computer.
Furthermore, another embodiment of the present invention is a toilet 2 containing an optical system 1 for triglyceride inspection as described above.
The basic principle of the optical system 1 for triglyceride inspection according to the present invention is that when a light source, such as the second light source 112 (LED or laser) as described in the first embodiment, emits a near-infrared (NIR) light beam of a specific wavelength (e.g. 700 to 1100 nm), the NIR light beam penetrates part of the skin depth and produces a scattered light (i.e., the second scattered light 112S in the first embodiment). Then, the scattered light is received by an optical sensor 113, and the scattered light received is used as a basis for analysis of the triglyceride concentration in the human body. In addition, since the penetration depth of different wavelengths of light to skin tissues may vary, near-infrared light (wavelength 700 to 1100 nm), which has better penetration to the skin, is selected as the main light source for the detection of triglyceride in this embodiment.
If the human body contains higher amounts of triglycerides, the optical sensor 113 will receive scattered light with higher intensity; conversely, if the human body contains fewer amounts of triglycerides, the optical sensor 113 will receive scattered light with lower intensity.
However, the skin surface characteristics of different users may vary greatly, and the variation of these skin surface characteristics, including skin tone, skin roughness, and the number of hairs, can cause the variation in the degree of absorption of the emitted light (near-infrared light) and the variation in the degree of direct scattering. Therefore, the inventors of the present application believe that it is necessary to perform an adaptive compensation (offset) of the light signal (scattered light) received by the optical sensor 113 to enhance the accuracy of inspection value of triglyceride.
In the present invention, thus a new light source, such as the first light source 111 (white LED) described in the first embodiment, is added to produce a scattered light (i.e., the first scattered light 111S in the first embodiment) on the skin surface of the user, and the first scattered light 111S is received by the optical sensor 113. Then the second light source 112 (LED or laser) as described in the first embodiment penetrates part of the skin depth with a near-infrared (NIR) light of a specific wavelength (e.g., 700 to 1100 nm) and produces a scattered light (i.e., the second scattered light 112S in the first embodiment), wherein the second scattered light is then received by the optical sensor 113. Next, the optical sensor 113 uses the received light signal (including the first scattered light 111S and the second scattered light 112S) to generate a sensing signal of an adaptive calibration function to compensate for the detection errors resulting from the differences in skin surface characteristics of different users. The adaptive calibration function is as described in the first embodiment. Later, the sensing signal is processed by the microprocessor 120 in the controlling and processing module 12 to determine the signal strength of triglyceride levels of the user or is converted into an inspection value of triglyceride by the microprocessor 120. Finally, the signal strength of triglyceride levels or inspection value of triglyceride is transmitted to the display unit 13 through the communication unit 121.
Referring to
Further, as shown in Table 1 below, the optical calculation value of the optical system 1 for triglyceride inspection according to the present invention is compensated through the adaptive calibration function for detection error caused by the differences in skin surface characteristics of different users to obtain an inspection value of triglyceride. The inspection value of triglyceride corresponds to the detection value of the blood sampling, i.e., the inspection value of triglyceride is very close to the detection value obtained from blood sampling. Therefore, the results of
In addition, in the optical system 1 for triglyceride inspection according to the present invention, the microprocessor 120 in the controlling and processing module 12 converts the sensing signal into an inspection value of triglyceride and transmits the inspection value of triglyceride to the display unit 13 for direct display, and as shown in
In other words, the basic principle of the above embodiment uses near-infrared light as the second light source 112 to partially penetrate the skin for detection of triglyceride concentration, but in further embodiments, practically the second light source 112 is not limited to near-infrared light and can be any light that can penetrate part of the skin depth for detection of triglycerides, such as green light (500 to 600 nm), red light (600 to 700 nm), mid-infrared light (˜3 to 8 μm) and other light sources.
In a nutshell, the above descriptions have thoroughly introduced the optical system for triglyceride inspection according to the present invention. The above descriptions are made on embodiments of the present invention; however, the embodiments are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention, and all equivalent implementations or alterations within the spirit of the present invention still fall within the scope of the present invention.