Portable sensing devices for smart healthcare and prevention of lead poisoning

Sep 29, 2026

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Lead (Pb) poisoning can cause silent, low-exposure harm without clear, specific symptoms, creating major challenges for timely identification. This review highlights biosensors engineered for heavy-metal detection at low concentrations and discusses practical smartphone-based workflows for Pb detection in water, food, and human samples. A portable device integrated with smartphone apps can upload data to cloud storage for analysis and evidence preservation. Using fast 4G/4G connectivity, such systems support home health monitoring and public alerting to reduce Pb poisoning risk.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages6

Reading Time15 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Lead as an unseen hazard

Definitions and challenges of safe exposure levels

J Chin MedAssoc REVIEW ARtIclE Portable sensing devices for smart healthcare and prevention of lead poisoning Wei-Qun Laia,b, Ta-Chou Huanga,b, Kung-Hao Liangc,d, Yu-Fen Change, De-Ming Yanga,b,* aMicroscopy Service Laboratory, Basic Research Division, Department of Medical Research, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC; bInstitute of Biophotonics, School of Biomedical Science and Engineering, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC; cLaboratory of Systems Biomedical Science, Department of Medical Research, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC; dInstitute of Food Safety and Health Risk Assessment, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC; eLumiSTAR Biotechnology, Inc., Taipei, Taiwan, ROC Abstract Lead (Pb) poisoning can damage human bodies silently, without specific symptoms or conspicuous warning signs. To provide safe and user-friendly tools for detecting heavy metals at low concentrations, scientists have developed and optimized versatile biosensors. To practically employ the developed biosensors specific for Pb (eg, the optimized Met-lead 1.44 M1), smartphone applications designed for user convenience and are easily operable for the on-site detection of Pb in environmental water, drinking water, food, and blood/urine are urgently needed. To establish a monitoring system for home health maintenance, a portable device and useful apps installed on a smartphone can be integrated, and the data acquired can be sent to and stored in the cloud for further analysis and evidence preservation. With the high transmissions speeds for 4G and 4G wireless Internet, such a system can be applied for health protection; water-quality data can be provided by anyone and publicly shared for display on smartphone interfaces, alerting individuals of heavy metal contamination. In this review, we describe recent developments in heavy metal–sensing devices, including home health maintenance systems, which have been successfully and practically applied to prevent heavy metal Pb poisoning. Keywords: Heavy metal biosensor; Heavy metal warning system; Home health maintenance; On-site detection; Smartphonebased device; Tap water heavy metal 1. LEAD AS AN UNSEEN HAZARD The heavy metal lead (Pb) has adversely affected human health for thousands of years.1 Although people have gradually discovered its toxic impacts, Pb remains dangerous because of the lack of conspicuous signs of Pb poisoning, especially with low exposure.2 Substantial Pb exposure can cause severe health problems such as cardiovascular and renal dysfunctions, and irreversible neuronal damage is observed, but no symptoms specific to Pb poisoning can be used to confirm a diagnosis; sampled body fluid must be discovered directly to contain Pb.3 Thus, Pb-painted toys continue to be sold, and many cities still use old leaded pipes, meaning that billions of children may live in Pb-contaminated environments.4,5 However, the extent of Pb exposure is poorly understood by most people. * Address correspondence. Dr. De-Ming Yang, Microscopy Service Laboratory, Basic Research Division, Department of Medical Research, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, 201, Section 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan, ROC. E-mail [address: yang.deming@gmail.com](address: yang.deming@gmail.com) (D.-M. Yang). Conflicts of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest related to the subject matter or materials discussed in this article. Journal of Chinese Medical Association. (2023) 86: 459-464. Received September 4, 2022; accepted November 17, 2022. doi: 10. 1097/JCMA.0000000000000904. Copyright © 2023, the Chinese Medical Association. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ([http://creativecommons.org/licenses/](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/)[ ](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/)[by-nc-nd/4.0/](by-nc-nd/4.0/)) Defining “safe” levels of Pb in the environment and

FAQs

Why is lead (Pb) poisoning difficult to detect early?

Pb poisoning can occur without conspicuous symptoms or warning signs, especially under low exposure, so diagnosis typically requires direct detection of Pb in sampled body fluids and assessment via blood lead level.

What do the review’s portable sensing approaches aim to enable?

They aim to provide safe, user-friendly, low-concentration heavy-metal sensing tools, integrating portable devices and smartphone apps for on-site Pb detection across environmental and biological samples.

How does cloud-enabled data handling support home health monitoring?

Collected test data can be transmitted to and stored in the cloud, enabling further analysis and preserving evidence, while smartphone interfaces can display results and alert users to possible heavy-metal contamination.

Sep 29, 2026

Uploaded by Melati