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Textile-based Triboelectric Nanogenerators — fabrics that harvest energy from wearer movement for powering small wearables or sensors

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Textile-based Triboelectric Nanogenerators — fabrics that harvest energy from wearer movement for powering small wearables or sensors

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Smart Fabrics that Change Color and Shape in Response to Stimuli — e.g. temperature, electricity, moisture etc.

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Smart Fabrics that Change Color and Shape in Response to Stimuli — e.g. temperature, electricity, moisture etc.

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The fashion industry has evolved beyond aesthetics and seasonal trends-technology is now its driving force. In 2025, consumers demand sustainability, personalization, and seamless digital experiences more than ever. Fashion technology is at the forefront, revolutionizing how brands design, produce, and engage with their audiences.

From artificial intelligence (AI) to blockchain and the metaverse, advanced technologies are reshaping the fashion landscape. This article explores the top fashion technology trends of 2025 and how they're transforming the industry.

What is Fashion Technology?

Fashion technology refers to innovative tools, software, and methods that enhance the fashion industry-from design and production to retail and customer experience. It includes AI-driven design, smart textiles, and virtual try-ons, making fashion more sustainable, efficient, and customer-centric. With the rise of Web3, digital fashion, and on-demand manufacturing, brands are moving toward fully digital ecosystems.

The Evolution of Fashion Technology

Fashion technology has evolved rapidly over the last decade, transitioning from traditional craftsmanship to AI-driven design and digital commerce. Early innovations focused on improving manufacturing efficiency, but today's advancements emphasize consumer experience, sustainability, and hyper-personalization.

1. 2010-2015: Introduction of e-commerce, 3D knitting, and early AR shopping tools.

2. 2016-2020: AI-powered trend analysis, automated production, and the first wave of smart textiles.

3. 2021-2024: Widespread adoption of metaverse fashion, blockchain authentication, and virtual influencers.

4. 2025 & Beyond: The rise of AI-driven hyper-personalization, digital fashion NFTs, and bioengineered sustainable materials.

Key Elements of Fashion Tech Innovation in 2025

1. Sustainability and Circular Fashion

The industry is actively reducing its environmental impact. With 92 million tons of textile waste generated annually, brands are adopting circular fashion solutions, zero-waste production, and recyclable materials. Blockchain-based supply chains ensure transparency, allowing consumers to trace every stage of a garment's lifecycle. Additionally, new technologies like AI-driven material optimization and biodegradable textiles are further reducing waste. Waterless dyeing technology is also emerging, significantly decreasing water pollution from textile manufacturing.

2. AI-Driven Personalization

AI stylists and data-driven recommendations are redefining personalization. Fashion AI automation boosts revenue by 5-15%, with tailored shopping experiences based on customer preferences, past purchases, and emerging trends. AI-powered fabric simulations allow designers to preview and tweak designs before manufacturing, further improving efficiency. AI chatbots and virtual shopping assistants guide customers in real time, creating a seamless and interactive online shopping experience.

3. Efficiency Through Automation

IoT (Internet of Things) and predictive analytics optimize inventory management, reducing overproduction and waste. Real-time inventory tracking, automated warehouses, and AI-powered supply chains ensure faster, more efficient production and distribution. AI-powered robots are now being used to automate pattern-making, cutting, and quality control, enhancing precision and reducing production errors. Additionally, automated 3D knitting machines can produce entire garments with minimal human intervention, cutting labor costs and production time.

4. Digital Fashion and Virtual Clothing

Digital fashion, including NFT-based garments, is disrupting the industry by offering purely digital assets that consumers can use in virtual environments. Digital-only fashion brands like DressX and The Fabricant are leading the movement. Consumers can buy, trade, and wear digital clothing in online spaces, reducing physical waste and promoting sustainable fashion alternatives.

Why Fashion Technology Matters in 2025

Today's consumers expect seamless shopping experiences across all channels-in-store, online, and mobile. They prioritize:

Sustainability & ethical sourcing

Hyper-personalized shopping

Fast, transparent delivery

Immersive digital experiences

Millennials & Gen Z dominate the fashion market, with 55% of Gen Z and 48% of millennials preferring brands that emphasize sustainability and personalization. AI-powered fashion assistants are also transforming how shoppers interact with brands, offering virtual styling advice and real-time fit recommendations.

Top Fashion Technology Trends in 2025

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Fashion

AI powers trend forecasting, design, and inventory management. The AI in fashion market, valued at $4.4 billion in 2024, is projected to expand rapidly. Brands use AI for:

Automated fashion design

Hyper-personalized recommendations

Smart inventory management

AI-generated digital fashion models for virtual runway shows

Automated pattern-making and garment construction

2. Smart Textiles & Novel Fabrics

The smart textile market, worth $6 billion, includes:

Self-healing materials

Temperature-regulating textiles

Bioengineered leather & sustainable alternatives

Embedded nanotechnology for adaptive color-changing fabrics

Energy-harvesting textiles that generate power from movement

3. Virtual & Augmented Reality (VR/AR) Shopping

AR and VR revolutionize fashion retail:

Virtual try-ons & 3D avatars reduce returns by 60%

Brands using AR experience 100% higher conversion rates

Virtual fitting rooms have become standard for e-commerce

AI-driven AR shopping mirrors allow real-time outfit visualization

Haptic feedback gloves simulate the feel of fabrics in virtual environments

4. Blockchain for Transparency

Blockchain secures ethical sourcing and combats counterfeiting. Consumers can track garments from production to retail using digital authenticity certificates. Smart contracts ensure fair wages and ethical labor practices, providing greater accountability. Decentralized fashion marketplaces are emerging, where digital-only designs can be purchased as NFTs.

5. 3D Printing in Sustainable Fashion

Brands like Adidas and Nike are leveraging 3D printing for:

How Fashion Technology Benefits Brands

Better Inventory Management: AI reduces overproduction & waste.

Sustainability: Blockchain & 3D printing improve eco-efficiency.

Personalized Shopping: AI insights drive higher conversions.

Immersive Engagement: AR & VR enhance customer experiences.

Lower Costs: Automation reduces labor and production expenses.

Faster Design Cycles: Digital prototyping speeds up product development.

The Future of Fashion Technology

By 2030, 50% of brands will adopt circular models, while the metaverse will redefine fashion retail. AI-driven design, sustainability-first innovations, and digital-first shopping experiences will dominate the industry. Brands that fail to adapt risk becoming obsolete in a tech-driven market.

Conclusion

Fashion technology is revolutionizing the industry by blending innovation with sustainability. In 2025, brands that embrace these cutting-edge trends will thrive, meeting consumer demands for efficiency, transparency, and immersive digital shopping experiences. The future of fashion is here-are you ready?

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Fashion Technology: Top Fashion Trends in 2025

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Programmable Matter (smart atoms/tiles) — materials that reconfigure shape/function on demand using microscale actuators.

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Programmable Matter (smart atoms/tiles) — materials that reconfigure shape/function on demand using microscale actuators.

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Skip to content

PhD researcher Tom Peters

Exploring Four Key Models of Programmable Matter

In his work, Peters investigated how programmable matter can be controlled through advanced algorithms. He explored four key models to understand and harness its potential:

The Amoebot Model
In this model, robots (called particles) have limited memory and communication abilities. Peters developed a novel algorithm using "feather trees" to guide these particles in reshaping efficiently. His method avoids unnecessary steps during transformations, making it faster and more resource-efficient.

The Tile Automata Model
This model studies how programmable matter can self-assemble into structures. Peters demonstrated that Tile Automata systems are universally powerful. He designed a system where larger "supertiles" could simulate the behaviour and internal processes of any other system, showcasing the model's versatility.

The Sliding Cubes Model
Focusing on modular robots shaped like cubes, this framework analyses how they rearrange into new configurations. Peters created an optimal algorithm that reconfigures these robots into compact shapes with minimal moves. His approach also works in higher dimensions, extending its applicability.

Inchworm Robots
These robots, which move along a grid and manipulate building blocks called voxels, were another focus of Peters' research. He examined how the order of voxel placement impacts construction time and analysed how multiple robots can collaborate to build structures more efficiently.

Key Outcomes and Future Impact

Tom Peters' research into programmable matter has made significant progress in showing how tiny robots can work together to transform shapes, build structures, and solve problems in creative ways.

These advancements could lead to smarter manufacturing processes, more precise medical treatments, and even the ability to build in extreme environments like outer space. Dr. Peters' work brings us closer to a future where these tiny robots could help us tackle big challenges and change the way we create and build things.

Title of PhD thesis: Geometric Algorithms for Programmable Matter
Supervisors: prof.dr. B. Speckmann, dr. I. Kostitsyna, T.A.E. Ophelders

Media contact

(Communications Advisor M&CS)

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Programmable Matter: Tiny Robots, Big Possibilities

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Tom Peters' research advances programmable matter, creating adaptable materials that transform manufacturing, medicine, and construction in extreme environments.

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Photonic / Optical Fabrics — fabrics that integrate light (LEDs, fiber optics) for dynamic display or aesthetic changes.

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Photonic / Optical Fabrics — fabrics that integrate light (LEDs, fiber optics) for dynamic display or aesthetic changes.

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Pollen prints: OU’s textile breakthrough gets patent | Hyderabad News - Times of India

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Hyderabad: Researchers at Osmania University have secured a patent for an innovative method that brings pollen-inspired designs into the textile indus.

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City set to churn out lighter, warmer wear with milkweed

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City set to churn out lighter, warmer wear with milkweed

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City set to churn out lighter, warmer wear with milkweed | Ludhiana News - Times of India

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Ludhiana: In a new introduction for the textile industry in the city, MS Parmar, director general of the Northern India Textile Research Association (.

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This luxe T-shirt is made from orange peels and it’s seriously chic

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This luxe T-shirt is made from orange peels and it’s seriously chic

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This luxe T-shirt is made from orange peels and it’s seriously chic

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If you’ve been stalking fashion feeds lately, you’ve probably stumbled across something juicy - Loewe is literally turning orange peels into fabrics. Teaming up with Orange Fiber and Pyratex, the Spanish luxury house is squeezing fresh life out of citrus waste and creating sustainable fibers worth talking about.

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RSWM Limited unveils its Panchtatva-Inspired Sustainable Textile Innovations

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RSWM Limited unveils its Panchtatva-Inspired Sustainable Textile Innovations

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§ , knitted fabrics, and denim collections inspired by The Panchtatvainitiative was appreciated by Shri. Giriraj Singh, Hon'ble Union Minister of Textiles, Government of India and the launch ceremony was graced bySmt. Roop Rashi Mahapatra, Textile Commissioner, Government of Indiaspotlighting unique yarns, mélange Fire, Earth, Water, Air, and Space, the five elements behind RSWM's textile innovations.

§ RSWM also showcased its Spring Summer Collections 2026, including EcoFusion (LNJ Knits), Intelligent Simplicity (Melange Yarns), and Evolve (LNJ Denim).

the flagship company of the LNJ Bhilwara Group, proudly unveiled its Panchtatva-inspired textile innovations at Bharat Tex 2025, India's largest Global textile event, held at RSWM Limited, Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi.

The Panchtatva initiative was praised by Shri Giriraj Singh,Hon'ble Union Minister of Textiles, Government of India and launched by Smt. Roop Rashi Mahapatra, Textile Commissioner, Government of India, along with the esteemed management of RSWM Limited.

Drawing inspiration from the ancient Indian wisdom of 'Panchtatva'- the five elements of Fire, Earth, Water, Air, and Space- RSWM showcased at Bharat Tex 2025 its textile innovations that are in alignment with the government's vision for a sustainable future. Thepioneering initiatives and industry-leading products and solutions, both in conscious business practices and eco-conscious textile science at Bharat Tex 2025,demonstrated a convergence of tradition and modern technology to create environmentally responsible textiles.

The visitors were enamoured with the products showcased under each 'Panchtatva' element, which collectively played a critical role in RSWM's textile innovations. Fire-inspired textiles incorporated advanced fire-retardant, UV-resistant, and heat-protective fabrics designed with cutting-edge thermoregulation technology. Earth-based fabrics includedtextiles made from organic cotton, hemp, jute, and biodegradable polyester, ensuring strength with environmental responsibility. Water-based products featured moisture-wicking, quick-drying, and water-repellent textiles catering to diverse functional needs. Air-inspired products focused on breathable, anti-odor yarns, mesh knits, and lightweight denim fabrics for modern comfort. Space-driven advancements introduced future-ready textiles utilizing high-tech fibers, graphene-enhanced fabrics, and adaptive materials. Some of the showcased Panchtatva-inspired products included anti-odor functional yarns, Hollow Polyester Fiber- Thermolite/Airtherm®, lightweight denim, breathable mesh knits, flame-resistant yarns, water-repellent denim, antimicrobial silver-infused cotton, and ultra-strong Dyneema® fibers.

RSWM's Spring Summer Collections 2026 included three categoriesEcoFusion, Intelligent Simplicity, and Evolve.Belonging to the LNJ Knits line of knitted fabrics, the "EcoFusion" collection combines high-performance finishes with eco-friendly fibers. Featuring Transformative Teal, Electric Fuchsia, Blue Aura, Jelly Mint, Amber Haze, and Pure Peach, the collection integrates recycled materials with advanced technologies, including anti-bacterial silver ions, UV protection, and odor-neutralizing finishes.

The "Intelligent Simplicity" collection including Melange Yarnsreflect the balance between inner peace and self-expression, with serene shades like Blue Aura and Jelly Mint blending with bold tones like Electric Fuchsia and Transformative Teal. The "Evolve" collection from the line of LNJ Denim fabrics, included Artful Canvas, Tech Threads, Urban Luxe, Modern Classic, and Air Lite categories, weaving innovation with timeless traditional craftsmanship.

Highlighting the power of blending cutting-edge technology with eco-friendly materials, RSWM also showcased a new "Performance Wear" collection featuringGreige Yarn fabrics like Seacell Lyocell and Umorfil Viscose, offering environmentally responsible comfortand functionality.

Mr.Riju Jhunjhunwala, Chairman & Managing Director, RSWM Limited, said, "We were elated to host Hon'ble Union Minister of Textiles Shri Giriraj Singh on this occasion. His vision for the industry and the valuable guidance shared with the team here is truly inspiring. At RSWM, sustainability is not just a goal; it is a way of life. The 'Panchtatva' initiative is representative of the wide variety of innovative products we produce at RSWMandembodies India's rich heritage while addressing the future needs of responsible textile manufacturing. By aligning with government initiatives and pushing the boundaries of sustainable production, we are ensuring a greener tomorrow for generations to come."

Mr.Rajeev Gupta, Joint Managing Director, RSWM Limited, added, "Innovation and sustainability must go hand in hand to drive the textile industry forward. Through our 'Panchtatva' initiative, we have reimagined textiles with eco-conscious materials and advanced technology, reinforcing our commitment to circularity and resource efficiency. Bharat Tex 2025 provided the perfect platform for us to showcase our capabilities and continue meaningful discussions with stakeholders on shaping a greener future."

The company's sustainability initiativesare indexed and regularly tracked. These initiatives are aligned to key government policies including increased biofuel usage, zero liquid waste discharge, reduced emissions, and the expansion of renewable energy solutions.

RSWM Limited actively engages with policymakers and industry stakeholders to contribute towards a more sustainable textile sector. At Bharat Tex 2025, Mr. Rajeev Gupta, JMD, RSWM Limited, participated in a round-table discussion on the theme "Innovate Forward: Shaping a Sustainable Textiles Future."

Having pioneered eco-friendly business practices for over six decades, RSWM Limited continues to champion the circular economy through its commitments to reuse, reduce, recycle, and replenish. A key highlight at Bharat Tex 2025 was RSWM's reaffirmation of its leadership in eco-friendly business practices through PET bottle recycling. The company has been amongst the first to begin PET bottlerecycling in the Indian textile industry. RSWM's plant, established in 2014, has set industry benchmarks in sustainable textile manufacturing by capturing and recycling 1,830 million PET bottles annually into polyester fiber called FibreGreen®.

RSWM's sustainability achievements include an annual biofuel usage of 8,818 MT, saving 1.3 million KL of water annually, using up to 50% recycled polyester, consuming 76.5 million KW of green energy annually, reducing CO2 emissions by 800,000 Tonnes every year, recycling 1,830 million PET bottles annually, utilizing 8,162 MT of recycled cotton annually, and applying 72,357 KG of organic fertilizer annually.

RSWM Limited's 'Panchtatva' initiative seamlessly integrates India's traditional values with cutting-edge technology, reinforcing the vision of Hon'ble PM Shri Narendra Modi's 'Mission LIFE' - a people-centric approach to sustainability. With continued engagement with government bodies, industry alliances, and technological advancements, RSWM remains committed to shaping a future where sustainability and innovation go hand in hand. As a key player in India's textile landscape, RSWM will continue to push the boundaries of responsible manufacturing while aligning with national goals and global best practices.

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RSWM Limited unveils its Panchtatva-Inspired Sustainable Textile Innovations at Bharat Tex 2025 – NewsWatch

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§ The Panchtatvainitiative was appreciated by Shri. Giriraj Singh, Hon’ble Union Minister of Textiles, Government of India and the launch ceremony was graced bySmt. Roop Rashi Mahapatra, Textile Commissioner, Government of Indiaspotlighting unique yarns,mélange, knitted fabrics, and denim collections inspired by Fire, Earth, Water, Air, and Space, the five elements behind RSWM’s textile innovations.

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Can India triple its fashion sector while halving emissions?

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Can India triple its fashion sector while halving emissions?

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Can India triple the value of its fashion sector while halving emissions?

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The Indian fashion sector is targeting steep economic growth and ambitious sustainability targets simultaneously. Investments in energy and efficiency could help it achieve both.

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Personal cooling garments combat global heat and health risks

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Personal cooling garments combat global heat and health risks

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Market intelligence on advanced materials

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Bioelectronic fibre can track hundreds of biological events simultaneously

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Bioelectronic fibre can track hundreds of biological events simultaneously

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Market intelligence on advanced materials

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Stella McCartney’s Ethical Feather Alternative

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Stella McCartney’s Ethical Feather Alternative

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Can feathers ever be ethical? Stella McCartney is betting on it

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In her SS26 Paris Fashion Week show, McCartney debuted Fevvers, a plant-based material that claims to have the properties of bird feathers without the drawbacks. Can it reach scale?

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Inditex Launches Fund for Textile Innovation

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Inditex Launches Fund for Textile Innovation

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Ganni’s Deal with Cycora for Recycled Polyester

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Ganni’s Deal with Cycora for Recycled Polyester

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Ganni inks four-year deal with polyester recycler

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The brand says material innovation company Ambercycle’s hero product could ‘change the game’ when it comes to textile-to-textile recycling — a notoriously difficult process to scale.

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Wearable Materials That Generate Power When Worn

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Wearable Materials That Generate Power When Worn

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Researchers make comfortable materials that generate power when worn

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Researchers have demonstrated new wearable technologies that both generate electricity from human movement and improve the comfort of the technology for the people wearing them. The work stems from an advanced understanding of materials that increase comfort in textiles and produce electricity when they rub against another surface.

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New 3D Textile Material Designed to Improve Mobility and Comfort in Wearable Tech - STC MDITR

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Advanced 3D textile materials are transforming wearable tech by blending flexibility, comfort, and smart functionality. From healthcare monitoring to sports performance and sustainable fashion, these fabrics enable wearables that truly move with the body.

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Smart Jewelry that Tracks Biometrics — rings, necklaces that monitor health / environmental 

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Smart Jewelry that Tracks Biometrics — rings, necklaces that monitor health / environmental 

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Transform your wellness journey with health tracking jewelry - sophisticated wearables that seamlessly blend fashion with cutting-edge health monitoring technology. These innovative accessories now track everything from heart rate variability to sleep patterns while looking indistinguishable from premium jewelry pieces. As research continues to demonstrate the benefits of wearable technology, smart rings and bracelets have emerged as discrete alternatives to traditional fitness trackers. Unlike bulky smartwatches, these elegant devices offer continuous health insights without compromising style, making them ideal for professionals and fitness enthusiasts alike. Whether you're monitoring stress levels during meetings, tracking sleep quality, or measuring physical activity, these sophisticated accessories provide medical-grade data while complementing your personal style.

Beyond Fashion: How Health Tracking Jewelry Works

Sensor Technology

Health tracking jewelry incorporates several sophisticated sensors that work together to monitor various aspects of your well-being. The most common sensor is the photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor, which uses light to measure heart rate and blood oxygen levels by detecting changes in blood flow beneath your skin.

Accelerometers and gyroscopes track your physical movement, counting steps, monitoring sleep patterns, and identifying different types of activities. Temperature sensors measure your skin temperature, which can help detect early signs of illness or track your body's natural rhythms throughout the day.

Some advanced pieces feature galvanic skin response (GSR) sensors that measure subtle changes in your skin's electrical conductivity, providing insights into stress levels and emotional states. Bioimpedance sensors can assess body composition and hydration levels by sending tiny electrical signals through your body.

Modern health tracking jewelry may also include ambient light sensors to adjust display brightness and UV sensors to monitor sun exposure. These sensors are typically housed in hypoallergenic materials and designed to maintain accuracy while being worn comfortably throughout the day.

Stylish smart ring displaying health tracking sensors and components in an exploded view

Data Collection and Analysis

Health tracking jewelry employs sophisticated sensors to collect vital health data throughout the day. These devices use a combination of technologies, including photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors that measure heart rate by detecting blood flow changes through your skin, and accelerometers that track movement and activity levels. Modern smart health tracking jewelry can monitor various metrics including sleep patterns, stress levels, and physical activity.

The collected data is processed through specialized algorithms that convert raw sensor readings into meaningful health insights. These devices typically sync with smartphone apps that display your health metrics through easy-to-understand graphs and charts. Many models also include artificial intelligence capabilities that learn from your patterns over time, providing increasingly personalized health recommendations.

Data security is a priority, with most devices using encryption to protect your personal health information. The information gathered can be shared with healthcare providers through secure platforms, enabling more informed discussions about your health and wellness goals. Regular calibration and updates ensure the accuracy and reliability of the collected data.

Key Health Metrics You Can Monitor

Heart Health Monitoring

Modern health tracking jewelry excels at monitoring various aspects of heart health, offering insights that were once only available through medical devices. These wearables continuously track your heart rate throughout the day, providing valuable data about your cardiovascular fitness and overall well-being. Many devices also measure heart rate variability (HRV), the time variation between heartbeats, which can indicate stress levels and recovery status.

Advanced features include irregular heart rhythm notifications, which can alert you to potential heart rhythm abnormalities, though these shouldn't replace professional medical monitoring. Some jewelry can also track blood oxygen levels, offering additional insights into your cardiovascular health.

The data collected helps you understand how your heart responds to different activities, stress, and sleep. Many devices provide detailed reports and trends over time, allowing you to share this information with healthcare providers. Some smart jewelry can even detect sudden changes in heart patterns and send alerts to designated emergency contacts.

Remember that while these devices offer valuable insights, they're meant to complement, not replace, regular medical check-ups and professional healthcare advice.

Sleep and Recovery Tracking

Modern health tracking jewelry excels at monitoring sleep patterns and recovery metrics, offering valuable insights into your nightly rest. These devices track important sleep indicators like duration, sleep stages (light, deep, and REM sleep), and nighttime movement patterns. Many models also measure heart rate variability during sleep, a key indicator of your body's recovery status.

The jewelry typically provides a sleep quality score each morning, along with personalized recommendations for improving your rest. Some advanced pieces can detect stress levels and energy reserves through temperature monitoring and respiratory rate tracking, helping you understand when you need more recovery time.

What sets these devices apart is their unobtrusive nature - unlike bulky smartwatches, sleep tracking rings and bracelets are comfortable enough to wear through the night, ensuring consistent monitoring without disrupting your sleep. They can also identify patterns in your sleep habits, helping you make informed decisions about bedtime routines and recovery strategies.

Person wearing smart jewelry while sleeping, with overlay of sleep metrics and patterns

Stress Management Features

Modern health tracking jewelry incorporates sophisticated stress monitoring features that can detect changes in your heart rate variability, skin temperature, and other physiological markers associated with stress. These devices provide real-time alerts when stress levels rise, allowing you to take immediate action through guided breathing exercises and meditation prompts directly through companion apps.

Many pieces offer vibration-based reminders to practice mindfulness throughout the day, helping users maintain better awareness of their mental state. This integration of technology with digital wellness and mental health tools makes it easier to develop healthy stress management habits.

Advanced models can even track sleep patterns and recovery metrics, providing insights into how stress affects your rest and suggesting personalized relaxation techniques. Some devices also offer community support features, connecting you with others who share similar wellness goals, creating a supportive environment for managing daily stress.

Choosing the Right Health Tracking Jewelry

Essential Features to Consider

When shopping for health tracking jewelry, several key features deserve your attention. Battery life is crucial - look for devices that can last at least 3-5 days between charges to ensure consistent monitoring. Water resistance is essential, especially if you plan to wear the jewelry while swimming or showering.

Consider the specific health metrics you want to track. Most quality pieces monitor heart rate and sleep patterns, while advanced models may include blood oxygen monitoring, stress tracking, and menstrual cycle features. Activity tracking capabilities should match your lifestyle, whether you're primarily interested in step counting or more detailed workout analysis.

Comfort and style are equally important since you'll likely wear the piece daily. Look for hypoallergenic materials and adjustable designs that won't interfere with your daily activities. The display interface, whether it's a subtle LED or a full touchscreen, should be easy to read and navigate.

App compatibility is another crucial factor. Ensure the jewelry works with your smartphone and offers user-friendly software that presents data in an understandable format. Some devices also provide smart notifications and gentle vibration alerts for a more connected experience.

Collection of different styles of health tracking jewelry pieces displayed elegantly

Style and Practicality Balance

When selecting health tracking jewelry, focus on pieces that seamlessly integrate into your daily wardrobe while providing reliable health monitoring. Look for versatile designs that work well with both casual and formal attire, such as slim rings or elegant bracelet styles. Consider materials that are both durable and skin-friendly, like surgical-grade stainless steel or hypoallergenic metals, which ensure comfort during long-term wear.

Many modern health tracking accessories come in various finishes, from classic silver and gold to contemporary rose gold and matte black. Choose colors and styles that complement your existing jewelry collection to maintain a cohesive look. Pay attention to the size and profile of the device - sleeker designs tend to be more comfortable and less likely to catch on clothing or interfere with daily activities.

For active lifestyles, opt for water-resistant options with secure clasps or fits. Some brands offer interchangeable bands or faces, allowing you to switch up your look while maintaining tracking functionality. Remember that the most stylish tracker won't serve its purpose if it's uncomfortable or impractical for your lifestyle, so prioritize finding a balance between aesthetics and usability.

Privacy and Data Security

As health tracking jewelry becomes more integrated into our daily lives, privacy and data security are paramount concerns. These devices collect sensitive personal health information, including heart rate, sleep patterns, and activity levels, making it crucial to understand how this data is protected and used.

Most reputable health tracking jewelry manufacturers employ industry-standard encryption to protect your data during transmission and storage. However, it's important to carefully review the privacy policy of any device you're considering to understand what information is collected and how it's used.

When choosing health tracking jewelry, look for devices that offer:
- Local data storage options
- End-to-end encryption
- The ability to control data sharing preferences
- Clear privacy policies
- Regular security updates

Many Canadian privacy laws, including PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act), provide additional protection for your personal health information. However, you should still take active steps to protect your data by:
- Using strong, unique passwords
- Enabling two-factor authentication when available
- Regularly reviewing your privacy settings
- Being selective about third-party app connections
- Keeping your device's firmware up to date

Remember that while sharing health data with healthcare providers can be beneficial, you have the right to control who has access to your information and how it's used.

Health tracking jewelry represents a remarkable fusion of fashion and wellness technology, offering a discrete and elegant way to monitor our daily health metrics. These innovative accessories have transformed how we approach personal health management, making it more accessible and seamless than ever before. From tracking sleep patterns and stress levels to monitoring heart health and physical activity, these devices empower users to take proactive steps toward better health outcomes.

As technology continues to advance, we can expect even more sophisticated features and improved accuracy in health tracking jewelry. Future developments may include enhanced biometric sensors, longer battery life, and integration with artificial intelligence for more personalized health insights. The growing emphasis on preventive healthcare and wellness monitoring suggests that these devices will become increasingly valuable tools in our health management arsenal.

For Canadians seeking to maintain or improve their well-being, health tracking jewelry offers an attractive solution that combines style with functionality. Whether you're managing a chronic condition, working toward fitness goals, or simply wanting to better understand your body's patterns, these devices provide valuable data while complementing your personal style. As we move forward, health tracking jewelry will undoubtedly continue to play a crucial role in promoting proactive health management and informed lifestyle choices.

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Smart Jewelry That Actually Improves Your Health (Beyond Step Counting) - Health & Wellness Canada

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Transform your wellness journey with health tracking jewelry - sophisticated wearables that seamlessly blend fashion with cutting-edge health monitoring technology. These innovative accessories now track everything from heart rate variability to sleep patterns while looking indistinguishable from premium jewelry pieces.

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Fiber computer allows apparel to run apps and ‘understand’ the wearer

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Fiber computer allows apparel to run apps and ‘understand’ the wearer

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MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Fiber computer allows apparel to run apps and “understand” the wearer

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MIT researchers developed a single-fiber computer that is soft, durable, and elastic. The fiber can be sewn into a garment to make wearable devices that provide richer and more accurate health data in real-time.

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Brain-to-Brain Communication Research (noninvasive early proofs) — experiments exploring direct neural communication between humans (lab stage)

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Brain-to-Brain Communication Research (noninvasive early proofs) — experiments exploring direct neural communication between humans (lab stage)

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Human brain to brain communication has arrived | Giulio Ruffini | TEDxBarcelona

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Personalized Nutrition Plans: Tailoring diet plans based on individual genetic and microbiome data.

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Personalized Nutrition Plans: Tailoring diet plans based on individual genetic and microbiome data.

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Oura Ring’s new ceramic shades & portable charging case

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A new kind of prosthetic limb depends on carbon fibre and computer chips-and the reëngineering of muscles, tendons, and bone.

Hugh Herr, the director of an M.I.T. laboratory that pursues the "merging of body and machine," grew up in a Mennonite family outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He and his brothers-he was the youngest of five children-often helped their father, a builder, lay shingles, install drywall, and strip wires. During the summer, the family visited places like Alaska and the Yukon in their camper van, and the kids frequently set out alone to hike and rock climb. "When I was eleven, I was this climbing prodigy, climbing things most adults couldn't do," Herr told me. "When I was fifteen and sixteen, I started climbing things that no adults had ever done. And then, when I was seventeen, the accident happened."

Rock climbers call bouldering moves "problems," and the most difficult section of a route is the "crux." The young Herr spent days imagining difficult ascents, plotting a path across slots, cracks, and overhangs as one might work through a complex question in geometry or physics. Then he would go out and become the first person to ascend, say, a rock face on the Shawangunk Ridge. (By tradition, the person who makes the first ascent gets to name the route. The chosen names are often kooky: Moby Grape, They Died Laughing, Lonesome Dove, Millennium Falcon.) Herr sometimes did what's known as free-solo climbing. "I'll never forget the day I climbed two thousand feet without a rope," he told me. "All your sensations are heightened. It's a remarkable feeling of one's physical control and power."

In January, 1982, when Herr was a junior in high school, he and a friend, Jeff Batzer, set off to ice-climb Huntington Ravine, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. They then planned to hike an additional mile or so to the peak of Mt. Washington, a popular destination that is notorious for fast-changing conditions. (It has been said to have the worst weather in the world.) According to the Mount Washington Avalanche Center, about twenty-five people have to be rescued each year, and more than a hundred people have died on the mountain.

Herr and Batzer, who were experienced and very fit, ascended the ice of Huntington Ravine without much difficulty. They figured that if they had trouble on Mt. Washington they could always turn around. A few hundred feet along the trail, however, they encountered winds of up to ninety miles per hour. Visibility was poor. They had to shout to hear each other. While retreating downhill, they lost their way. Several times, Herr's feet broke through ice into a freezing stream.

The two spent three nights in an isolated valley, in extreme cold. Herr didn't think that they would survive for even one night. But he wasn't accounting for the benefits of being with another person. "You can hug them," Herr said of the experience, in "Augmented," a documentary produced by Stat News and Nova. "You dramatically reduce the surface area of the dual body, but you double the heat source." The boys had all but given up when, on the fourth day, a woman out snowshoeing, following what she thought were moose tracks, came across the two young men. They wondered if they were hallucinating; she gave them raisins and a sweater and hurried to get help. They later learned that a search party had spent days out in the snow looking for them.

To stave off gangrene, Batzer had a thumb, several fingers, a foot, and a portion of one leg amputated. Herr had both legs removed below the knee. He was fitted with leg prostheses that had sockets made of plaster; he was warned that putting too much stress on them could crack them. "I was, like, 'We've gone to the moon, and this is it?' " he told me. When a prosthetist brought out a box of feet for Herr to choose from, Herr asked if there were any narrow enough to fit inside climbing shoes. "I wanted to get back on the horse," he told me. "Climbing was my life."

In rehab, Herr got in trouble for, literally, climbing the walls. A few months later, when he was on crutches, he and his brother Tony made their way to the base of a familiar mossy rock face in Pennsylvania, and Herr scaled it. He felt free and strong. And without his lower legs he was, he said, "like, fourteen pounds lighter." Climbing was easier for him than walking with his prostheses; it was also much less painful. "My dad was, like, If you want to climb, climb. Invent stuff."

Herr had studied metal fabrication at a nearby vocational school-he had chosen his high-school classes in a way that would leave his schedule open for climbing. He started building prostheses with custom features, such as feet that could grip ice and pointed toes that could be wedged into cracks. "One year after the accident, I was climbing as well as I did before," he said. Jim Ewing, a climbing friend who was Herr's roommate around that time, told me, "I watched him become one of the strongest rock climbers in the world-and that was with bilateral amputations." Herr made a first ascent of a route up Sky Top Ridge, in the Shawangunks, and he christened it Footloose and Fancy Free. (One of his prosthetic feet broke off when he fell and was caught by a rope.) He took on increasingly difficult climbs: City Park, in Washington State, and Liquid Sky and Stage Fright, in New Hampshire. In May, 1983, he appeared on the cover of Outside magazine. In the photo, he's wearing a bandanna tied around his head; his prosthetic legs are painted with red-and-blue stripes reminiscent of athletic socks. Two pairs of feet, neither attached, are nearby.

But, by 1985, Herr was worrying about the strain on his body. He thought about going to college, which would give him the education he needed to build even more advanced prostheses. "I was imagining limbs where I could run faster than a person with biological limbs," he told me. "I was imagining non-anthropomorphic structures like legs with wings, and I could fly. I had no idea, obviously, how to do that." He enrolled at Millersville University, a public school near Lancaster. Herr said that as a teen-ager he'd had such a limited grasp of math that he couldn't have calculated ten per cent of a hundred. After two years of relentless studying, however, he had advanced to quantum mechanics. "What had been a climbing obsession became an academic obsession," he said. He thought that maybe his aptitude for mathematics had come in part from all the problem-solving he did as a climber.

One summer, Herr started developing an adjustable socket for his prostheses, which tended to loosen as swelling in his legs ebbed in the course of a day. He and a prosthetist friend, Barry Gosthnian, who had been a mechanic in the Air Force, had talked about using inflatable bladders, and Herr tried to make some from various materials. Finally, after the seventeenth prototype, he had something that worked. Herr ultimately got a master's degree in mechanical engineering, from M.I.T., and a Ph.D. in biophysics, from Harvard. He started the M.I.T. Media Lab's Biomechatronics Group, which uses neurology and engineering to "restore function to individuals who have impaired mobility." (He is also a director of the K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics.) At M.I.T., he led the development of a robotic foot-and-ankle prosthesis called the BiOM, which has three microprocessors and six sensors and is tuned to a user's gait. He started using one himself; in 2011, Time named him the "Leader of the Bionic Age." Swapping out the powered ankle for a passive spring device, Herr said, felt like stepping off a moving walkway at the airport.

Still, the sophistication of prostheses was limited by the way leg amputations were performed. Surgeons traditionally sew down residual muscles when they amputate a limb. There are good reasons for this-padding the bone is one-but it also severely restricts how much the muscles can move, leading to atrophy. Herr feels as if his legs are still there, but locked into rigid ski boots. The movements of his prostheses and his phantom limbs are out of synch.

More recently, however, Herr's group has been working on a new type of prosthesis-one that is controlled by the brain. Not long ago, in his clutterless, white-walled office at M.I.T., he showed me a video of a woman who had undergone a novel kind of amputation that better preserves the ability of remaining muscles to contract and stretch. The signals that the brain sends to those muscles can be communicated, by way of numerous electrodes on the skin and external wires, to microprocessors in the prosthesis. I watched as the woman, simply by thinking, smoothly flexed and pointed her carbon-fibre toes. Herr told me that, when he walks with the robotic ankle he designed, "it feels like I'm in the back seat of a car. She feels like she is the car."

More than a hundred people, including at least twenty at M.I.T., have now tried these brain-controlled prostheses. "They don't typically get emotional at first," Herr told me. "They giggle." The prostheses are being used only for research, since they require more testing to be considered for F.D.A. approval, but research participants have already achieved a "biomimetic gait." This makes it the first leg design that allows users to walk approximately as quickly and unthinkingly as anyone else-a feat that Herr described as "more than I had expected in my wildest dreams." Several labs have developed neurally controlled arm prostheses, and the Utah Bionic Leg, created by a University of Utah team led by Tommaso Lenzi, continually adjusts to a person's gait. The M.I.T. prosthesis, however, is under full neural control. These accomplishments are not just about microprocessors, carbon fibre, and titanium. They required the engineering of much more familiar materials: muscles, tendons, and bones.

When I first met Matthew Carty, a tall plastic surgeon with gray hair and bright-blue eyes, he had just returned from a twelve-hour breast-reconstruction surgery, and I could still see the imprint of magnification glasses on his face. We were across the Charles River from Herr's office, in the Hale Building for Transformative Medicine, at Brigham and Women's Hospital, where Carty works. Carty is an expert in the field of microsurgery, which involves especially fine work, including the reattachment of vessels that can be smaller than a millimetre in diameter. Like many surgeons, he radiates the confidence that a person would want to see before going under the knife.

Herr had wondered whether the muscles severed in an amputation could be meaningfully connected again. ("I didn't know if it was even possible," he told me.) Someone he knew at a nearby rehabilitation center suggested that he speak with Carty. Carty, in turn, had been asking around about experts on advanced leg prostheses, and was told that he ought to meet Herr. Over dinner at a no longer extant Italian restaurant, they weighed the idea of leg transplants, which have never been done in the United States, against leg amputations combined with advanced prostheses. Many conversations followed.

Carty told me that, early in his career, he was troubled that amputation remained relatively primitive despite major advances in most other surgeries; the procedure not only led to muscle atrophy but also caused chronic pain, blistering, infections, and arthritis. It seemed improvable. "If I showed you a textbook from the Civil War describing the technique for a below-knee-level amputation and I showed you a textbook from right now, they would look almost the same," he told me. "How many things can you think of that have not evolved in two hundred-plus years?"

Other physicians were also rethinking the details of amputation. Severed nerves sometimes regenerate chaotically in residual limbs, forming painful clumps of tissue called neuromas. Gregory Dumanian, at Northwestern University, and Paul Cederna, at the University of Michigan, each developed techniques for embedding the ends of nerves into muscles, which is said to give the nerves somewhere to go and something to do; in practice, it alleviated some types of chronic pain. Carty had a further thought: a large amount of intact muscle, nerves, vasculature, and bone was often disposed of during amputations. In other procedures done by plastic surgeons, "material" was commonly repurposed for reconstruction. Couldn't a similar inventiveness be applied systematically to amputations?

The human nervous system can be spooky. If an artery in your heart is occluded by a clot, pain may be felt in distant places such as your neck and your arm. Your gallbladder is in your abdomen, yet the pain from gallstones is sometimes felt as far away as your shoulder. Phantom-limb sensations are a very different variety of confusing messages of the nervous system. I spoke with a woman whose right leg was amputated up to the hip at Brigham and Women's; shortly thereafter, on a hot day, she felt sweat in the pit behind the knee that she no longer had. Another patient said that pain from his phantom ankle "drives me bananas" and keeps him up at night. These sensations are not solely nuisances. They can also be useful.

Carty remembers asking Herr, early in their conversations, about his height. Herr was about five feet eleven before the accident, but his prostheses made him six feet two. Things didn't have to be just as they were; there was room to play. Eventually, Herr and Carty began discussing the idea of amputation surgeries that would reëngineer parts of the residual limb.

The key insight that emerged from their collaboration centered on muscle pairs made up of agonists and antagonists. When you bend your elbow, the biceps, an agonist, contracts; the triceps, an antagonist, stretches. When you raise your heel to walk, part of the largest muscle in your calf (the gastrocnemius) contracts, and a muscle right next to the shinbone (the tibialis anterior) stretches; both muscles connect to bones in the foot and, in this way, move the leg.

One problem with traditional amputations is that they leave agonists and antagonists without that bone connection. What was in essence the muscles' means of communication or coördination is gone. But Carty and Herr, in close collaboration with Shriya Srinivasan and Tyler Clites, who were then graduate students in Herr's lab, started to envision ways of functionally reconnecting those agonist and antagonist muscles.

After a traditional amputation, the neural signals from severed muscles are only about three per cent of what they once were-insufficient for effective communication with a neurally controllable prosthesis. If the connections between agonist and antagonist muscles could be restored, however, the neural signals might be strengthened and clarified. The limb could then keep the brain informed about where it is and what it's doing; the brain in turn might become better at controlling the muscles in a natural way. In other words, a person's prosthetic limb could potentially be brought into close alignment with their phantom limb.

Many years of research went into this new approach to amputation. At one point, Clites spent about a year developing a way of stitching together agonist and antagonist muscles with tendons, which could slide back and forth along a bone-mounted titanium pulley. Clites told me that he had "all the 'i's dotted and all the 't's crossed, and then that didn't work at all." In an experimental animal surgery, the muscles scarred down and became immobilized. "We had to ask ourselves, first, is the concept even good?" Clites told me. The titanium, which was not native to the body, seemed a likely culprit for the failure.

After many discussions, Herr, Carty, Srinivasan, and Clites went with a design that fashioned a pulley from a part of the ankle joint which in traditional amputations is basically tossed out. The idea looked good in theory, and the team presented it at a plastic-surgery conference. "The predominant feedback from surgeons was 'That's a really cool idea, but it will scar down and it will not move,' " Clites recalled.

The team tried out the surgery on human cadavers and animal models and thought that it might be working. "But you can't get a rat to tell you what they are feeling," Carty said. Did movement feel natural? How much could the animal sense its phantom limb or prosthesis? Did the prosthesis move in accordance with its thoughts? To answer these questions, the researchers needed a human-someone who was healthy but needed an amputation, and who was willing to receive a novel procedure. As Carty put it, they were looking for a "first astronaut."

In the years after Herr's accident, he had done numerous climbs with Ewing, his roommate. In the Stat documentary, Ewing recalled that, when they were about twenty, Ewing had "Life sucks" written on his left shoe; on the right, he had "And then you die." On one climb, part of the way up the rock face, Herr asked him, "Does life really suck, Jim?" Ewing eventually married, had a child, and became a mechanical engineer, but he kept mountaineering. One day, in 2014, he was scaling a limestone cliff in the Cayman Islands with his daughter. He slipped, fell, stopped a couple of times, and then fell again-this time all the way down, about fifty feet. Somehow, he survived.

Ewing's left foot was so badly injured that putting any pressure on it caused excruciating pain, even a year later. "As an engineer, I was researching all kinds of different things to rebuild my ankle," he said. But he couldn't find anything that would let him climb again. Even walking was very difficult. "I was super depressed," he said. He knew that Herr was leading a biomechatronics lab, so he got back in touch to inquire about anything new and experimental-and, alternatively, to hear what life with an amputation might be like. He remembers Herr saying, "Well, funny that you ask-we've just developed this new amputation protocol." Herr directed him to Carty, and a couple of months later Ewing decided on amputation. He would be the first person with an "agonist-antagonist myoneural interface"-AMI for short.

Precisely when people began to make and use prostheses is unknown. A prosthetic leg, fashioned from poplar and tipped with a horse's hoof, was found in a two-millennia-old grave in present-day China, along the Silk Road. A Roman general is said to have received an iron replacement for his right hand, to allow him to hold a shield. Ambroise Paré, a sixteenth-century French military barber-surgeon, devised a mostly metal leg with a knee joint, which could bend when a person was walking and lock when he was standing. Paré also worked on innovative surgical approaches to amputation, such as saving skin and muscle.

Throughout the years, prostheses have been reimagined in creative ways. Still, for a long time, the main difficulty for soldiers who needed amputations was surviving long after the operation. During the American Civil War, when infections killed more soldiers than artillery did, it was said that a soldier was lucky to have a limb shot off rather than cut off by a battlefield surgeon; field surgeons were unlikely to be working with a clean blade. (Advertisements from the time offered a type of ankle prosthesis that contained no metal and had a socket made from polished ivory and vulcanized rubber. It was touted as " EXTREMELY LIGHT; MUCH LIGHTER THAN ANY OTHER. ") For people who needed amputations, the greatest advance in care arguably was not superior prostheses but more modern surgical practices.

In the century that followed, amputation remained a neglected area of medicine. "When I was a medical student, amputations were sometimes given to the most junior member of a surgical team, and it was a contest to see how fast you could get the limb off," David Crandell, a physiatrist in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School, told me. To this day, surgeons performing amputations too often have little sense of what happens to a patient in the years after recovery.

"Part of the problem was that amputation was thought of as a failure," Carty told me. "The thinking was, Either you salvage the limb or you fail to salvage the limb." He brought up Ewing's case to demonstrate how that approach can be misguided. "He had this preserved foot, but it's painful all the time," Carty said. "He stops climbing-he stops doing all these things that matter most to him." For Ewing, an amputation and a fitting with a prosthesis could be more restorative than keeping the foot.

Carty and his colleagues were confident that the AMI amputation would be safe, and that Ewing would be able to use a conventional prosthesis without trouble. "Still, when you're doing something for the first time, you're freaking out the whole time, because you're wondering what you'll find," Carty said. They were not sure that the surgery would allow the muscles to move more freely, which was essential for a strong neural connection to a prosthesis.

According to a description of what would become known as the Ewing amputation, the surgeon makes a "stairstep incision" over the shin using a scalpel. The relevant part of the limb is "exsanguinated." A flap of skin is peeled back to expose the leg muscles. Care is to be taken, the account notes, to isolate the saphenous vein and a nearby nerve. This is only the beginning of what is simultaneously a delicate, gruesome, and revolutionary surgical procedure; one of the required tools is a bone saw.

On July 19, 2016, Ewing spent more than five hours in the operating room. "Things went pretty well for me," he recalled. Two weeks after the surgery, even before he had healed enough to have a prosthesis fitted, he went to a local climbing gym. "I remember feeling very liberated," he said. "I was using just one leg, but I felt free from pain. I could propel myself up that wall dynamically."

A few weeks later, Ewing went to the lab at M.I.T. The first thing the team wanted to know was whether the connected agonist and antagonist muscles in the amputated limb could move. An ultrasound probe showed that they could. "For a scientist, that's Christmas morning," Clites, who is now an assistant professor at the U.C.L.A. School of Engineering, said. "That was the big wow." The research team then worked on picking up electrical signals from the muscle, measuring the strength of those signals, and using them to guide the movement of a prosthetic leg.

Ewing amputations are now the standard of care at Brigham and Women's, and are performed at many hospitals. Carty frequently teaches the method to other surgeons, sometimes even by Zoom. Footage from the documentary shows one of Ewing's later visits to the lab, the first time that the research team connected the prosthesis directly to his leg. "It's really cool to feel it through my knee," he says in the video. "Feels like there's a foot there." At first, he moves the prosthesis slowly. Later, he observes, "Literally within minutes of having it all connected, it starts becoming part of me." We see him sitting cross-legged, with the prosthesis on top, fidgeting the foot by flexing and pointing it repeatedly-a moment Carty remembers as astonishing. "I said, 'Jim, do you know you're doing that?' " Carty recalled. Ewing replied, "No, I was just hanging out."

One of the many eerie elegances of our bodies is that we manage to walk without thinking much about it. We never have to study a user's guide to our legs in order to coördinate the contraction of one muscle and the relaxation of another. Almost all of that labor is done unconsciously. I sometimes think of the conscious mind as a clueless factory boss who spends her time daydreaming while the workers on the floor operate all the necessary machinery. Every so often, the self-important boss is startled into action and sends down a message like "Step around that puddle!" or "Run faster!" But only the workers know all the detailed adjustments required to carry out the order. "Even now, we don't fully understand walking-which surprises people," Herr told me. His lab has spent thousands of hours filming, assessing, scanning, and mathematically modelling people as they walk.

Even the most sophisticated robotic leg prostheses are engaged in merely a rough approximation of human locomotion; they "know" only what the current science knows about how we walk or run or jump, which leaves out a considerable amount. They have microprocessors that make thousands of calculations a second, and they can convey a burst of energy that, even in the absence of a calf muscle, enables a person to lift their prosthetic heel with the appropriate amount of energy. But on uneven ground, for example, they don't allow a person to move in a truly biomimetic way. This means that an almost incomprehensibly complex technology effectively knows less than a child.

When Clites was a Ph.D. student in Herr's lab, he worked closely with Ewing to "tune" the prosthesis to Ewing's perception of movement. The sensors for electromyography (EMG), which is like an EKG for muscles outside the heart, were taped to his residual limb and detected the electrical activity in his leg muscles. (The team is also researching an approach to detecting muscle movements that involves small implanted metal spheres.) If Ewing was asked to lightly flex his foot but the prosthetic foot flexed intensely, the system could be adjusted. "Maybe one philosophical concept here is that, if the amputation is done well and the interface is done well, then the best possible prosthetic device is a really stupid one," Clites told me. "It is one that doesn't have to think very much at all . . . because the person's brain and spinal cord are doing all the thinking." Herr described this in a clarifying way: "There's no real algorithm on the robot. It's all from biological computation. That's cool, because the person is in control."

When I visited the lab, in July, I met Amy, a sporty woman with auburn hair whose leg had been severely burned in a work accident. Her turn as an astronaut came shortly after Ewing's. The surgery alone was a breakthrough, Amy said, because "it gives back so much proprioception"-the ability to detect one's body in space. She became very active with traditional prostheses; she runs races and rows crew. But trying the neurally controlled prosthesis in the lab, she said, was a kind of revelation.

Amy described for me how, after EMG electrodes were taped along her residual limb, she was given instructions about how to move her no-longer-there leg. "At first, the prosthesis was mounted on the table, while I sat in a nearby chair," she said. "It was wild. The fact that my leg is here, and this thing is over there, and then all I do is think . . . and now this thing is moving." The researchers would ask her to point the foot quickly, and then slowly; to turn her phantom ankle inward as far as she could, and then outward as far as she could, and then inward just a little, and so on. It was like telekinesis, and she was having fun. Sometimes, just to mess with the team, she would start tapping her phantom foot, as if with impatience.

Eventually, the bionic prosthetic leg was hooked up directly to Amy's body. Her movements were studied as she walked with it-on ramps, up and down stairs, around obstacles. If it was out of tune, she might find herself walking on tiptoes. Whenever she went home, the bionic leg remained in the lab. "You do miss it when you leave," she told me. "You just put it on and you start walking and doing everything that you could do before. It's amazing. You feel whole again." Then she revised her phrasing: "It's not that I don't feel whole. I love myself and I love being an amputee and I love my legs." But her connection to the neurally controlled prosthesis is of another order. "It's almost like I've imprinted on it," she said.

In the United States alone, more than a million and a half people use prostheses. They have run marathons, swum for miles, climbed Mt. Everest, and danced the foxtrot. In the U.S., a typical leg prosthesis can cost eight to ten thousand dollars, and custom prosthetic sockets made from materials such as carbon fibre have become reasonably common. But robotic prostheses that use microprocessors, like Herr's bionic ankle, still cost more than thirty thousand dollars and remain unusual. It will probably take five years for neurally controlled leg prostheses to be proved safe and effective and to become commercially available. (If a prosthetic arm fails to grab a cup, that's not too bad; a failure with a prosthetic leg can mean a disastrous fall.) Even then, the price is likely to be prohibitive for many.

Crandell, the Harvard physiatrist, is a funny, brainy, and upbeat clinician who treats people with amputations in the Spaulding Rehabilitation Center, a building overlooking Boston Harbor. He told me that until recently, and to some extent even now, medical students had little exposure to or knowledge of his specialty. "I would say the field changed eleven years ago, especially here in Boston, after the Boston Marathon bombing," he told me. "There were a lot of donations. We became less invisible." Still, many advances in the field have not yet reached people who need them. "If you're a veteran or if you were hurt at work, then insurance tends to cover the price of a high-end prosthesis," he said. But most others can't afford one. (Crandell is part of a group that lobbies the Massachusetts legislature to require insurance to cover more.)

On a recent Wednesday, Crandell's first patient of the day was a former trumpet player from Russia who was in his seventies. The man's wife had to translate for him because he spoke little English. He'd had his right leg amputated below the knee four years earlier, after falling from a ladder while trimming a pine tree. "The leg is no longer fitting well," she said of his prosthesis. "He needs a smaller one."

The patient pulled up the leg of his jeans and disconnected his metal ankle prosthesis from the socket. He then removed the socket, a sort of fitted stocking that covers the residual limb. Next, he took off a large sock from the limb, then another, and then several more, finally pulling off a soft liner that was the last layer. He needed all the layers to keep the socket from falling off. "He also has foam he puts inside the socket, as padding," his wife said. The reason for the poor fit was that his residiual limb had diminished in size as it lost muscle.

Crandell and the couple discussed the cost of a replacement socket, organizations that might be able to help with the co-pay, the wife's job at Whole Foods, and her husband's former work as a music teacher. With a dismissive hand gesture, he cheerfully indicated that he had quit. He couldn't adjust to the American style of back-patting and gentle encouragement, his wife said. "He wanted to push them," she said. "And they said, 'You have to say, "It's O.K., it's very good." ' He said, 'I cannot.' " The couple laughed at the memory.

"Next time, he has to come with the trumpet," Crandell said.

Another patient that day, a father of two boys, had lost his leg to bone cancer. The cancer had returned in the form of lung nodules, but he was in remission. He had one prosthetic leg for swimming and another for playing basketball in the driveway, and he had recently gone downhill skiing with his kids. He was seeing Crandell because he wanted a replacement for his running leg.

A man who had once suffered a severe stroke arrived in a wheelchair, accompanied by an aide from his nursing home. His right leg had been amputated above the knee, but he did not want a prosthesis. He was there because of pain in the residual limb. He had trouble forming words but said a couple of times, at appropriate moments, "Awesome" and "Shit happens." Throughout the day, the mood in the office was bright, pragmatic, and unhurried. Seven patients came through. Only one had a prosthesis that contained a microprocessor. The world of neuroprostheses, which Herr was developing just a few miles away, seemed like far-off science fiction.

In 2018, almost two years after Ewing's surgery, he returned to the Cayman Islands, where he had fallen. A graduate student in Herr's lab, Emily Rogers, had designed a neurally controlled leg for Ewing, tailored to the demands of rock climbers. The bionic ankle of the climbing prosthesis had "two planes of motion," meaning it could point and flex and also move inward and outward; it was also lighter (but less powerful) than what he used in the lab. Herr and Clites joined Ewing on what was to be an emotional, and also instructional, trip: after months of laboratory tests, they wanted to assess the naturalness of Ewing's movements when climbing.

The Stat documentary shows Ewing, wearing sunglasses with red lenses, looking up from the base of the wall. He points out to Clites the limestone formations, called tufas, near where he had fallen. He remarks on how high up he had been-and he laughs.

With the blue water of the Caribbean behind him, he ascends a pale, craggy cliff. Herr is waiting for him at the top, where the rock formations were bleached and pocked with fossils.

"I was not terribly surprised that it worked," Ewing told me. "I was surprised at how well it worked."

As a young man, Herr spoke to almost no one of the physical pain he experienced; in pictures of his early climbs with prostheses, he appears to be in high spirits, even mischievous, with his prosthetic legs pin-striped in one photo. Another leg was polka-dotted. When he is asked about his bilateral amputations, Herr often says things like "These scratches don't bother me," and that bionic legs are interesting, and powerful, and cool. He did not tell his two daughters how he lost his legs until the younger one became a passionate hiker. He regrets getting lost on Mt. Washington only because Albert Dow, a young man who was part of the search team, died in an avalanche. Herr always felt that to respect Dow he needed to eschew self-pity, and to devote his life to something worthwhile.

Herr, with his traditional amputations, cannot use the magical-seeming neuroprosthesis that he helped invent. The electrical signals in his residual muscles would be too confused and too weak for the neural-control system, unless his amputation could be modified. (So far, seven people have had their amputations retroactively changed into AMI amputations, and the results have been encouraging.) "I am green with envy of Jim," Herr says in the documentary. He often talks about "embodiment," the feeling that a device is not a tool but a part of one's self-or that "mechatronics are their body."

Herr told me that his innovations are "not about rebuilding me as much as about loving technological augmentation." He has designed artificial ankles and knees and also bionic shoes that "reduce the metabolic cost" of movement by more than twenty per cent. Instead of talking in terms of ability and disability, he speaks with boyish excitement of a future in which "we will be able to sculpt our own brains and bodies, and therefore our own identities and experiences." Such advances, he told me, offer both tremendous possibility and tremendous risk. "If we give keys to future parents to design their future baby, that would be horrific," he said. "Humans have too narrow a view of beauty, and of intelligence." What appeals to him is the idea of many more kinds of bodies out there, each with its own capacities and charisma. "If I'm correct, humans will be unrecognizable in a hundred years from what we are today," he said.

Such visions of the future can have a curiously retro feel to them. In the nineteen-seventies TV show "The Six Million Dollar Man," a hunky former astronaut is augmented after a crash to have extraordinary levels of strength and speed. In "The Empire Strikes Back," from 1980, a medical robot fits Luke Skywalker with a biomimetic bionic arm after a lightsabre fight. In the 1984 film "The Terminator," Arnold Schwarzenegger, who already seemed superhuman, plays an almost unkillable cyborg. Today's neuroprostheses are not about superhuman powers. They're about human ones: moving without thinking much about it, experiencing one's body as one's self. The marvel is more David Attenborough than Isaac Asimov.

When I called Ewing, he was on vacation in Honduras, just back from a scuba dive. He is relentlessly active; he and his family sometimes take ski trips with Carty's family. It's climbing, though, that still means the most to him. I asked him why. "Other than the adventure and the physical challenge and the problem-solving . . ." He trailed off. He's been climbing for nearly fifty years, he said, and he is still trying to find words to explain it. "I realized recently-the only time my brain is quiet is when I'm climbing," he said. "I yearn for that." ♦
An earlier version of this article failed to credit the documentary film "Augmented."

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A new kind of prosthesis depends on carbon fibre and computer chips-and the reëngineering of muscles and bone. Rivka Galchen writes about the surgeon Matthew Carty, who is rethinking amputations, and the M.I.T. engineer Hugh Herr, who uses prostheses of his own design.

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Human Augmentation Market projected near USD 985 billion by 2032

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Human Augmentation Market projected near USD 985 billion by 2032

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Human Augmentation Market to Grow USD 985.13 Billion by 2032, Driven by Advancements in AI, Wearable Technology and Biotechnology | SNS Insider

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The Human Augmentation Market is growing with demand for AI, AR, and wearable technologies enhancing human capabilities in healthcare, defense, and…

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Augmented Humans 2025 Conference (MBZUAI)

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Augmented Humans 2025 Conference (MBZUAI)

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Technology's role in enabling the next stage of human ability was the focal point for a series of talks, presentations, workshops and demonstrations at MBZUAI, as the Augmented Humans International Conference 2025 (AHs) arrived in the Middle East for the first time.

AHs took place at the University's Masdar City campus from 16-20 March in cooperation with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), attracting more than 180 leading researchers and enthusiasts to discuss the present and future of human augmentation.

"The Augmented Humans conference looks at how any kind of technology can improve our decision making, compensate for physical injuries, communicate better, perform at a higher level, become more efficient, and remove burdens and barriers that might be holding us back," said Elizabeth Churchill , Department Chair and Professor of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) at MBZUAI.

"During the five days, we talked about innovations from AI-enhanced storytelling experiences to AI-enhanced prosthetics for people who have suffered injuries, and everything in between. But it wasn't just about design and prototypes; we also focused on evaluating how effective these technologies will be - a key aspect of the conference."

Churchill played a leading role in bringing AHs to the University, acting as sponsor and local host after working with the steering committee to bring it to Abu Dhabi.

"We were delighted to host AHs at MBZUAI because we feel that many of the ideas that are being generated in the augmented humans community are not only coming into realization but are being amplified by innovations in AI," she added.
Elizabeth Churchill , Department Chair and Professor of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) at MBZUAI.
Enhancing human capability

The AHs conference is an international annual event, and has been held in Japan, Germany, Singapore, Switzerland, USA, UK, Finland, Australia, and the Republic of Korea - and now in the UAE.

This year's program featured a diverse range of talks across eight sessions that included: AR/VR Interaction and Physical Augmentation, Virtual Reality and Human Experience Enhancement, Bionic and Assistive Systems, Robotics and Avatars, Decision-Making and Human Behavior, Exploring Body-Augmentation, Cognitive and Perceptual Augmentation with AI, and Sensory Technologies.

The conference also showcased 32 papers, 21 posters, seven demonstrations, and two workshops entitled 'Secured Augmentation: On-Body Security and Safety Interfaces', and 'Beyond Human: Cognitive and Physical Augmentation through AI, Robotics and XR - Opportunities and Risks'.

The Best Paper award was presented to authors Ritik Batra, Narjes Pourjafarian, Samantha Chang, Margaret Tsai, Jacob Revelo and Cindy Hsin-Liu, for their paper "texTENG: Fabricating Wearable Textile-Based Triboelectric Nanogenerators".

"The 2025 edition of AHs has made history by setting multiple records, establishing itself as one of the most significant milestones in the conference's history," said Yomna Abdelrahman , Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Armed Forces University in Munich, Germany, and one of the three General Chairs of AHs 2025.
Several demonstrations took place during AHs 2025, including this soft manipulator that can handle delicate objects.
"As the longest-running AHs event to date, spanning five days, AHs 2025 is also the largest-ever gathering, with 186 registrants. More importantly, this is the first edition to be held in the MENA region. We are proud to have reached such remarkable milestones, and to have provided a platform for international and local audiences to engage with world-class experts, facilitating meaningful collaborations and knowledge sharing."

Bridging innovation with inclusivity

Visiting attendees also took the opportunity to explore collaboration opportunities and engage with the local community, ensuring their involvement in shaping the future of human augmentation.

"This edition aimed to foster engagement with the local research community, introduce the field of human augmentation, explore its transformative potential and offer a call to bridge innovation with inclusivity," said Andrew Vargo, Research Associate Professor at Osaka Metropolitan University and another of the conference's General Chairs.

And as a leading university dedicated to AI, MBZUAI was the ideal place to host this year's conference, argues Anusha Withana, Associate Professor in HCI in the School of Computer Science at the University of Sydney, and also General Chair.

"MBZUAI's forward-thinking vision and rapid growth align perfectly with AHs' evolution," he said. "With its recently launched HCI department, cutting-edge research and a thriving academic environment, MBZUAI provides an ideal environment to showcase the advances made in human augmentation."

The wider picture

One of the main goals of AHs, explained Vargo, is to get promising augmentation technologies out of the lab and into real-world situations.

"This is a difficult task," he said. "For instance, there are many wonderful technologies that can assist with learning that never are made accessible to users. Our hope is that as the community grows and shares, collaboration and communication will help fix this."

Churchill added that while there has been a long-term agenda around augmentation, it's only now, with the rapid development of AI, that many ideas can be implemented.

"People have had big design ideas about "intelligent" augmentation. Most of these have been visionary prototypes, until now. We are at a moment where we can use AI techniques to bring ideas to fruition, using AI techniques in the small and at scale, to have an impact on individuals, groups, and communities. These can add up to societal level impact."

Withana agrees, adding: "Advances in AI, robotics, and biotechnology allow for enhanced physical and cognitive abilities, from bionic limbs to brain-computer interfaces. These innovations are revolutionizing industries, healthcare, and daily life, pushing the boundaries of human potential and redefining what it means to be capable."

While this recent change in applicability comes with great excitement and potential for innovation, the use of AI should also be approached with some caution, said Churchill.

"Now we can actually start to implement some of our ideas, some questions remain: What do we want to implement? Just because we can implement something, should we? What is the AI that's underneath, and how transparent, explainable and modifiable is it? This is an ethical and values-related judgment space that will always be part of the discussion at AHs.

"At MBZUAI we're committed to thinking about this bigger picture, delivering not just the technology, but also the guidelines for what are the right investments versus what are the investments that are potentially harmful to humans.

"This is one of the reasons the University has invested in a Human-Computer Interaction department - to ensure that everything we think about at MBZUAI is about how we take all the best things around being human and push forward and improve."

With these considerations being integrated into conversations about breakthrough technologies and innovative research, AHs offers a holistic and forward-thinking forum focused on beneficial and safe outcomes from a coherent agenda around intelligent human augmentation.

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Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) is a graduate research university dedicated to advancing AI as a global force for humanity.

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Decentralized / bridged identity across Web2 & Web3

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Decentralized / bridged identity across Web2 & Web3

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Aggregating Digital Identities through Bridging. An Integration of Open Authentication Protocols for Web3 Identifiers

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Web3's decentralised infrastructure has upended the standardised approach to digital identity established by protocols like OpenID Connect. Web2 and Web3 currently operate in silos, with Web2 leveraging selective disclosure JSON web tokens (SD-JWTs) and Web3 dApps being reliant on on-chain data and sometimes clinging to centralised system data.

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Digital Self / Digital Me — people increasingly having digital twins, digital identities, avatars, etc., as part of how they present themselves socially.

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Digital Self / Digital Me — people increasingly having digital twins, digital identities, avatars, etc., as part of how they present themselves socially.

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5 Trends Drive the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2020

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The Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2020 highlights technologies that will significantly affect business, society and people over the next 5 to 10 years. This year’s highlights 5 unique trends - find out what they are here. #GartnerSYM #CIO #Technology #Trends #TechTrends

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Hybrid Reality Identities — identities that mix real‐life and virtual / augmented selves, fluid identity across spaces.

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Hybrid Reality Identities — identities that mix real‐life and virtual / augmented selves, fluid identity across spaces.

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50 Emerging (Technology) Themes to watch out for in 2025

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“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” — Bill Gates This marks the seventh consecutive year that I’ve embarked on the endeavour of curating others’ insightful predictions into a compendium of sorts.

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Compact & selective disclosure for verifiable credentials (VCs)

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Compact & selective disclosure for verifiable credentials (VCs)

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Compact and Selective Disclosure for Verifiable Credentials

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Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) is a novel identity model that empowers individuals with full control over their data, enabling them to choose what information to disclose, with whom, and when. This paradigm is rapidly gaining traction worldwide, supported by numerous initiatives such as the European Digital Identity (EUDI) Regulation or Singapore’s National Digital Identity (NDI). For instance, by 2026, the EUDI Regulation will enable all European citizens to seamlessly access services across Europe using Verifiable Credentials (VCs). A key feature of SSI is the ability to selectively disclose only specific claims within a credential, enhancing privacy protection of the identity owner. This paper proposes a novel mechanism designed to achieve Compact and Selective Disclosure for VCs (CSD-JWT). Our method leverages a cryptographic accumulator to encode claims within a credential to a unique, compact representation. We implemented CSD-JWT as an open-source solution and extensively evaluated its performance under various conditions. CSD-JWT provides significant memory savings, reducing usage by up to 46% compared to the state-of-the-art. It also minimizes network overhead by producing remarkably smaller Verifiable Presentations (VPs), reduced in size by 27% to 93%. Such features make CSD-JWT especially well-suited for resource-constrained devices, including hardware wallets designed for managing credentials.

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Distributed Digital ID architecture for physical world transactions

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Distributed Digital ID architecture for physical world transactions

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An Architecture for Distributed Digital Identities in the Physical World

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Digital identities are increasingly important for mediating not only digital but also physical service transactions. Managing such identities through centralized providers can cause both availability and privacy concerns: single points of failure and control are ideal targets for global attacks on technical, organizational, or legal fronts. We design, analyze, and build a distributed digital identity architecture for physical world transactions in common scenarios like unlocking doors, public transport, or crossing country borders. This architecture combines (biometric and other) sensors, (established and upcoming) identity authorities, attribute verifiers, and a new core component we call the \emph{Personal Identity Agent (PIA)} that represents individuals with their identity attributes in the digital domain. All transactions are conducted in a completely decentralized manner, and the components for which we currently assume central coordination are optional and only used for assisting with service discovery and latency reduction. We present a first protocol between these parties and formally verify that it achieves relevant security properties based on a realistic threat model including strong global adversaries. A proof-of-concept implementation demonstrates practical feasibility of both architecture and initial protocol for applications that can tolerate end-to-end latencies in the range of a few seconds.

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WhoFi quietly turns Wi-Fi into a surveillance tool that sees through walls and remembers your movements

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The tech uses existing Wi‑Fi networks to sense human presence and movement

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Biometric wallets / EUDI & EU regulation evolution

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Biometric wallets / EUDI & EU regulation evolution

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As digital usage intensifies across all sectors, identification is becoming a strategic issue for governments, businesses, and citizens. In 2025, several trends are shaping the evolution of identification technologies, driven by objectives of security, sovereignty, simplicity, and regulatory compliance. Here are five key dynamics to watch closely.

#1: European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI)

In 2025, the European Union is rolling out a new type of tool: the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI). It is a secure mobile application that allows citizens to store their personal information (name, ID card, driving licence, diplomas, etc.) and use it to identify themselves online. For example, it will be possible to prove one's age or sign an official document without having to present a physical card. The wallet is managed by Member States, ensuring greater security, transparency, and respect for privacy than solutions offered by major private platforms.

#2: eIDAS 2.0: A Strengthened Regulatory Framework

The development of European Digital Identity Wallets (EUDI) is based on a new European law: the eIDAS 2.0 regulation. This regulation, which replaces a first version from 2014, requires each EU country to offer its citizens a digital identity wallet recognised throughout Europe. Thanks to eIDAS 2.0, citizens will be able to use their wallet in all EU countries, with the guarantee of retaining control over their personal data: they will choose which information to share, and with whom. The goal is also to reduce dependence on major private tech companies, such as Google or Apple, by offering a secure European alternative.

#3: Rise of Biometric Authentication

In 2025, biometrics is becoming an increasingly common method of identification. This refers to technologies that recognise a person through their fingerprints, face, voice or eyes. These methods are fast, simple, and highly secure, as they are much more difficult to forge than a password. They are used in both phones and sensitive online services (banks, public administrations, healthcare, etc.). As a result, biometrics is becoming the new standard for proving one's identity.

#4: Towards the End of Passwords

Traditional passwords, too often vulnerable, are being replaced by alternative authentication methods: biometrics, security tokens, multi-factor authentication, or physical keys. In 2025, passwordless authentication is emerging as an effective response to security and user experience challenges. The aim is to make identification more secure and more seamless. This shift is being driven by major tech companies and public institutions, who see it as a way to reduce the risk of hacking while streamlining identification processes.

#5: Artificial Intelligence Serving Identification

Today, artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly important role in identification systems. Thanks to AI, verification processes are becoming more accurate, and more automated. For example, an AI can analyse an identity document in a few seconds, detect forged documents, or compare a photo to a face in real time with a very low error rate. These technologies are used in many areas: remote bank account opening, identity checks in airports, or secure access to online platforms. AI also improves the detection of fraud attempts, thereby strengthening trust in digital tools. It is becoming a key ally in securing identity while simplifying the user experience.
Digital identification is entering a new era, marked by heightened demands for security, transparency, and sovereignty. Digital wallets, biometrics, ambitious regulatory frameworks, and passwordless authentication form a rapidly evolving ecosystem. For both public and private actors, anticipating these developments is becoming essential to offer reliable, compliant, and user-centred solutions. TRUSTECH will present cutting-edge topics on these latest innovations during its 2025 conference sessions. Join us from 2 to 4 December 2025 to explore these trends !

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The 5 Digital Identity Trends for 2025 | TRUSTECH

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In 2025, several trends are shaping the evolution of identification technologies, driven by objectives of security, sovereignty, simplicity, and regulatory compliance.

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Palm biometrics & novel biometric modalities

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Palm biometrics & novel biometric modalities

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March 2025 Biometrics & Digital Identity: Top 5 Trends

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Executive SummaryMarch 2025 has seen significant strides in biometric authentication and digital identity technologies, driven by innovations across palm-based payments, AI-enhanced security, decentralized identity solutions, and strengthened regulatory frameworks. Organizations worldwide are rapidly adopting secure and user-friendly authentication methods, pushing biometric and digital wallet technologies to mainstream prominence.Top 5 Themes1. Palm Biometrics Go Global- Amazon One expands in t

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Trends In Digital Identity Verification: Insights From Tech Experts

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Digital identity verification is front and center as businesses, governments and service agencies face pressure to protect sensitive personal data and prevent fraud.

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As digital usage intensifies across all sectors, identification is becoming a strategic issue for governments, businesses, and citizens. In 2025, several trends are shaping the evolution of identification technologies, driven by objectives of security, sovereignty, simplicity, and regulatory compliance. Here are five key dynamics to watch closely.

#1: European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI)

In 2025, the European Union is rolling out a new type of tool: the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI). It is a secure mobile application that allows citizens to store their personal information (name, ID card, driving licence, diplomas, etc.) and use it to identify themselves online. For example, it will be possible to prove one's age or sign an official document without having to present a physical card. The wallet is managed by Member States, ensuring greater security, transparency, and respect for privacy than solutions offered by major private platforms.

#2: eIDAS 2.0: A Strengthened Regulatory Framework

The development of European Digital Identity Wallets (EUDI) is based on a new European law: the eIDAS 2.0 regulation. This regulation, which replaces a first version from 2014, requires each EU country to offer its citizens a digital identity wallet recognised throughout Europe. Thanks to eIDAS 2.0, citizens will be able to use their wallet in all EU countries, with the guarantee of retaining control over their personal data: they will choose which information to share, and with whom. The goal is also to reduce dependence on major private tech companies, such as Google or Apple, by offering a secure European alternative.

#3: Rise of Biometric Authentication

In 2025, biometrics is becoming an increasingly common method of identification. This refers to technologies that recognise a person through their fingerprints, face, voice or eyes. These methods are fast, simple, and highly secure, as they are much more difficult to forge than a password. They are used in both phones and sensitive online services (banks, public administrations, healthcare, etc.). As a result, biometrics is becoming the new standard for proving one's identity.

#4: Towards the End of Passwords

Traditional passwords, too often vulnerable, are being replaced by alternative authentication methods: biometrics, security tokens, multi-factor authentication, or physical keys. In 2025, passwordless authentication is emerging as an effective response to security and user experience challenges. The aim is to make identification more secure and more seamless. This shift is being driven by major tech companies and public institutions, who see it as a way to reduce the risk of hacking while streamlining identification processes.

#5: Artificial Intelligence Serving Identification

Today, artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly important role in identification systems. Thanks to AI, verification processes are becoming more accurate, and more automated. For example, an AI can analyse an identity document in a few seconds, detect forged documents, or compare a photo to a face in real time with a very low error rate. These technologies are used in many areas: remote bank account opening, identity checks in airports, or secure access to online platforms. AI also improves the detection of fraud attempts, thereby strengthening trust in digital tools. It is becoming a key ally in securing identity while simplifying the user experience.
Digital identification is entering a new era, marked by heightened demands for security, transparency, and sovereignty. Digital wallets, biometrics, ambitious regulatory frameworks, and passwordless authentication form a rapidly evolving ecosystem. For both public and private actors, anticipating these developments is becoming essential to offer reliable, compliant, and user-centred solutions. TRUSTECH will present cutting-edge topics on these latest innovations during its 2025 conference sessions. Join us from 2 to 4 December 2025 to explore these trends !

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The 5 Digital Identity Trends for 2025 | TRUSTECH

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In 2025, several trends are shaping the evolution of identification technologies, driven by objectives of security, sovereignty, simplicity, and regulatory compliance.

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Reusable credentials & credential wallets

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Reusable credentials & credential wallets

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Explore 2025’s digital identity trends: AI deepfakes, biometrics, decentralized ID, and regulatory compliance challenges.

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Identity verification for travel & cross-border use

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Identity verification for travel & cross-border use

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The Future of Identity Verification: Trends & Challenges in 2025

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Digital identity verification has become a cornerstone of the modern digital economy, underpinning everything from banking to government services. As we enter 2025, the landscape of remote identity verification is undergoing a major transformation, driven by rapid technological advancements, increasing fraud threats, and tightening regulations. This evolution aims to meet growing security and compliance needs while maintaining a seamless user experience. The following report explores key trends shaping digital identity verification, the challenges that lie ahead, industry-specific applications, and a forward-looking outlook with recommendations for businesses and regulators.

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Exploring the Intersection Between Diet and Self-Identity: A Cross-Sectional Study With Australian Adults - PubMed

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Dietary pattern and diet-related self-identity constructs are key determinants of diet quality. This has implications for future interventions, including that programs and messages could be tailored to ensure they align with the target population’s self-identity and overall dietary patterns.

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Precision Fermentation for Flavour & Texture

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Precision Fermentation for Flavour & Texture

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Analysis: What are the Benefits of Precision Fermentation? - The Food Institute

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Precision fermentation, the genetic modification and fermentation of microorganisms to create organic molecules, is gaining steam in the food industry.

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Food Freshness Sensors / Smart Packaging

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Food Freshness Sensors / Smart Packaging

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Food Freshness Indicators | Senoptica.com

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1. Introduction to Functional Foods

Japan has a long history of using foods with health benefits and Japanese people are well known for their longevity, Major health claims in the new regulation system are associated with blood flow, body temperature, Body Mass Index, eyes, fatigue, joint muscles, memory, stress, and sleep [ 4]. In some European countries, health claims are used in over 15% of commonly eaten packaged foods [ 5].

Functional foods are defined as foods or food components that provide an additional physiological benefit that may reduce the risk of disease or promote health according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) [ 6]. A chronological overview of functional food concepts evolution is shown in Figure 1.

Studies have shown that functional foods have health benefits for chronic disease prevention [ 7, 8], for slowing the aging of organs [ 9], for maintaining and enhancing aesthetic appearance (such as of the skin, hair, and feet) [ 10], and for controlling body weight [ 11]. Moreover, preclinical and clinical studies have shown that intake of functional foods could have an effect on the prevention of chronic diseases, especially cancer, neurological diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and gastrointestinal tract disorders [ 8].

While several reviews have addressed functional food classifications and health benefits, few have integrated clinical trial design and regulatory perspectives in a single comprehensive synthesis. This review uniquely aims to bridge these domains by highlighting the methodological complexities and limitations in designing and interpreting clinical trials for functional foods, identifying regulatory and market-related gaps that hinder the translational potential of scientifically validated functional foods. By addressing these gaps, this review contributes a multidimensional framework for future research, innovation, and policy in functional food science, facilitating a more effective transition from lab to label and to lifestyle.

2. Importance of Clinical Trials

Clinical trials conducted for functional foods share common features, limitations, and challenges with pharmaceutical trials [ 12]. Both types of trials are implemented to quantify the efficacy and safety of a product for human health, as shown in Table 1.

The evaluation of food products for health-related claims based on health records requires more sophistication than that of pharmaceutical drugs. Functional foods are susceptible to numerous confounding variables and significant difficulties in study designs, which may influence the observed treatment effects [ 12]. Data reported by the clinical trials conducted for functional foods may be subject to interpretation bias [ 12]. Studies assessing food components or non-chemical health products for effects on clinical health outcomes are rare, and only a few have generated a level of evidence high enough to reach health claims of significant size in European markets [ 13]. The possibility of food product studies generating evidence that can be applied to other populations or settings is challenged by several issues that are either inherent properties of foods or study design characteristics associated with food product proposals [ 14]. The mean treatment effects for most clinical outcomes reported by the food trials are small and typically in the category of no significant effects, with the exception of a few large cohort studies employing innovative designs [ 13, 15].

3. Bioactive Compounds in Functional Foods

Functional foods are broadly defined as foods or food components that provide health benefits beyond basic nutrition [ 8].

Generally, functional foods are rich in bioactive compounds like omega-3 fatty acids, probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics, polyphenols, flavonoids, carotenes, lycopene, folic acid, inositol, glycolipid, phytosterols, phosphatidylcholine, oleic acid, and certain antimicrobial peptides [ 18]. Bioactive compounds are natural or synthetic substances found in foods not ordinarily found in the diet, such as essential nutrients like vitamins or minerals, but which alter metabolic processes and cellular signaling through interaction with enzyme systems or cellular receptors that help promote health or reduce the risk of disease [ 19].

The consumption of health-promoting functional foods may improve health, longevity, and quality of life, and reduce the incidence of chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, coronary heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [ 20]. An increasing interest has arisen in the chemoprevention and treatment of these diseases by dietary agents, leading to potential opportunities for the development of food-based functional foods with nutraceutical applications. Antioxidant compounds show wide-ranging and potent biological activities, and are considered to be effective agents in the prevention of oxidative-stress-associated diseases (including cancer) [ 21, 22].

Several dietary strategies for the prevention of chronic diseases have been recommended. These preventive strategies can be grouped into (1) health promotion and education and (2) dietary modification by selection of bioactives [ 23]. Well-designed functional foods with bioactive principles may be a practical and acceptable means to help individuals modify their dietary habits, and can play a vital role in health promotion and disease prevention [ 24]. Moreover, functional food consumption is recommended in dietary guidelines issued by various countries as advantageous for human health [ 25].

3.1. Probiotics

Probiotics are live microorganisms that confer health benefits on the host when administered in adequate amounts. They are usually dietary supplements or fortified foods containing probiotic bacteria. Strains belonging to the genera Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus are the most widely used probiotic bacteria [ 26].

Functional food products containing probiotics have attracted growing interest from consumers and food industries [ 16]. Generally, probiotics are expected to confer superior health benefits than prebiotics alone; however, the exact mechanisms of action of probiotics' health benefits require further elucidation [ 27]. Commercial probiotics differ in terms of provenance, strains, applications/health benefits, formulations, food vehicles, viable cell count, and storage conditions. As with any food ingredient, knowledge on the safety evaluation of probiotics is critical [ 28]. It is essential to determine both emulsification and incorporation of probiotic strains into the fermented beverage product by secretion and use of casein protein variants, respectively. The use of proteins from bovine milk has been associated with dietary exposure to several bioactive peptides [ 29]. Enterprises involved in the production and marketing of probiotic products are recommended to comply with the guidelines on manufacturing, quality control, labeling, testing, and advertising of probiotic foods. A missing safety assessment scheme for probiotics marketed as Ingredients Generally Added (IGAs) is required [ 30].

Several probiotic preparations have been evaluated in adults and children, demonstrating some benefits for symptoms associated with gastrointestinal (GI) disorders. Dissolving one probiotic capsule in an artificial gastric acid increased GI transit time, indicating that probiotic enteric capsules could protect probiotics against gastric acid [ 31]. Transglutaminase-based capsules effectively encapsulated probiotics and preserved the viability of these probiotics under simulated GI conditions. Another study suggested that probiotics could reduce pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-6, IL-8, and tumor necrosis factor- alpha (TNF- α) while upregulating anti-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-10, attenuating mucosal damage and improving gut microbiota. It was emphasized that more clinical studies are required to confirm the probiotic efficacy, pharmacokinetics, and identification of bioactive compounds [ 32].

In recent years, there have been ups and downs in the commercial recommendations for probiotics in functional gastrointestinal disorders (GI functional disorders) [ 31]. 31Evaluating probiotic efficacy was complex because multiple probiotic strains and different doses of probiotics could be administered as adjunctive therapies. Currently, baby- and child-adult-specific probiotics have been more popular due to the better microbiota modulation effects and targeted clinical trials targeting screening for probiotics to evaluate the cumulative history of safe consumption [ 33].

3.2. Prebiotics

Prebiotics are a carbohydrate-based substance that is not digested in the upper gastrointestinal tract but is fermented and selectively utilized by bacteria in the colon [ 34]. Prebiotics, like inulin, affect gut microbiota such as Bifidobacterium adolescentis and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii. Baseline microbiota activity and initial bifidobacteria counts influenced responses to prebiotic dosing in healthy subjects using diet recommendations and 2, 6, or 10 g of inulin [ 35, 36]. A reduced-fat yogurt provides low doses of prebiotics to study gut microbiota but not within dietary recommendations. There are still fewer studies on a complete mixed meal containing commercially available sources of prebiotics and resistant starch [ 37]. Brands can identify dietary patterns of prebiotics that matter most to gut microbiota [ 38]. Fermented dairy products have numerous health benefits, such as better balance of colonic microflora, bowel habits, and treatment of diarrhea [ 39]. Clinical trials on fermented milk products containing probiotics and prebiotics have limited gastrointestinal health effects [ 40]. Hence, a study design is proposed for symbiotic fermented milk product development containing Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) and an inulin-based prebiotic as ingredients [ 41].

3.3. Postbiotics

Postbiotics have recently garnered significant interest in a multitude of clinical trials owing to their numerous potential health benefits and diverse applications [ 42]. Scientists are increasingly allocating their resources and expertise to understand how these powerful and beneficial compounds can lead to the effective and sustainable maintenance of a healthy and balanced microbiome [ 43]. With ongoing and extensive studies, their prospective applications in various therapeutic strategies are becoming clearer, more compelling, and increasingly vital in the quest for optimal health. The research landscape surrounding postbiotics is expanding rapidly, revealing even more potential mechanisms by which they can improve our health and support various bodily functions [ 44].

3.4. Omega-3 Fatty Acids

The brain is highly enriched with long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, phosphatidylserine and sphingomyelin. There is a growing trend in older people to use supplements to boost cognitive health [ 45]. There are still some conflicting results regarding its protective effects against age-associated memory decline, cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease risk, as some trials failed to show beneficial effects [ 46]. Such conflicting results could be due to differences in study populations, doses applied, and the types of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids used in those studies [ 47]. Clinical intervention trials were conducted in cognitively healthy older people to test the hypothesis that dietary supply of 1720 mg/d long-chain omega-3 fatty acids can ameliorate working memory [ 48, 49]. There are several ongoing clinical trials within the population of healthy and cognitively healthy middle-age to older adults testing whether daily supplementation for periods from 5 to 90 weeks can improve some aspects of mood, executive functions, and cognition. Moreover, supplementation did not alter insights into cognitive changes for most participants. Nonetheless, clinical morbidity was found to exert either beneficial or deleterious effects on cognition, rendering certain individuals more at risk for cognitive changes and deteriorations [ 49].

The health benefits of long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LC PUFA) consumption have been reported in both experimental animal studies and human studies for conditions such as CVD, ARDS, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes mellitus, and dysmenorrhea. Fish, particularly oily fish, are the most abundant and well-recognized source of food-derived n-3 LC PUFA, but n-3 LC PUFAs are also present in some seafood and seaweed [ 50]. The CVD health benefits of fish consumption have been substantiated to the point that the US Food and Drug Administration approved a qualified health claim for n-3 LC PUFA dietary supplements and coronary heart disease, which has not occurred for any other ingredient. Omega-3-enhanced foods are also increasingly popular, but few human studies have examined their impact on measures of n-3 PUFA status and cardiovascular risk factors, and no studies have been conducted in a naturalistic setting [ 51]. In the GISSI-Prevenzione study, the effects of acute post-myocardial infraction (post-MI) supplementation with n-3 LC PUFA for three years were evaluated. Relative to control group participants, intervention group participants were 61% less likely to have died of any cause, and significantly less likely to have died from CVD, died suddenly, had an MI, or had an event of any other type. The participants in the treatment group were less likely to be taking cardioprotective medications and had a more severe CVD risk profile within the cohort, yet were 73% less likely to have had an MI [ 52]. It is unclear from this study how many deaths in control participants were attributable to CVD, but the yearly rate was 35, and thus many lives could be saved by n-3 LC PUFA supplementation. Omega-3 PUFAs may also improve other risk factors, such as reducing blood pressure, hemoconcentration, platelet adhesion, and thromboxane production. The direct effects on the heart may include increased endothelial vasodilator function, arterial compliance, and heart rate variability [ 53].

3.5. Antioxidants

Antioxidants are estimated to be about 20,000 kinds of chemical molecules and about 150 kinds are well characterized and widely studied as functional foods [ 54]. On the other hand, health claims on anti-oxidative stress by taking these antioxidants are now promoted, while not enough scientific evidence supports the claim on health improvement and disease prevention by them [ 55]. It is of the utmost urgency to evaluate the medical, health preventive and health promotional effects of functional foods for the society with aging problems and the government with reimbursement functions [ 56]. It has been reconfirmed that oxidative damage occurs induced by the administration of pro-oxidants and preventing oxidative damage can result in improved health and prevention of diseases in clinical trials using such substances [ 57]. With respect to reactive oxygen species (ROS), they are directly or indirectly related with oxidative damage of nucleic acid, lipids, amino acids, proteins and metals, and can cause various diseases [ 58].

3.6. Peptides

Peptides refer to short amino acid sequences, which serve as building blocks of proteins but are themselves bioactive molecules with myriad roles in physiology. Peptides are recognized for their ability to serve as blood pressure regulators primarily because they possess angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory activity [ 59]. Bioactive peptides are synthesized during fermentation or through enzymic hydrolysis of dietary proteins, releasing sequences with discrete biological functions in the human body [ 60]. Incorporation in functional beverages, e.g., probiotic-fortified beverages, of casein protein variants and bovine milk proteins has been attributed to dietary consumption of such peptides with potential effects on cardiovascular disease and intestinal integrity [ 61]. Peptides are also implicated in emulsification processes and insofar as they contribute to the incorporation of probiotics into food matrices, thereby improving product stability and bioavailability. The modulatory functions of peptides in the metabolic and cellular signal-transducing pathways render them significant entities in the prevention and maintenance therapy for chronic disease [ 59].

3.7. Phenolic Compounds

Phenolic compounds, including flavonoids and phenolic acids, are bioactive phytochemicals prevalent in tea, berries, cocoa, and olive oil. They are known for their potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity and contribute to chronic disease prevention, including cardiovascular diseases and certain cancers, through modulation of cellular signal pathways and reactive oxygen species scavenging [ 62]. While preclinical results are promising, it remains challenging to translate these actions into robust clinical endpoints due to low bioavailability, dietary matrix effects, and inter-individual metabolism [ 63]. Micro- and nano-encapsulation technologies have recently emerged as hopeful methods for stabilizing and optimizing the delivery and efficacy of phenolic compounds in functional foods. For this reason, phenolics are central to functional foods R&D and dietary interventions aimed at improving public health [ 64].

3.8. Glucosinolates

Glucosinolates are sulfur-bearing phytochemicals in cruciferous foods such as broccoli, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts [ 65]. Primary glucosinolate health effects come as enzymatic breakdown products, particularly sulforaphane, which has potent detoxifying, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer properties. Sulforaphane triggers phase II detoxification enzymes and regulates redox-sensitive transcription factors such as the Nrf2 and adds towards cellular defense and cancer chemoprevention [ 66].

Despite vigorous preclinical evidence, translation of glucosinolate efficacy into human health impacts has proven complex. Factors including thermal inactivation of plant myrosinase during heating, inter-individual differences in gut microbiota, and divergent metabolism significantly impact bioactivation and bioavailability [ 67]. Microencapsulation and delivery system technologies are promising for stabilizing sulforaphane as well as optimizing site-specific delivery in functional food systems [ 68].

With their chemopreventive potential as dietary agents, glucosinolates and their degradation products continue as focal points in functional foods research but they should be subjected to vigorous clinical trials before establishing their therapeutic potential in human beings [ 67].

3.9. Carotenoids

Carotenoids, particularly β-carotene, lutein, and lycopene, are ubiquitous plant pigments responsible for the vivid coloring in fruits and vegetables such as carrots, tomato, and leafy greens. Besides cosmetic relevance, they are recognized for their significant health effects [ 69]. Functioning as very potent antioxidants, carotenoids inactivate reactive oxygen species (ROS) and therefore neutralize oxidative harm to cellular macromolecules including lipids, proteins, and DNA. Due to this antioxidant action, they are credited with the reduction in the incidence of chronic diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers [ 70].

Carotenoids are also involved in immune function and serve as significant bioactive molecules in the preventive nutrition and functional foods context [ 71]. However, their health implications are closely related to their bioavailability, this being influenced by numerous factors such as foods' matrix, dietary oil availability, and processing. Heat processing and co-consumption with oils, for instance, will elevate carotenoid breakdown and micellar absorption, but fiber content and oxygen exposure can reduce their stability and bioaccessibility [ 72].

3.10. Phytosterols

Phytosterols are plant bioactive compounds present naturally in plant foods and are used widely in functional foods due to their demonstrated efficacy in decreasing low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) [ 73]. Structurally similar to cholesterol, they decrease intestinal absorption of dietary cholesterol and therefore cause clinically significant reductions in serum LDL-C at a daily dose of 2 g. For this reason, cholesterol-lowering health claims have been authorized by regulatory agencies such as the FDA and EFSA for foods fortified with phytosterols [ 74].

These sterols are incorporated in several functional foods like fortified margarines, milk products, and beverages in the form of preventive nutrition and cardiovascular disease risk management. But their therapeutic efficacy must be ensured through regular and consistent daily consumption, and there may be differences in response in individuals due to genetic and nutritional factors [ 75].

3.11. Alkaloids

Alkaloids are a structurally diverse category that primarily contains nitrogen and are intrinsic to many plant-derived dietary items [ 7]. For example, theobromine in cocoa and caffeine in coffee are compounds that demonstrate established physiological impacts on the central nervous system, activating and affecting heart rate and energy metabolism. In addition, these compounds establish their role as functional ingredients [ 8]. Among them, caffeine is one of the most common alkaloids, which enhances mental vigilance and focus through inhibition of adenosine-mediated neuronal suppression. Moreover, it can increase thermogenesis and lipid catabolism, making it a regular ingredient in fat-loss dietary products [ 76].

In the field of functional food development, alkaloids present the benefit of producing fast and measurable biological responses, thus increasing market attractiveness and product uniqueness [ 77]. However, their tight dose-response window demands controlled composition strategies [ 8]. Indeed, overconsumption leads to harmful physiological consequences such as insomnia, tachycardia, and anxiety, particularly among vulnerable populations or patients with known cardiac disorders [ 76].

Overall, alkaloids are recognized as effective ingredients in functional nutrition that link cognitive stimulation with metabolic regulation, emphasizing the importance of data-driven product design and moderated intake within wellness-focused dietary solutions [ 77].

3.12. Saponins

Saponins are a multifaceted group of compounds characterized by their amphiphilic glycoside nature, commonly occurring in plant-derived dietary sources such as legumes, quinoa, and ginseng. They are noted for their surface-active properties that allow for stable foam formation in water-based environments and exhibit multiple biofunctional properties of interest in the field of nutraceutical and functional food development. Among their well-documented biological effects is the reduction in serum cholesterol levels, which is attributed to their affinity for bile acid sequestration in the gastrointestinal tract, thereby enhancing fecal elimination of bile acids and stimulating hepatic biosynthesis of bile acids from cholesterol, ultimately lowering circulating cholesterol concentrations [ 78, 79].

In addition to their effects on lipid metabolism, saponins demonstrate immune-modulating and inflammation-suppressing activities, positioning them as potential agents in prophylactic dietary strategies. These effects are facilitated by the upregulation of cytokine synthesis and the activation of phagocytic immune cells, thus enhancing innate immunity. Moreover, saponins exhibit chemopreventive and anticancer properties via pathways that regulate cell proliferation and promote programmed cell death in various cancer cell lines [ 80].

However, the integration of saponin-containing compounds into functional food formulations is limited by their inherent bitterness, as well as the possible disruption of lipophilic nutrient bioavailability. Furthermore, concerns regarding consistency in composition and biological availability continue to be focal points in the advancement of nutraceutical science [ 80]. A comprehensive overview of key bioactive compounds is presented in Table 2.

4. Regulatory Framework

The remarkable health benefits of functional foods are well established, although they have, until recently, been considered "non-drug" or not potent enough to produce positive clinical responses. Historically regarded as a luxury, they are now considered ready-to-use. With reasonable efforts, some functional foods can bring clinician-assessed clinical benefits, mirroring the performance of chemical drugs [ 4]. However, strict guidelines for clinical evaluations of functional foods need to be established.

In Japan, functional foods are managed under two official systems. The Foods for Specified Health Uses (FOSHU) program, introduced in 1991 by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, requires manufacturers to submit scientific evidence on both safety and efficacy. Only after rigorous assessment can a product display approved health claims. In April 2015, Japan also launched the Foods with Function Claims (FFC) framework, which simplifies market entry; it allows businesses to self-submit substantiation, via clinical trials or systematic reviews, and notify the Consumer Affairs Agency, without awaiting individual pre-approval [ 4, 48, 81].

In China, functional foods are categorized as "Health Foods" and overseen by the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA). To market such foods, the producers must undergo either a registration route, required for novel ingredients or imports, or a notification system for existing, approved ingredients. The product's claimed health function must adhere to a government-approved directory of roughly two dozen functions [ 82].

Within the European Union, the use of health-related claims on functional food products is tightly controlled under Regulation (EC) No. 1924/2006, effective since July 2007. All claims must undergo scientific validation and gain the approval of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The regulation aims to harmonize standards across member states, safeguard consumers against misleading marketing, and maintain a transparent EU register of permitted claims [ 83, 84].

5. Functional Foods in Clinical Trials

Overall, clinical trials are designed to answer a scientific question using hypotheses. Various forms of research questions exist. Early-phase trials primarily aim to test a new drug in a small number of selected patients to learn about its efficacy, dosing, toxicity, and safety (Phase 1 trials), whereas later-phase trials usually involve a larger patient population predetermined by the power calculation (Phase 2, 3, or 4 trials) [ 87]. In addition, there are different trial designs to answer different concepts and hypotheses, as shown in Table 3.

The study population should be predetermined according to relevant factors with respect to the trial's objectives. Healthy individuals or patients with specific disorders who are willing to consume the test product should be included. In addition, inclusion and exclusion criteria to avoid confounding cases should also be carefully defined [ 88].

These steps, ranging from objective formulation to participant selection and baseline assessment, are part of a structured clinical trial timeline typically followed in functional food evaluation, as shown in Figure 2. In trials for dietary treatments, these criteria should be complemented with relevant dietary factors such as habitual diet, diet-related habits and practices. For example, in trials for functional foods or nutraceuticals, subjects with food allergies, concurrent consumption of other dietary supplements, history of following dietary regimens or restrictions should also be excluded [ 89]. Dietary intake data should be quantitatively assessed, with prescribed weight and portion sizes of solid food as well as specific methods and times of food preparation needing to be documented to maintain supervised consumption of an impact control [ 90].

Sufficient recruitment of participants within the desired inclusion/exclusion criteria is essential for trial validity, generalizability and meeting regulatory requirements. Recruitment could take the form of active approaches, i.e., advertisements in health food magazines or producing posters for centers with a known vested interest in functional foods, or passive approaches such as advertisements in newspapers. All researchers should be trained to verify access to a specified recruitment pool or envelope [ 91]. Unsuitable volunteers could be categorized as temporary or permanent. When the participants are detected as unsuitable for screening, alternatives could be continued with until the required quota is reached [ 92]. The recruitment of participants is crucial in terms of trial validity, representativeness, generalizability and to meet regulatory requirements [ 93].

Systematic random selection of individuals attending or frequenting the venues considered for a trial has been shown to be effective at identifying initial contact, opting eligibility and permitting easier participant recruitment at otherwise inaccessible locations [ 94]. Published protocols and experiences from regulators and within the field regarding consumer recruitment may also be informative for food scientists undergoing similar trials [ 95].

With the increasing number of functional food products in the marketplace, clinical trials aimed at testing these products are rapidly increasing. The objective of these trials is to afford product effectiveness statistical justification. In the past, clinical trials on functional foods have been conducted, occasionally producing interesting results [ 96]. However, a stringent statistical inferential methodology to ensure product effectiveness has so far not been pursued [ 97]. As a consequence, there are currently a large number of positive findings from functional food product tests in the marketplace. However, it can be argued that it is possible to find positive results by simply ensuring an adequate design of the test, independently of the product itself [ 98]. Therefore, much effort is currently dedicated to inferential statistics, with emphasis on finding a procedure for testing product effectiveness that guarantees low levels of false positive errors and high levels of positive product testing as a function of the effect size [ 99]. Several clinical trials demonstrating effects of functional foods on human health are summarized in Table 4.

Blinded (single/double/triple)

Reduce bias in reporting and assessment

Enhances credibility of findings

Complex logistics, not always feasible in nutrition studies

Atefi et al. (2018)

RCT; 77 women with T2D; 8 weeks (30 g/day: olive oil vs. canola oil vs. sunflower oil)

Replacing saturated-fat oil with canola or olive oil lowered inflammation. Both canola and olive oil groups showed significant reductions in CRP versus baseline and vs. sunflower oil (p < 0.05). No significant differences were seen in blood glucose or other lipids between groups.

Chuengsamarn et al. (2012)

Double-blind RCT; 240 prediabetic adults; 9 months (750 mg curcumin/day vs. placebo)

Curcumin prevented progression to T2D p < 0. Curcumin also improved β-cell function (HOMA-β ↑, HOMA-IR ↓) and raised adiponectin. FPG and 2h-glucose remained stable in curcumin group but rose in controls.

6. Challenges in Conducting Trials

Food-based interventions are complex because they may vary widely in composition, sources, forms, preservation, preparation, and processing. Thus, careful documentation is necessary but very difficult and challenging to achieve [ 125].

Also, the nature of an active food and the confounding variables and complexity that it brings represent challenges for the ascertainment and standardization of the mode of action of foods in the absorption, distribution, metabolization and excretion of food-derived functional compounds [ 126]. For example, considerable evidence exists on the health consequences of food effectiveness depending on its matrix. Others show great variability for, e.g., cereal bran that includes both soluble and insoluble dietary fibers, which may impact the effectiveness of cereal consumption. Alternatively, soya isoflavones might act in a different food format as compared to a supplement format [ 127].

In addition to these complexities, there is a fundamental limitation related to the time that counselling agents or professionals dedicate daily to dietary guidance in comparison to the time individuals spend ingesting foods [ 128].

6.1. Participant Compliance

The evaluation of functional foods via clinical trials poses many challenges. Due consideration must also be given to participant compliance with adherence monitoring and participant retention strategies, which are both critical factors in trial success [ 129]. Investigators must ensure that potential participants have sufficient interest to modify habitual consumption patterns as part of trial entry considerations. The willingness of participants to receive food products via home delivery should also be confirmed to mitigate potential issues with low compliance [ 130]. As adjustments to the provided intervention may not be practical or feasible at a later stage in the dietary intervention study design, recruitment considerations must critically include food product palatability. To fully evaluate food products for palatability, screening by trained taste panelists and subsequent participant free-choice taste preference and pair preference testing via acceptability trials can be implemented before commencing trials [ 131]. When creative testing strategies are employed, participant preferences can be incorporated into intervention design, helping to mitigate a major cause of trial failure. Creating simple systems for anonymity and methods for training participants for blinding testing would enhance the quality of data collected. Specifying food products, test preparation, delivery and timing, participant criteria, and screening for excitement about the product type and cultural acceptance in these decisions would augment co-design [ 132].

6.2. Funding Issues

As a consequence of the previous issues encountered in funding clinical trials for functional foods, only a few European companies are currently developing functional foods and, indeed, have a reduced pipeline of novel products [ 133]. One of the major barriers to efficient clinical development is the market exclusivity period, which, in the EU, is only 5 years for functional foods. In other regions, a shorter or no exclusivity period is granted. Since the costs of registering a new functional food can be very high, projected yearly revenues should be sufficiently higher than these costs to warrant investment in clinical testing [ 134]. Thus, unless an application for patent extension can be made on the basis of new knowledge generated in clinical studies, a health claim on a novel functional food will have a very short period of exclusivity, resulting in only small revenues and ruling out financial viability for developing companies to invest in large RCTs. In addition, considerable resources are needed to prepare regulatory submissions, particularly for health claims, where dossiers can easily consist of thousands of pages [ 130]. Unlike pharmaceuticals, there is no equivalent of a 'fast track' regulatory approval process, which would allow companies to submit health claim dossiers in stages. Furthermore, since pharmaceutical companies are generally much larger than food companies, this increases their negotiating power with those responsible for the scientific evaluation of data packages. Moreover, the food industry traditionally works with much lower margins, leading to lower expenditure on R&D [ 132]. That said, certain food companies have invested considerably more than on clinical development of a single product. However, obtaining a health claim has proven to be a lengthy process, especially for multi-strain probiotics, where several years of neglect of applications have created a backlog. In addition, a 'non-licensed' probiotic sector functioning in the grey zone is growing increasingly in Europe. Recurring European regulatory hurdles and off-target processing errors can delay product approvals for years [ 135].

7. Future Directions in Research

Functional foods empower frequently biased choices with respect to the consideration of scientific evidence and understanding of the relationship between food, health, and disease. Functional foods are sophisticated biocomplex matrices that differ from conventional foods due to their chemical composition or format and yield a biological or health benefit [ 136]. The benefits of functional foods include quality and safety concerns, health claims regulatory framework, scientific evidence of efficacy, controlling information and health claims, as well as the mechanisms of action behind the efficacy of functional food compounds [ 137]. Functional food research topics should be aligned with emerging health-oriented trends in modern nutrition. Given the issues populations face, health strategies that are based on realistic approaches to dietary modification should be considered, such as areas that focus on foods commonly consumed by populations or development of food technologies to lessen adverse effects of unwholesome foods [ 138]. Health benefits and mechanism-of-action studies that are tailored to these gaps should be prioritized. There is a need for genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to assess legacy diets within populations or the effects of microbial communities. Further, innovative experimental approaches, such as the use of multi-omics techniques, system biology methods, meta-genomic sequencing, and mapping, should be employed to obtain a holistic view of food-gut-microbiome-host interactions [ 139]. Furthermore, emerging technologies should be adapted for evermore sensitive detection of food ingredients and metabolites in all matrices and thus, test for effects on their absorption and metabolism. Systematic biobanking strategies and relevant metadata should be developed for archiving and retrieving collective know-how on food effects across populations [ 138].

The dietary response to some very important diet or nutrient composition measures seems to vary greatly. Some explainable or unexplainable biological mechanisms that could potentially characterize an inter-individual response to a nutrient are germline genetics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, and gut microbiome composition and functionality. Experts thus recommend incorporating more personal data on other levels of 'omes' [ 139].

8. Conclusions

Functional foods offer an alternative approach to medicine by providing diets or dietary supplements to minimize the risk of chronic diseases. They are designed to help people seek out daily preventive means rather than waiting until diseases manifest for cures with drugs. While drugs and pharmaceuticals are typically used to cure diseases, they are generally toxic and have side effects. Foods, on the other hand, are normally nontoxic and generally safe for daily consumption, though many people do not eat them for health promotion. Functional foods, which are defined as foods supplemented with functional ingredients that may prevent human diseases and promote health, are either manufactured or natural diets containing functional ingredients. The former are generally manufactured for health prevention, while the latter are whole foods inherently containing functional ingredients. Functional foods may prevent chronic diseases and aging, improve appearance, control body weight, and regulate physiology and biochemistry.

With growing awareness of and desire for the preventive possibility of functional diets, commercial interests in producing functional foods have increased exponentially, with many already on the markets. To help safeguard consumers and to protect potential markets, the food industries in America and Europe have urged government agencies to establish definitions for functional foods, and workshops on defining functional foods have convened in both continents. The European Commission has already released several documents discussing the need for definitions of functional foods. At the same time, the food industries in Asia Pacific countries are highly eager to establish definitions for functional foods, which may help make millions of profits but also safeguard consumers. As far as Asia Pacific countries are concerned, the Eastern view of functional foods and their distribution is quite different from those of the West.

Author Contributions

Resources, W.A.; data curation, Z.E.H.; writing-original draft preparation, Z.E.H.; writing-review and editing, N.K.H.; visualization, W.A.; supervision, J.P.; project administration, C.O. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by the University of Debrecen Scientific Research Bridging Fund (DETKA), and funded by the University of Debrecen Program for Scientific Publication.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Informed Consent Statement

Data Availability Statement

No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Probiotics

Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, Saccharomyces, Enterococcus

Yogurt, kefir, fermented dairy products, freeze-dried fruit juice gummy supplements, probiotic powder.

Improves gut health, supports immunity, delivers bioactive peptides, strain-specific protection against enteric pathogens.

Hajzer ZE, Alibrahem W, Kharrat Helu N, Oláh C, Prokisch J. Functional Foods in Clinical Trials and Future Research Directions. Foods. 2025; 14(15):2675. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods14152675

Chicago/Turabian Style

Hajzer, Zsuzsa Emma, Walaa Alibrahem, Nihad Kharrat Helu, Csaba Oláh, and József Prokisch. 2025. "Functional Foods in Clinical Trials and Future Research Directions" Foods 14, no. 15: 2675. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods14152675

Hajzer, Z. E., Alibrahem, W., Kharrat Helu, N., Oláh, C., & Prokisch, J. (2025). Functional Foods in Clinical Trials and Future Research Directions. Foods, 14(15), 2675. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods14152675

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Functional Foods in Clinical Trials and Future Research Directions

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Clinical trials serve as a cornerstone in the meticulous assessment of the efficacy and myriad health benefits that functional foods offer. These trials are not merely confined to the specific domain of functional foods; rather, they resonate throughout the expansive realms of nutrition science and public health, illuminating the intricate interdependencies that exist among these disciplines.

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Thick-cut cultured meat (nugget / chunk-scale tissue growth)

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Thick-cut cultured meat (nugget / chunk-scale tissue growth)

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Researchers are claiming a breakthrough in lab-grown meat after producing nugget-sized chunks of chicken in a device that mimics the blood vessels that make up the circulatory system.

The approach uses fine hollow fibres to deliver oxygen and nutrients to chicken muscle cells suspended in a gel, an advance that allowed scientists to grow lumps of meat up to 2cm long and 1cm thick.

The hollow fibre bioreactor paves the way for whole cuts of chicken, beef, pork and fish to be grown in the lab, researchers believe. The same technology has the potential to produce functional organs, too.

"This looks like a transformative step, it's a really elegant solution," said Prof Derek Stewart at the James Hutton Institute in Dundee. "They've created something of a size and scale that people are hardwired to eat: it's the chicken nugget model."

A major hurdle to growing meat in the lab is the difficulty in getting enough nutrients and oxygen to muscle cells in thick sections of tissue. Without them, the cells die off. As such, many projects focus on growing tiny pieces of meat akin to mince.

To solve the size problem, Prof Shoji Takeuchi, at the University of Tokyo, built a bioreactor that holds living cells in a gel and feeds them with oxygen and nutrients through fine, semi-permeable fibres that pass through the material.

"One of the key challenges in growing thick tissue is that cells in the centre can struggle to receive enough oxygen and nutrients, which may lead to cell death," Takeuchi said. "Our system helped address this by providing internal perfusion, allowing us to support the growth of thicker, more consistent tissue."

Writing in Trends in Biotechnology, Takeuchi and his team describe how they grew an 11g chunk of chicken from a gel that had more than 1,000 hollow fibres running through it. A culture medium rich in nutrients and oxygen was pumped down the fibres to nourish the cells.

Growing meat in larger, more structured pieces could help researchers replicate the texture and appearance of meat such as chicken breast or thigh, Takeuchi said. "While small-scale or minced cultured meat is easier to produce, it may not fully capture the fibrous structure and mouth-feel that consumers associate with conventional cuts," he added.

For now, the hollow fibres of the artificial circulatory system must be removed by hand once the meat has grown. But the scientists are aiming to replace them with edible cellulose fibres that can be left in and used to vary the texture of the meat.

Edible fibres may open up other possibilities, too, Stewart said. Meats could be fortified by adding zinc and selenium to the culture medium, helping to boost the immune systems of older people, he suggested. He also wondered if masala sauce could be passed down the tubes to create a nugget version of chicken tikka masala. "I'd give it a go," he said.

Takeuchi said future versions of the bioreactor may need artificial blood that carries more oxygen to the cells, to allow the growth of larger lumps of meat. With sufficient funding, he believes products based on the approach could be available in five- to 10 years.

"At first, it will likely be more expensive than conventional chicken, mainly due to material and production costs," he said. "However, we are actively developing food-grade, scalable systems, and if successful, we expect the cost to decrease substantially over time."

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Lab-grown chicken 'nuggets' hailed as 'transformative step' for cultured meat

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Japanese-led team grow 11g chunk of chicken - and say product could be on market in five- to 10 years

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Hybrid-protein products (plant + mycelium + cultivated + insect blends)

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Hybrid-protein products (plant + mycelium + cultivated + insect blends)

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Scientists unlock hybrid protein potential for food system sustainability

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As the global food system targets emission cuts, health improvement, and reduced livestock reliance, scientists in the US say the answer may lie in hybrid proteins — foods that blend plants, fungi, insects, microbial fermentation, and cultivated meat.

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Seaweed ingredients beyond snacks — functional powders & stabilizers

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Seaweed ingredients beyond snacks — functional powders & stabilizers

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Seaweed-based functional ingredient scoops top food tech award

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Scottish start-up BioMara is crowned winner of the European heats of the Global Food Tech Awards 2025. Here’s why

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Mycelium as primary structure (mycoprotein bacon/jerky/whole cuts)

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Mycelium as primary structure (mycoprotein bacon/jerky/whole cuts)

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Mushrooms, Mycelium, and Bites: Plant-Based Trends From NRA 2025 - The Food Institute

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Plant-based innovation took center stage at the 2025 NRA Show, with mushrooms, mycelium, and global bites redefining foodservice menus.

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Learn about the science of cultivated meat and the challenges that must be addressed for commercial production.

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Edible/seaweed-based single-use packaging (Notpla & beyond)

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Edible/seaweed-based single-use packaging (Notpla & beyond)

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Fake Caviar Invented in the 1930s Could Be the Solution to Plastic Pollution

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An alternative to environmentally-harmful plastic is already within reach: seaweed.

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What Do 2025’s Investment Trends So Far Tell Us About Alternative Proteins?

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After an annual decline in alternative protein investments in 2024, funding further fell by 28% in Q1 2025. Analysts blame AI, high costs, and low sales.

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“Cultured seafood” (cellular aquaculture) moving toward regulatory pathways

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“Cultured seafood” (cellular aquaculture) moving toward regulatory pathways

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Learn about the science of cultivated meat and the challenges that must be addressed for commercial production.

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Upcycled specialty ingredients (citrus-peel fibre, barley husk isolates) entering premium CPG

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Upcycled specialty ingredients (citrus-peel fibre, barley husk isolates) entering premium CPG

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Fake Caviar Invented in the 1930s Could Be the Solution to Plastic Pollution

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An alternative to environmentally-harmful plastic is already within reach: seaweed.

# data[].attributes.headline
“Taste scaffolds”: edible scaffolds infused with flavors that release during cooking

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“Taste scaffolds”: edible scaffolds infused with flavors that release during cooking

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Researchers are claiming a breakthrough in lab-grown meat after producing nugget-sized chunks of chicken in a device that mimics the blood vessels that make up the circulatory system.

The approach uses fine hollow fibres to deliver oxygen and nutrients to chicken muscle cells suspended in a gel, an advance that allowed scientists to grow lumps of meat up to 2cm long and 1cm thick.

The hollow fibre bioreactor paves the way for whole cuts of chicken, beef, pork and fish to be grown in the lab, researchers believe. The same technology has the potential to produce functional organs, too.

"This looks like a transformative step, it's a really elegant solution," said Prof Derek Stewart at the James Hutton Institute in Dundee. "They've created something of a size and scale that people are hardwired to eat: it's the chicken nugget model."

A major hurdle to growing meat in the lab is the difficulty in getting enough nutrients and oxygen to muscle cells in thick sections of tissue. Without them, the cells die off. As such, many projects focus on growing tiny pieces of meat akin to mince.

To solve the size problem, Prof Shoji Takeuchi, at the University of Tokyo, built a bioreactor that holds living cells in a gel and feeds them with oxygen and nutrients through fine, semi-permeable fibres that pass through the material.

"One of the key challenges in growing thick tissue is that cells in the centre can struggle to receive enough oxygen and nutrients, which may lead to cell death," Takeuchi said. "Our system helped address this by providing internal perfusion, allowing us to support the growth of thicker, more consistent tissue."

Writing in Trends in Biotechnology, Takeuchi and his team describe how they grew an 11g chunk of chicken from a gel that had more than 1,000 hollow fibres running through it. A culture medium rich in nutrients and oxygen was pumped down the fibres to nourish the cells.

Growing meat in larger, more structured pieces could help researchers replicate the texture and appearance of meat such as chicken breast or thigh, Takeuchi said. "While small-scale or minced cultured meat is easier to produce, it may not fully capture the fibrous structure and mouth-feel that consumers associate with conventional cuts," he added.

For now, the hollow fibres of the artificial circulatory system must be removed by hand once the meat has grown. But the scientists are aiming to replace them with edible cellulose fibres that can be left in and used to vary the texture of the meat.

Edible fibres may open up other possibilities, too, Stewart said. Meats could be fortified by adding zinc and selenium to the culture medium, helping to boost the immune systems of older people, he suggested. He also wondered if masala sauce could be passed down the tubes to create a nugget version of chicken tikka masala. "I'd give it a go," he said.

Takeuchi said future versions of the bioreactor may need artificial blood that carries more oxygen to the cells, to allow the growth of larger lumps of meat. With sufficient funding, he believes products based on the approach could be available in five- to 10 years.

"At first, it will likely be more expensive than conventional chicken, mainly due to material and production costs," he said. "However, we are actively developing food-grade, scalable systems, and if successful, we expect the cost to decrease substantially over time."

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Lab-grown chicken 'nuggets' hailed as 'transformative step' for cultured meat

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Japanese-led team grow 11g chunk of chicken - and say product could be on market in five- to 10 years

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(Image credit: Wyss Institute)

Researchers from the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China have developed a DNA cassette tape drive that functions exactly as one might expect. The experimental setup, published in Science Advances on September 12, is the first working prototype to combine DNA storage with a physical tape-based medium and a compact seekable drive - a clever attempt to merge the longevity of DNA with the scalability of old-school tape libraries.

Data is encoded into synthetic DNA strands, written to a reel of flexible film, and stored in a cartridge that can be loaded, spun, and addressed like magnetic tape. This theoretically yields petabytes-per-meter density and multi-century lifespan on paper. Still, when the system was put to the test in proof-of-concept experiments, it only managed to write a single 156.6KB file, with each read-write cycle taking nearly an hour.

The tape itself is a 3.5 mm-wide polyester-nylon strip, patterned with high-density barcodes that act as physical file addresses. The researchers printed 5,000 of these "tracks" across a 9-meter loop, giving them individually accessible landing zones for DNA payloads. In principle, the format scales to more than half a million addressable partitions per kilometer, and at full density, the team says each one could hold over half a terabyte of usable data. If you do the math, that's 362 petabytes per kilometer.

Of course, what's more important is what the prototype can actually do. To test the full write-read-rewrite loop, the team encoded five small files into DNA. These were deposited onto the tape via a built-in liquid handling system, then recovered using sequencing, deleted, and rewritten. The whole cycle played out automatically in a drive about the size of a lunchbox, complete with reel motors, a microcontroller, and an optical barcode reader.

Readout was painfully slow. The test file recovered in the demo was just 156.6KB and took roughly 25 minutes to extract and process. Rewriting that data took another 50 minutes. While the team estimates they could seek to 1,570 different tracks per second, the sequencing and synthesis steps are orders of magnitude slower. So while you can spin the reel like an LTO cartridge and instantly locate where a file should be, the actual throughput is bottlenecked.

Durability, however, is where the DNA tape fares much better. Each payload is encased in a zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF) shell, which protects it from water, UV radiation, and oxidation. That shell can be stripped and reapplied in minutes with no apparent damage to the DNA. Based on accelerated aging tests, the researchers estimate a shelf life of over 300 years at room temperature and tens of thousands of years in cold storage.

"Nonvolatile memory based on semiconductors has reached the limits of Moore's Law, and new media are necessary to store unbelievably large amounts of data," the researchers wrote in their paper, ultimately conceding that DNA synthesis remains a non-starter for scaling their project commercially. Back to the drawing board, then.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

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DNA 'cassette tape' research hints at petabyte-scale cartridges and multi-century lifespan on paper - petabytes-per-meter density possible, but today it writes at kilobytes per hour

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Chinese researchers have built a working DNA tape drive with petabyte-scale potential; however, the demo only moved 156KB and took nearly an hour to read.

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Southeast Asia Zero-Knowledge Laboratory | SotaZK

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The convergence of zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and machine learning (ML) is opening up new possibilities for creating privacy-preserving and secure AI systems. Zero-Knowledge Proof Machine Learning (ZKML) allows for the verification of machine learning processes without exposing sensitive data or model parameters. This blog will explore the key concepts, applications, and challenges of ZKML, drawing insights from recent developments and practical use cases.

Understanding Zero-Knowledge Proofs

Zero-Knowledge Proofs are cryptographic methods that enable one party (the prover) to demonstrate the truth of a statement to another party (the verifier) without revealing any additional information. This technology is crucial for scenarios where privacy and data security are of utmost importance, such as in financial transactions, healthcare, and identity verification.

Developing zero-knowledge proofs requires a significant amount of processing power-many times more than the initial computation. This indicates that there exist certain computations for which computing zero-knowledge proofs is not viable due to the time required to generate them on the most advanced gear currently available. However, zero-knowledge proofs are now possible for ever-intense calculations because of recent developments in distributed systems, hardware, and cryptography. These developments have opened up the design space for new applications by enabling the development of protocols that can leverage proofs of intensive computations.

Privacy-Preserving Model Training

In federated learning, multiple parties collaborate to train a global model without sharing their private data. Zero-knowledge proofs can be used to verify the correctness of each participant's contribution to the training process. This ensures that the global model is trained accurately without any data leakage, enhancing trust among participants. For example, zk-SNARKs (Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge) can be used to verify that each participant's model updates are computed correctly, thereby ensuring the integrity of the overall training process.

Verifiable Machine Learning Inference

ZKPs can also be applied to verify the correctness of machine learning inferences. This is particularly useful in sensitive applications such as healthcare or finance, where it is essential to ensure the reliability of model predictions without exposing the underlying data or model parameters. Recent research has demonstrated the use of zk-SNARKs to verify neural network inferences on encrypted data, enabling secure and private ML predictions.

Motivation and current efforts in ZKML

As AI-generated content becomes more similar to human-created work, zero-knowledge cryptography offers a promising way to verify that certain outputs were produced by specific models, like GPT-4 or DALL-E 2, without revealing the input or the model. This could be especially useful in fields like healthcare, where sensitive data can be processed by machine learning models while keeping the input private from third parties. Zero-knowledge machine learning (ZKML) focuses on creating proofs for the inference phase of a model (when it makes predictions) rather than the more complex training phase. Although current zero-knowledge systems and hardware aren't yet capable of handling large models like modern language models, progress has been made in creating proofs for smaller models. The "awesome-zkml" GitHub repository collects resources on ZKML. For example, Modulus Labs' paper "The Cost of Intelligence" benchmarks different zero-knowledge proof systems across a variety of model sizes. One notable finding is that with the plonky2 proving system, it's possible to create proofs for models with around 18 million parameters in about 50 seconds using a powerful AWS machine. Figure 1 illustrates the scaling behavior of different proving systems as the number of parameters of a neural network is increased:

The paper also shows how different proof systems scale as model sizes increase. Another initiative, Zkonduit's ezkl library, allows engineers to create zero-knowledge proofs for machines learning models exported in ONNX format, making it easier for ML developers to prove model outputs. Several teams are also working on improving zero-knowledge technology and creating specialized hardware to speed up computations, especially for tasks like proving and verifying. As these technologies mature, we'll likely see larger models proved on less powerful machines and in less time, thanks to advancements in hardware, proof systems, and more efficient protocols. This progress will open the door to new applications and use cases for ZKML.

Use case examples

To determine whether ZKML (zero-knowledge Machine Learning) can be applied to a specific use case, we can examine how the properties of zero-knowledge (ZK) would support various applications. This can be illustrated through a Venn diagram.

COMPUTATIONAL INTEGRITY (VALIDITY ML)

Proofs of validity (SNARK/STARK) can be used to demonstrate that certain computations have been performed correctly. In the context of ML, this involves proving that the inference of an ML model, or that a model has generated a specific output using a specific input, is valid (e.g., verifying the results of a task). It allows easy proof and verification that an output is the result of a model with a given input. This enables ML models to run off-chain on specialized hardware with their ZK proofs, which can easily be verified on-chain.

Example: Giza is helping Yearn (a DeFi yield aggregation protocol) prove that certain complex ML-based yield strategies are being executed correctly on-chain.

ML TRANSPARENCY AS A SERVICE (MLAAS)

When companies provide access to ML models via their APIs, it's difficult for users to verify whether the service provider is actually running the model they claim to be running, as the API functions as a black box. Attaching validity proofs to the APIs of ML models would bring transparency to users, allowing them to verify which model they are using.

ZK ANOMALY/FRAUD DETECTION

ZK proofs could be generated to detect exploitation or fraud. Anomaly detection models can be trained on smart contract data and agreed upon by DAOs as valuable metrics, enabling security processes such as pausing contracts in a preventive, proactive manner. Some startups are exploring the use of ML models for security in the context of smart contracts, and ZK proofs of anomaly detection could be the next step.

PRIVACY (ZKML)

Beyond validity proofs, ZK can also hide parts of the computation to enable privacy-preserving ML applications. Here are a few examples:

Decentralized Kaggle: Proof that a model has higher than X% accuracy on some test data without revealing the model's weights.

Privacy-preserving inference: This involves using patient data for medical diagnostics in a privacy-preserving manner. Instead of sharing entire patient datasets with machine learning models, patients can input their data into the model, but only the diagnostic result is shared with the patient. For example, if a patient uses a model to check for cancer, the test result would be sent directly to the patient, keeping their information private.

These use cases illustrate the potential of ZKML in enabling transparency, security, and privacy for machine learning applications.

Since technology advances, the integration of Zero Knowledge Machine Learning (ZKML) is expected to become more seamless. Ongoing research is tackling current challenges, while collaborations between cryptography and machine learning experts are speeding up the creation of practical ZKML frameworks. In a world where privacy is becoming increasingly scarce, ZKML offers a promising solution. By enabling organizations to leverage the power of machine learning while safeguarding individual privacy, this approach represents a crucial step toward a more ethical and secure AI landscape. As AI and machine learning become part of our everyday lives, it is more important than ever to trust the models and data that influence the safety and security of our world.

Start creating your own ZKP project with our expert team, SotaZK now!

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Zero Knowledge Proofs in Machine Learning: A Comprehensive Guide

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Zero-Knowledge Proof Machine Learning (ZKML) allows for the verification of machine learning processes without exposing sensitive data or model parameters.

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Quantum Repeaters & Quantum Networking Hardware

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Quantum Repeaters & Quantum Networking Hardware

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Which new technology will have the most impact in 2025 and beyond? Our annual analysis ranks the top tech trends that matter most for companies and executives.

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Agentic AI: cybersecurity’s friend or foe?

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Agentic AI could transform cybersecurity for defenders and attackers alike

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The Latest 15 Information Technology Trends in 2025 | SaM Solutions

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You should monitor information technology trends to be aware of future innovations across industries. Have a look at the top IT trends to watch out for in 2025.

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Data Center Trends and Strategies 2025: Navigating the Future of Digital Infrastructure

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Monitor the future of digital infrastructure with data center trends and strategies 2025, like cloud-based assets and private data centers.

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This article is about the implementation and operation of quantum networks. For a mathematical description of quantum communication channels, see Quantum channel.

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New Technology Networking Trends to Watch in 2025 | Netsync

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Explore how new technology networking is reshaping infrastructure in 2025 through AI, edge computing, Wi-Fi 7, and hybrid cloud strategies.

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Zero trust (ZT) is the term for an evolving set of cybersecurity paradigms that move defenses from static, network- based perimeters to focus on users, assets

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exploring the frontiers of communication with extended reality (xr): applications

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and future directions: media & communications

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Exploring the Frontiers of Communication With Extended Reality (XR): Applications, Challenges, and Future Directions

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Extended Reality (XR) is changing how we interact with digital information and communicate with each other by transforming how people experience and interact with their surroundings. It can be used to create immersive experiences like virtual tours or to promote companies, products, and brands. Alth...

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In the initial stage, CSPs implement basic network slicing with minimal investment, enabling a simple entry into the market. Pre-configured slices allow providers to showcase 5G benefits, test demand and engage early partners. While it supports limited automation and requires manual processes, this phase provides a strong starting point for initial use cases such as controlled trials and service demonstrations.

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Network Slicing - Enabling Differentiated Connectivity

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Network slicing is the operators' best answer on how to build and manage a network. Learn how network slicing can increase efficiencies and improve revenue.