Feasibility of Smartphones for Accessible, Noninvasive Micronutrient Assessment

Micronutrient imbalance is a global issue, and its detection is invasive and expensive. Despite being largely preventable, imbalances of one or more micronutrients is pervasive and has major downstream health effects [1]. Women, children, and underserved populations in particular bear the greatest burden of micronutrient imbalance [4--6]. However, the true scope of this issue is often unseen and unaddressed because of the barriers to accessible micronutrient status assessment [2]. Status assessment of micronutrients is often done via indirect, subjective dietary logs, in-person clinical examinations, or complex analyses on blood (e.g. liquid chromatography-coupled mass spectrometry). While valuable, these assessments are expensive, flawed, and burdensome on the patient and the clinician.