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It may sound far-fetched but electrical engineers at Korea University in Seoul have turned Tootsie Rolls into a modern medical diagnostic tool that someday could be used to monitor

creatinine levels for patients with chronic kidney disease. ​​It turns out the candy, patented by Leo Hirschfeld and first sold in 1896 according to the company, can conduct electricity —

and with a little manipulation can be transformed into a sensor that appears to reliably measure voltage levels in saliva that vary depending on how salty the liquid is.​​  In a report

appearing in _ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces_, researchers Beelee Chua and Donghyun Lee describe how they incorporated the chewy chocolate treat into a disposable sensor that detects

salt and electrolyte levels in saliva. The prototype they designed could detect drops in levels of salts that occur when a woman ovulates and increases in levels of salts that signal a

problem with the kidneys, they found.​​  The Korea University researchers acknowledge that additional testing is needed, but they see potential in replacing disposable test strips in some

at-home diagnostic kits with a soft candy electrode that can be licked.​​ “Given the ubiquity of soft candy, the simplicity of the molding process, and the negligible medical waste stream,

it is a more appropriate approach to diagnostics design for resource-scarce clinical settings, such as those in developing countries,” according to the report. “The broader impact of this

work will be the paradigm shift of soft candy from food to a new class of edible, moldable, high-resistivity, and stable electronic materials.”​​ To make the candy sensor, the researchers

flattened a Tootsie Roll and created a crosshatch pattern of crevices on the surface to hold saliva. The modified candy was then attached (using two thin reusable aluminum tubes) to an

electric circuit with a voltage detector, explains a news release from the American Chemical Society. ​​This is not the first sweet Chua and Lee have researched to potentially lower the cost

and environmental waste of medical devices. In 2019, they turned Haribo gummy bears into a force transducer to measure signs of child development based on chewing power.​ _Peter Urban is a

contributing writer and editor who focuses on health news. Urban spent two decades working as a correspondent in Washington, D.C., for daily newspapers in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio,

California and Arkansas, including a stint as Washington bureau chief for the _Las Vegas Review Journal_. His freelance work has appeared in _Scientific American, Bloomberg Government_, and

CTNewsJunkie.com._