Stanford Medicine monitors
children’s metabolic health at CAMP

Armed with activity monitors, adhesive sensors, and iPods, 74 children participated in the Stanford Kids Continuous Advanced Metabolic Profiling (CAMP) Study this past summer. Held at the East Palo Alto Family YMCA and the East Valley YMCA in San José, the study was the first expansion of a successful summer 2022 pilot for non-invasive health monitoring in a community setting, rather than in a typical clinical healthcare setting. Children were remotely monitored for 10 continuous days using activity smart watches and continuous glucose monitors while enjoying fun activities at camp and doing their usual routines at home, with minimal interference due to the study. Microsamples of blood and urine were collected twice during the two-week period. This intentional study design made it possible to enroll participants from a variety of ages, races, ethnicities, and backgrounds.

"Our vision is to define metabolic health using sensors and deep metabolic profiling in children during their regular routine.”

- Karl Sylvester, MD

“Our vision is to define metabolic health using sensors and deep metabolic profiling in children during their regular routine,” explained Karl Sylvester, MD, Co-Director of Stanford’s Metabolic Health Center, Associate Dean of Maternal and Child Health Research, and Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics. “We believe that the premise of the CAMP study—­to conduct deep metabolic profiling using microsampling technology of blood together with wearables—will provide us a metric of child health in real world settings.”

The team’s success in obtaining a baseline assessment of children’s metabolic health in this manner demonstrates that the program can be taken forward into expanded environments, such as after-school programs, where it will be possible to obtain longitudinal data in real world settings as a step toward promoting health as a lived experience for children outside of the typical healthcare setting.

The researchers working on the project are teaming up with data scientists to compile the resulting data into a Metabolic Health Index (MHI) that quantifies the participants’ overall metabolic health at the molecular level and dynamically throughout their days. The MHI can then be used to develop and evaluate risk-mitigating interventions for diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and associated chronic conditions so that lifestyle changes can be implemented early in order to prevent, rather than reactively treat, illnesses with lifelong implications.

“We’ve proven we can successfully capture data and facilitate this type of research out in the community,” says Grant Wells, MS, Director of Innovation and Development for Stanford’s Maternal and Child Health Research Institute. “Partnering with the YMCA allowed us to create a ground-breaking framework that meets underrepresented children where they live, and we could eventually follow up by running specific interventions in locations where we find health problems to be particularly pressing.”

YMCAs across the country are expressing interest in the program, and the team intends to embark upon wider-scale studies through partnerships with the NIH and potential commercial partners.

Other members of the Stanford team providing unwavering support to this project are Korey Hood, PhD; Jessica Li, MTM; David Maahs, MD, PhD; Anisha Patel, MD, MPH; Thomas Robinson, MD, MPH; Michael Snyder, PhD; Casandra Trowbridge, Dessi Zaharieva, PhD; and the many clinical research coordinators who worked on the study.

For more information or to become involved with CAMP, please contact Grant Wells at gwells2@stanford.edu.