Tag: hormonal

My Celsius Cooling bracelet to help Irish women battle key menopause symptom

An Irish engineer is at the centre of a ‘revolutionary’ cooling bracelet to help women manage the debilitating hot flushes of menopause.

The ‘MyCelsius’ bracelet, worn like a wrist watch, enters the Irish market today (Apr7) and has been co-developed by Offaly native Aonghus O’Donovan.

It works by cooling users’ wrists by 10°C in under 10 seconds and is designed to dramatically reduce the discomfort of hot flushes.

Co-founders O’Donovan, 33, and Maxime Kryvian 37, the CEO of the start-up cooling tech company, say it has an 80% efficacy rate for women experiencing one of the most uncomfortable perimenopause and menopause symptoms.

“The wrist is one of the most thermally sensitive parts of your body and applying cold to it sends a signal to the hypothalamus (the body’s thermostat), to stop the sweating and flushing associated with a hot flush,” he said.

“It uses advanced thermo-electric cooling to create a soothing, cold sensation directly onto the wrist.

“By lowering local skin temperature, it helps the full body feel cooler in moments of sudden heat.”

It also works to counteract uncomfortable heat caused by hormonal changes or stress and anxiety.

Women sometimes describe a hot flush as an intense heat, originating in the torso and moving upwards into the neck and chest.

It may be accompanied by flushing of the skin and sweating, as well as palpitations and feelings of anxiety and can happen several times a day.

Research in recent years has shown that almost four in ten women in Ireland have considered quitting their jobs due to menopause symptoms.

Three years’ research has been invested into the non-medical device, which O’Donovan says has a cooling system five times more powerful than competitor products.

Based in Bristol, England, O’Donovan studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Limerick (UL), which included a year in New York designing heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems for skyscrapers.

He went on to work at Dyson before moving into Formula 1 and Aerospace engineering and has since applied design and thermodynamics principles to women’s health — working closely with hundreds of women to develop MyCelsius.

The bracelet has five different modes, including a night-time setting to prevent heat-induced sleep disruption.

The company worked with a community of women that have been integral to shaping the product’s look, feel and functionality.

For more information, see mycelsius.com.

WHOOP launches AI-powered hormonal insights for women in Ireland

WHOOP, the human performance company, today announced its expanded Women’s Health feature set in Ireland with the launch of Hormonal Symptom Insights and Predictions, a significant update to its Menstrual Cycle Insights and Pregnancy Insights offering. 

For many women, hormonal changes influence far more than just their cycle. Energy levels, sleep quality, mood and training capacity can shift throughout the month. Yet traditional tracking tools often rely on static calendar averages that fail to reflect that variability. 

Within the WHOOP app, menstruating members now receive a personalised model of their cycle that adapts over time based on their unique physiological data and historical patterns. Rather than relying on static calendar tracking, the system continuously learns from longitudinal biometric signals to provide increasingly accurate predictions that evolve as more data is collected.  

Members now have access to key cycle data that enables them to adjust daily routines, fitness programmes and recovery practices with greater clarity and anticipate potential symptoms rather than simply record them. 

New capabilities include: 

·        A dynamic date window for the next period, allowing greater anticipation and planning 

·        Tracked trends in cycle length, period length and variability, flagging irregular patterns before larger issues persist 

·        Analysed individual symptom patterns to anticipate when symptoms are most likely to occur 

·        AI-driven Daily Outlook recommendations that adapt based on menstrual phase, pregnancy stage, recovery metrics and logged symptoms 

The expansion builds on the existing Menstrual Cycle Insights feature from WHOOP, which leverages continuous biometric data including heart rate variability, resting heart rate, skin temperature, respiratory rate and recovery trends to generate personalised cycle predictions with minimal manual input. 

“What makes this powerful isn’t any single data point- it’s how the system comes together,” said Emily Capodillupo, Senior Vice President of Research, Algorithms, and Data at WHOOP. “Women don’t experience their physiology in silos. Hormones influence sleep, sleep affects recovery, and recovery shapes training response. By modeling these interactions over time – across continuous biometrics, lab data, and behavior- we can deliver guidance that reflects the full system, not just a snapshot.” 

Menstrual Cycle White Paper 

WHOOP has published a comprehensive Menstrual Cycle White Paper outlining the research, methodology and validation behind its modelling approach. The white paper demonstrates how continuous physiological monitoring improves prediction accuracy over time, how the system accounts for variable cycles, perimenopause and hormonal birth control, and how prediction windows dynamically widen or narrow based on individual variability. 

In addition to hormonal modelling, the Women’s Health feature set integrates the WHOOP Strength Trainer and Healthspan capabilities. WHOOP remains the only wearable that measures Muscular Load, quantifying the mechanical stress placed on muscles and connective tissue during resistance training. Healthspan calculates WHOOP Age and Pace of Ageing using nine physiological metrics, connecting sleep, cardiovascular fitness and strength to long-term vitality. 

WHOOP is the first human performance and healthspan system to integrate continuous hormonal modelling, predictive symptom insights, muscular load measurement and biological age tracking within a single wearable ecosystem. 

With support from the WHOOP Medical Advisory Board, including Dr Robin Berzin and Dr Hazel Wallace, and in collaboration with Clue, WHOOP continues to advance innovation in women’s health in Ireland. 

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