Hormonal health company Mira has partnered with Oura, makers of the Oura Ring, to merge hormone data collected by its egg-shaped monitor with Oura’s sleep, readiness and temperature health metrics. This marks the first-ever integration of lab-grade hormone data into daily wellness tracking.
“Hormones have traditionally been treated as something you measure in isolation -- maybe once, in a clinical setting, and then you’re sent on your way. But that’s never how women actually experience their bodies,” Mira CEO Sylvia Kang tells CNET. “At Mira, we’ve been really focused on bringing hormones into everyday life, because they shape how you sleep, how much energy you have, how you feel emotionally, even how happy or resilient you feel.”
Mira is the first and only hormone monitor powered by fluorescence-based detection (FluoMapping technology). This is the same technology used in clinical laboratories to deliver exact, numeric hormone concentrations.
With the free Mira app, you can see your hormone data alongside Oura's sleep, readiness and temperature metrics.
To collect your hormone data, you dip one of Mira’s test wands in your urine (for which a cup is provided), the wand gets inserted into the hormone monitor for 16 seconds and the results are uploaded into the free Mira app. There, you can now view your Oura data to see how your hormones may be influencing the rest of your body.
You can use Mira’s hormone monitor to track the following: luteinizing hormone, a fertility hormone that controls the ovaries’ functions; E3G, a metabolite of estradiol or E2, a type of estrogen found in urine; PdG, a urine metabolite of progesterone; and follicle-stimulating hormone, a pituitary hormone that stimulates the ovarian follicles. A metabolite is any substance produced during metabolism, such as the end products of your body's chemical processes.
With this more comprehensive view of your health, you can better understand why you may feel more tired one day than the next. People navigating perimenopause, menopause, fertility or the menstrual cycle can also use this information to become aware of what’s going on inside their bodies and why. This, in turn, can help confirm ovulation, affect daily decisions for improved rest and recovery and prepare users for more informed conversations with their doctors.
With Mira, you can track your LH, E3G, PdG and FSH hormones for fertility, perimenopause, menopause or the menstrual cycle.
Mira states that Oura members' consent to share their data with Mira is essential to this integration, and Mira’s privacy policy is simple: Personal health data is confidential and never sold or shared with third parties. Anonymized sensitive data is used only to enhance the app experience, with HIPAA- and GDPR-compliant service providers. HIPAA is the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, while GDPR is the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
Kang tells CNET that when Mira began working with Oura, the question wasn’t “How do we integrate data?” but “How do we help women understand their lives better?” This new partnership serves as a reminder that no part of the body operates in a vacuum. Context is vital.