July 22, 2025 – Dr. Andrew Franklyn-Miller, Chief Medical & Innovation Officer, Nuritas & Louise Daugherty, Senior Data Curator, Nuritas

How Wearables Like Oura Are Revolutionizing Clinical Trials — A Look Inside Nuritas’ PeptiSleep Study

Introduction: The New Era of Clinical Data

Clinical trials are experiencing a fundamental transformation. We’re witnessing an evolution from traditional episodic, site-based assessments to continuous, real-world monitoring thanks to breakthrough wearable technology. This shift represents more than just a technological upgrade—it’s a complete reimagining of how we capture and understand health data. 

Traditional clinical trials are variable in both their applicability and their generalizability, and it typically takes 5 to 15 years before research begins to translate to changes in practice. The trials have long operated on snapshots in time. Participants visit clinical sites at predetermined intervals, undergo assessments in artificial environments, and rely heavily on subjective reporting. These primary measures are often well researched, like blood pressure readings, or the outcome of a validated questionnaire, or change in blood levels of a biomarker, but these mean little to the average consumer and fail to capture the full picture of how interventions perform in daily life. 

“We’re no longer limited to snapshots in time — we now have a full movie of someone’s health journey.” The numbers tell the story of this transformation. Wearable technology has seen exponential growth in the USA, transforming healthcare, fitness, and daily life. As of 2024, approximately 53% of Americans own health tracking wearables such as smartwatches, fitness bands, and biosensors.  

The North American wearable technology market is projected to grow from USD 60.82 billion in 2025 to approximately USD 134.45 billion by 2032, representing a 12% compound annual growth rate.  

This adoption is driven by consumer demand for real-time health monitoring, with devices tracking heart rate, sleep, and activity levels, often integrated with smartphones and AI platforms. 

Yet here’s what makes this particularly exciting for ingredient companies like Nuritas: clinical trials are just starting to adopt wearables as secondary outcome measures. While challenges around accuracy and reliability have prevented their use as primary endpoints, the importance of end user interpretation is vital. Consider sleep studies; laboratories typically need subjects to go and sleep in unfamiliar environments, wear EEG caps to track brain electrical activity and endure breath by breath gas analysis alongside blood being drawn through the night. It’s easy to see how these create an alternative universe that may be reproducible on a day-to-day basis and great for the data but not representative of real life 

By using wearables to take the lab into the home, we start to get more reliable and usable data that reflects how products actually work in consumers’ lives. This shift improves both the quality and ecological validity of health outcomes, creating unprecedented opportunities for functional ingredient companies to demonstrate real-world efficacy.  

Wearables in Clinical Research: Why They Matter

The integration of wearable technology into clinical research addresses fundamental limitations that have constrained traditional study methodologies for decades. These devices are transforming not just how we collect data, but the very nature of the insights we can generate about health and intervention effectiveness. 

Continuous Biomarker Monitoring 

Modern wearables such as smartwatches, biosensors, and fitness trackers enable continuous, real-time monitoring of physiological and behavioral parameters, including heart rate, physical activity, sleep patterns, and biochemical markers. Unlike traditional methods reliant on episodic clinic-based assessments, wearables provide high-resolution, longitudinal data in real-world settings, improving the ecological validity of clinical endpoints.  

The Oura Ring Generation 3, for instance, demonstrates remarkable accuracy in sleep measurement with 94.4% sensitivity and 91.7% overall accuracy when compared to polysomnography — the gold standard (Svensson et al 2024).  

A recent validation study showed that the Oura device achieved 79% agreement with polysomnography in four-stage sleep classification, remarkably close to the 83% agreement rate between trained technicians scoring the same sleep study (Robbins et al 2025). This level of precision positions modern wearables as legitimate scientific instruments rather than simply consumer gadgets. 

What’s particularly compelling is that studies using wearable actigraphy have demonstrated a 15–20% increase in detecting subtle treatment effects compared with self-reported measures, enhancing statistical power (Zhang et al 2023).  

The Apple Heart & Movement Study, which concluded in February 2025, provides concrete evidence of this capability at unprecedented scale—over 250,000 participants generated 186 million days of health data, with analysis of 2.9 million sleep nights revealing insights impossible to capture through traditional clinical trials (Truslow et al 2024).  

Addressing The Accuracy Question 

Skepticism about the clinical precision of consumer wearables largely reflects limitations of earlier devices and varying validation standards. However, a growing body of research and evolving regulatory guidance now affirms their reliability. For example, a comprehensive evaluation of eleven popular sleep trackers found that leading devices such as the Oura Ring and Apple Watch exceed 95% accuracy in distinguishing sleep from wakefulness, with top performers achieving macro F1 scores of 0.69 in sleep stage classification (Lee et al. 2023). Importantly, these studies include participants with diagnosed sleep disorders and other medical conditions, demonstrating performance in real-world settings rather than only controlled laboratories. 

Advances in artificial intelligence further strengthen these findings. Foundation models trained on over 2.5 billion hours of wearable data from 162,000 individuals reveal that behavioral metrics—patterns of activity, sleep consistency, and mobility—often predict health outcomes more effectively than raw sensor signals alone (Ertürk et al. 2025). As both scientific validation and regulatory acceptance evolve, wearables are emerging as robust tools for clinical-grade data collection outside the lab.  

Improved Compliance and User Experience 

Remote monitoring reduces participant burden. Studies report that decentralized trials incorporating wearables achieve retention rates up to 25% higher than traditional, site-based designs (Sommer et al 2018). Automatic data capture reduces the need for frequent clinic visits, translating into markedly improved adherence. Research indicates that longterm engagement is highest when data streams are gathered passively, with wearable-based cohorts demonstrating superior retention over app-only or survey-driven models (Yang et al 2023).  

Wearables also enhance the trial participant experience by enabling longitudinal observation over months or years—crucial for evaluating functional ingredients whose effects accrue gradually.  

Data Integrity & Real-World Context 

Perhaps most importantly, wearables capture behavior in natural environments, not just artificial clinical settings. This real-world context provides ‘ecological validity’ that traditional site-based assessments cannot match. Wearables eliminate this artificial constraint by monitoring participants as they go about their daily lives, work, sleep, and interact with their natural environments (Roos et al 2024).  

This ‘ecological validity’ is crucial for functional ingredients, where effectiveness may depend on consistent routines, familiar environments, and natural circadian rhythms that cannot be replicated in laboratory settings. 

The real-world context that wearables offer is particularly valuable for sleep research, where laboratory conditions can significantly distort natural sleep patterns. 

Continuous monitoring of heart rate variability, activity patterns, and sleep architecture provides richer, higher resolution datasets that reflect true daily life conditions. Polysomnography remains the gold standard for sleep staging, yet wearable devices now offer validated measures with sensitivity exceeding 90% for key sleep parameters (Svensson et al. 2024) and 79% agreement in four-stage classification when benchmarked against laboratory EEG (Robbins et al 2024). 

Wearables also streamline data collection known as Electronic Data Capture, enabling seamless integration into electronic health records and reducing data processing times by up to 30%. Moreover, embedding AI-driven analytics enables early detection of adverse events and triggers personalized intervention alerts directly within EHR interfaces, supporting real-time clinical decision making.  

Scalable, Cost Efficient Research 

Integrating wearables into clinical protocols substantially reduces the operational footprint of trials. By minimizing requirements for in-person site visits and expensive laboratory assessments, studies achieve significant cost savings and logistical efficiencies. 

The economic advantages are also substantial. Recent analysis suggests that remote monitoring systems could reduce mortality by 77% and save $11,472 per patient in healthcare costs (Kolk et al 2023). 

Case Study: Oura Rings in Nuritas’ PeptiSleep Trial

The PeptiSleep clinical trial exemplifies the strategic application of wearable technology to validate functional ingredient efficacy in real-world settings. This innovative approach addresses the fundamental challenge that traditional sleep studies face: demonstrating how ingredients intended for everyday use actually perform in consumers’ natural environments. 

By keeping the participants in their homes, rather than a sleep lab, but blinding them to the Oura data they would normally get as feedback, we were able to observe 2 weeks of their normal sleep patterns and then 8 weeks of placebo versus PeptiSleep. 

Why Oura Ring: The Technology Choice 

The selection of Oura Ring Generation 3 was driven by its exceptional validation profile. Recent independent research confirms the device’s 94.4% sensitivity, and 91.7% overall accuracy compared to polysomnography, with 79% agreement in four-stage sleep classification.  

Unlike other consumer devices, the Oura Ring demonstrated no significant difference from polysomnography for key measures including time in bed, total sleep time, sleep onset latency, sleep period time, wake after sleep onset, time spent in light sleep, and time spent in deep sleep (Svensson et al 2024). The ring’s form factor offers unique advantages for sleep research: unlike wrist-worn devices that can be affected by movement artifacts, the finger-worn design provides stable sensor contact throughout the night.   

Additionally, the device’s 94.8% reliability and excellent inter-device correlation coefficients of 0.83-0.90 for various sleep parameters ensure consistent data quality across participants (Robbins et al 2024). 

• Metrics tracked: Total sleep time, sleep efficiency, HRV, latency, deep sleep duration, body temperature 

• Coupled with subjective sleep quality assessments and mood tracking 

“The Oura Ring gave us an objective comparison to subjective data while studying the effects of  PeptiSleep  — especially in HRV and deep sleep metrics,” says Dr. Niamh Mohan, Head of Clinical Trials at Nuritas. 

The continuous monitoring throughout participants’ normal routines reveals how PeptiSleep  performs under real-world conditions, addressing the ecological validity gap that has long limited functional ingredient research.  

Looking Ahead: A Smarter Future for Functional Ingredients

The convergence of wearable technology and functional ingredient development heralds a new era of evidence-based nutrition that promises to transform how companies validate, market, and optimize bioactive compounds. This evolution goes beyond improved research methods, it represents a fundamental shift toward personalized, data-driven approaches to health optimization that align with consumer expectations and regulatory evolution. 

Currently, Nuritas leads at the intersection of biotech and digital health, reshaping how an ingredient company develops, validates, and markets their products. 

Digital Biomarker-Driven Innovation 

The functional ingredients market, valued at approximately $119 billion in 2024 and projected to reach $165 billion by 2029, is increasingly driven by consumer demand for scientifically validated health solutions. Wearable technologies enable a new category of biomarker-driven product development, where ingredients are not only tested for efficacy but optimized for real-world performance metrics that consumers can track and validate themselves. 

This approach transforms the product development paradigm: traditional ingredient development relies on laboratory-based efficacy studies that may not translate to consumer experiences. Wearable enabled research allows companies to optimize dosing, timing, and formulation based on real-world biomarker responses, creating ingredients that perform predictably in actual use. 

Advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms can process continuous streams of physiological data to identify optimal ingredient combinations, dosing schedules, and even personalized formulations based on individual biomarker patterns, enabling precise functional ingredient development to deliver the personalized nutrition solutions that consumers increasingly demand. 

Real-World Validation at Scale 

Wearables enable real-world validation of bioactive ingredients like peptides in ways previously unattainable. The integration of wearable technology into post-market surveillance creates unprecedented opportunities for ongoing product validation and consumer engagement. Unlike traditional supplements that rely on subjective feedback, wearable enabled functional ingredients can provide consumers with objective, quantifiable evidence of product efficacy.  

This real-time validation directly addresses one of the industry’s greatest challenges: consumer skepticism about product claims. When people can observe objective improvements in their sleep quality, heart rate variability, or stress markers, product credibility increases significantly. Objective data becomes a compelling tool for building brand loyalty and supporting premium pricing strategies. 

In addition, aggregated consumer data from wearable devices creates valuable insights for product optimization and new product development. Companies can identify which consumer segments respond best to specific ingredients, optimal dosing patterns, and potential synergistic combinations—all while maintaining consumer privacy and regulatory compliance. 

It is now possible to generate robust, longitudinal evidence across vast populations. The Apple Heart & Movement Study—enrolling over 250,000 participants and amassing 186 million days of continuous health data—exemplifies the scale of real-world monitoring, that would be prohibitively expensive and logistically impossible with traditional laboratory-based approaches (Truslow et al, 2024).  

For functional ingredients, this means being able to evaluate the efficacy across thousands of individuals in their natural environments over extended periods, yielding insights that translate directly to everyday consumer use. The result is evidence that better reflects real-world effectiveness and addresses the fundamental question consumers ask: “Will this actually work for me in my daily life?” 

Advanced Analytics and Personalization 

Tomorrow’s trials will surpass aggregate sleep and activity metrics, leveraging sophisticated machine learning models that tailor insights to individuals. Foundation models trained on more than 2.5 billion hours of wearable data demonstrate that consistent behavioral patterns—such as sleep regularity, activity rhythms, and mobility trends—often predict health outcomes more accurately than raw sensor data (Ertürk et al. 2025). These analytics enable personalized recommendations and precision dosing, ensuring optimal benefit for each consumer. 

Meeting Consumer Expectations & Market Dynamics

Today’s health-conscious consumers demand transparent, data-driven proof of efficacy. Wearable enabled validation allows Nuritas to substantiate PeptiSleep’s benefits through objective metrics: improvements in sleep efficiency, autonomic recovery, and daily performance—all of which consumers can monitor directly. The future of nutrition and supplementation will depend on biomarker-driven innovation—where claims are verified by continuous, objective measurement, not just lab-based studies or subjective feedback.

While sleep is the leading application of wearables for functional ingredient research, opportunities for expansion are substantial. Heart rate variability monitoring enables evaluation of ingredients for stress and autonomic function; continuous glucose monitors support assessment of metabolic health ingredients; newer sensors promise to enable evaluation of inflammatory markers, hydration status, and even mood related biomarkers.   

“With tools like Oura, we can now validate peptide functionality in the wild, not just the lab,” signals more than a technical advance—it represents a shift toward evidence that consumers can directly experience and understand. 

Integration with Digital Health Ecosystems 

The future is in the seamless integration of wearables, digital health platforms, environmental sensors, and personalized nutrition apps. This ecosystem delivers contextual insights—such as how PeptiSleep interacts with an individual’s sleep habits, activity levels, and lifestyle factors—enabling truly personalized ingredient recommendations. 

This integrated approach also opens direct-to-consumer engagement and brand differentiation via technology partnerships. Ingredient companies adopting this model will offer evidence-based, personalized solutions that extend far beyond traditional marketing. 

With the Oura Ring and AI-driven analytics, Nuritas is validating PeptiSleep in real-world conditions, not just controlled laboratory settings. By championing a smart, data centric approach, Nuritas is positioned to lead the next generation of functional ingredient development, setting standards that resonate with regulators, formulators, and health focused consumers. 

Crucially, wearable technology democratizes health optimization by making research grade measurements available to consumers in daily life. When individuals observe tangible improvements in sleep, stress recovery, or metabolic function, “functional ingredients” become both tangible and personally relevant. 

Looking ahead, the convergence of sensor technology, AI, and personalized medicine will open even greater opportunities for product innovation. Companies developing expertise in wearable enabled studies today will become tomorrow’s leaders in precision nutrition. 

The question is no longer whether wearable technology will transform ingredient research—it’s whether companies will adapt quickly enough to capture the advantages. For forward thinking organizations like Nuritas, the answer is clear: the future of functional ingredient validation lies in rich, continuous health data generated by people living their everyday lives. 

This new model – objective, continuous, and ecologically valid – marks the next chapter in evidence based nutrition. Companies that develop these capabilities now will set the industry standard going forward. 

Conclusion: A New Standard for Evidence

The revolution in clinical research enabled by wearable technology signals a fundamental shift toward participant-centric, ecologically valid studies that better reflect ingredient effectiveness in the real world. For companies like Nuritas, this transformation offers unprecedented opportunities to prove product value and overcome longstanding research limitations.  

The Evidence is Compelling 

Modern wearables like the Oura Ring achieve clinical grade accuracy for key sleep parameters, provide continuous monitoring that captures natural variations in response, and enable study designs that were previously impractical (Svensson et al 2024). Increasingly, regulators recognize the unique value of wearable-derived evidence, resulting in clearer pathways for regulatory submissions and health claim substantiation.    

Skepticism about wearable accuracy and regulatory acceptance is understandable, given the pace of technological change. However, the evidence shows that rigorously validated wearables provide robust, meaningful data that enhances—not replaces—traditional research. The key is selecting well validated devices, implementing solid study protocols, and collaborating with organizations experienced in both wearables and regulation.  

Competitive Advantage Through Innovation 

For Nuritas and products like PeptiSleep, wearable-based clinical trials deliver competitive advantages: stronger evidence packages, more compelling marketing, and deeper insights into efficacy. Demonstrating results in participants’ natural environments, over extended periods, using continuous objective metrics builds evidence that is both scientifically and commercially powerful. 

Efficiencies in data collection also translate into more streamlined research and faster time to market. Companies that leverage wearable technology can conduct larger, more comprehensive studies at lower cost, with stronger, real-world evidence. 

The Future is Here 

Consumers are already wearing this revolution: millions demand evidence-based products that deliver measurable benefits. As technology evolves and acceptance grows, companies embracing wearable-based research will define the next generation of functional ingredient validation. 

Those who recognize this shift and align their research today will not only meet current market expectations but help establish the new paradigm for evidence-based nutrition that consumers, professionals, and regulators require. The question is not whether wearable technology will transform ingredient validation—but which companies will lead, and which will fall behind. 

The future belongs to companies like Nuritas that prove their ingredients work not just in labs, but in the lives of real consumers.  

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