What can you learn by hearing the sound of someone’s voice? When it comes to your health, your voice may have a lot to say. Turns out the voice carries indicators of your health. And this goes beyond the sound of a head cold. The voice may be an indicator of illnesses like diabetes or Parkinson’s.

Researchers hope in the near future, it will be possible to screen for diseases using a cell phone. They’re building a database of voices and using artificial intelligence to do this.

Here & Now‘s Scott Tong talks with Dr. Yael Bensoussan. She is one of the leaders of a study on Voice AI called Bridge2AI funded by the National Institutes of Health. She also directs the Health Voice Center at the University of South Florida.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

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