Rather than be long winded with this intro let’s cut right to it: scientists have created a pill to measure your farts, and so far the results don’t stink.
In a story we first got a whiff of at Ars Technica, researchers from RMIT University and Monash University in Australia published a study at nature.com about ran “a human pilot trial of ingestible electronic capsules capable of sensing gases in the gut.” Pocket sensors and a smartphone app allow the pill to send real-time readings of O2, H2, and CO2 along the digestive track, which they say is a more reliable and less evasive way than other methods used to measure your own personal wind tunnel.
This small sensor pill is a big deal for the 1 in 5 people across the world who will suffer from gut disorders in their lifetime. https://t.co/38DGWe5Z61 pic.twitter.com/QnVwzXMouL
— RMIT University (@RMIT) January 9, 2018
Or in layman’s terms, they’ve made a fart pill to learn how and why you get so gassy without having to stick tubes in your butt. Because despite the fact that everybody toots, little is known about the complicated inner workings of our digestive system and exactly why some foods cause us to fill-up with stinky air, and there are drawbacks to how we currently measure that which might not be nearly as informative as this new technique, which gets up close and personal during the process.
The capsule “uses a combination of thermal conductivity and semiconducting sensors, and their selectivity and sensitivity to different gases is controlled by adjusting the heating elements of the sensors.” The pilot test included six human subjects, whose fiber intakes were altered to test the how likely a different diet made a subject susceptible to stepping on a duck.
In addition to helping scientists and doctors deepen their understanding of the human digestive system, they hope to get funded for more research because the capsule could “provide a potentially powerful diagnostic technique, and could offer unique insights into the effects of diet and medical supplements. They say that “might also translate into a monitoring tool that can be used to help develop individualized diets,” which could lead to “individualization of drug disposition or the use of dietary manipulations,” so your specific problem could be given a specialized treatment.
Because everyone’s digestive sysztem is unique, just like every fart.
Would you sign up for this study? Or does this sound like it stinks? Don’t pass our comments section without telling us why.
Featured Image: Peter Clarke/RMIT UniversityÂ
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