There’s an app for everything these days, including fart tracking in real time.
Researchers led by Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh of RMIT University and Peter Gibson of Monash University unveiled their new invention in this month’s edition of Nature Electronics.
The purpose of their research is to better understand the inner workings of the human gut and the millions of microbes living inside. The electronic pill pictured above provides real time information about what those microbes are doing and which foods cause digestion problems.
In the trial, researchers monitored the pill’s journey through the intestines of six healthy subjects. It took an average of 20 hours to pass through the body with about 4.5 hours in the stomach, 2.5 hours in the small intestine, and 13 hours in the colon.
The researchers monitored oxygen, carbon-dioxide, and hydrogen levels over time with high and low-fiber diets. In layman’s terms, they built a fart tracker.
Benjamin Terry of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln said the device has “remarkable potential to help us understand the functional aspects of the gut microbiome, its response to dietary changes, and its impact on health.”
“It might not be too long before a routine healthcare visit involves a check of your vital signs and a request to swallow a tiny electronic monitoring device,” he concluded.