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BREAKING WIND NEWS —

With ingestible pill, you can track fartdevelopment in real time on your phoneFirst human trials reveal gut gas chambers and blustery effects of diet.

- 1/9/2018, 4:30 AM

Scientists often hope to break ground with their research. But a group of Australian researcherswould likely be happy with breaking wind.

The team developed an ingestible electronic capsule to monitor gas levels in the human gut. When

Enlarge / The ingestible electronic pill.

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BETH MOLE

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it’s paired with a pocket-sized receiver and a mobile phone app, the pill reports tail-wind conditions inreal time as it passes from the stomach to the colon. The researchers, led by Kourosh Kalantar-Zadehof RMIT University and Peter Gibson of Monash University, reported their invention Monday in NatureElectronics.

The authors are optimistic that the capsule’s gas readings can help clear the air over the innerworkings of our intricate innards and the multitudes of microbes they contain. Such fume data couldclarify the conditions of each section of the gut, what microbes are up to, and which foods may causeproblems in the system. Until now, collecting such data has been a challenge. Methods to bottle itinvolved cumbersome and invasive tubing and inconvenient whole-body calorimetry. Popping theelectronic pill is a breeze in comparison. And early human trials have already hinted that the pill canprovide new information about intestinal wind patterns and gaseous turbulence from different foods.

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“Our pilot trial illustrated the significant potential role for electronic-based gas-sensing capsules inunderstanding functional aspects of the intestine and its microbiota in health and in response todietary changes,” the researchers concluded.

The authors are currently setting up a commercial company to further develop and test the capsules.

Toot tracker

about 30 seconds, 20/30 seconds to get an answer to that

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For their pilot study, the researchers beefed up a prototype they had previously tested in pigs. Thecapsule is 26mm in length, with a 9.8mm external diameter—like a large vitamin. Its polymer shellsurrounds sensors for temperature, CO , H , and O , as well as a button-size silver oxide battery anda transmission system. One end of the capsule contains a gas-permeable membrane that allows forfast diffusion of gut gases.

In the trial data published Monday, researchers tested the capsule in six healthy people. For the first,researchers monitored the pill’s intestinal trek using ultrasound and linked locations with gas profiles.Overall, it took 20 hours to get from one end to the other, spending 4.5 hours in the stomach, 2.5hours in the small intestine, and 13 hours cruising through the colon.

In that time, the pill took continuous gas measurements, revealing potentially useful information inaddition to gut position. For instance, CO and H levels peaked in the early hours of its time in thecolon while O levels crashed throughout this stretch of the trip. That jibes with the horde of

2 2 2

RMIT UniversityThe membrane on the real capsule. Those look swallowable.

2 2

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anaerobic bacteria (those that live without oxygen) that inhabit the colon. There, they fermentundigested food bits into short-chain fatty acids that play significant roles in our health andmetabolism.

Gusty guts

In the next human trial, the researchers had one person gulp the pill twice. The first time, he ate avery high-fiber diet (50 grams per day) for two days prior to swallowing the pill. Two weeks later, hegulped another pill after eating a low-fiber diet (15 grams per day) for two days.

In the high-fiber test, the man passed the pill in about 23 hours. But he was not happy about it. Thesuper dose of fiber caused abdominal pain. In its four hours in the colon, the pill recorded elevatedlevels of O , which could mess up anaerobes. Indeed, an analysis of fecal bacteria during this phaseshowed a shift toward species associated with poor gut health.

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RMIT UniversityGas and temperature data from the first trial. Gas data from the second trial, when the male participant ate a high-fiber diet.

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BETH MOLE

Beth is Ars Technica’s health reporter. She’s interested in biomedical research, infectious disease, healthpolicy and law, and has a Ph.D. in microbiology.

EMAIL beth.mole@arstechnica.com // TWITTER @BethMarieMole

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There were also problems in the low-fiber scenario. The pill took a little more than three days to workits way out. It spent 13 hours in the stomach, 5.5 in the small intestines, and a whopping 54 in thecolon. In fact, about 36 hours after taking the pill, the man was given a high dose of fiber to try tomove things along. Prior to that fiber intervention, H gas levels in the colon had plummeted,suggesting a drop off in fermentation. It picked back up 12 hours after the fiber treatment, the pilldata showed.

Last, the researchers recruited four more healthy patients to pass the pill. Two ate a high-fiber diet(though not quite as high as the last trial), while the remaining two ate a low-fiber diet. Gasesbillowed in their bowls with similar patterns seen in the earlier trials.

In an accompanying editorial, mechanical engineer Benjamin Terry of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln concluded that the capsules “have remarkable potential to help us understand the functionalaspects 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 arequest to swallow a tiny electronic monitoring device,” he added.

Nature Electronics, 2017. DOI: 10.1038/s41928-017-0004-x  (About DOIs).

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