New Smart Underwear Unlocks the Serious Science of Human Flatulence
We’ve got smart rings, smart watches, and now … smart underwear.
It was developed by a team of researchers led by biologist Brantly Hall of the University of Maryland in the form of a small device equipped with electrochemical sensors that can clip directly onto your underwear. What does this device measure? Farts, of course. Or to put it in more polite, scientific terms: flatus.
But why?
It turns out the scientific knowledge of human flatulence is almost as nebulous as the gas itself. To quote the “King of Farts,” gastroenterologist Michael Leavitt, “It is virtually impossible for the physician to objectively document the existence of excessive gas using currently available tests.” We have established baselines for normal blood glucose, normal cholesterol levels, normal hormone levels, but no such baseline exists for flatulence.
“We don’t actually know what normal flatus production looks like,” Hall explained in a statement. “Without that baseline, it’s hard to know when someone’s gas production is truly excessive.”
Read more: “The Curious Case of the Exploding Pig Farms”
To address this glaring gap in our understanding of the human body, the team created the discreet sensor, took it for a spin with human subjects, and recently published their findings in Biosensors and Bioelectronics: X. They found healthy adults pass gas an average of 32 times a day, more than twice the previous estimate of 14.
Why were previous estimates lower? One reason is that earlier studies relied on self-reporting flatulence, which (as you can imagine) resulted in an undercount. Now, with this new device, scientists can get an accurate read of the frequency and content of our intestinal gases.
“Objective measurement gives us an opportunity to increase scientific rigor in an area that’s been difficult to study,” Hall said.
So what exactly are farts made of? For most people, hydrogen along with some carbon dioxide and nitrogen, although some people’s flatus also includes methane. Hydrogen, produced exclusively by the microbiota in our guts, is what the sensor detects, and the data it collects gives us a better understanding of how active our gut biomes are. In tests, the sensor was able to detect increased hydrogen production after subjects consumed prebiotic fiber with 94.7 percent sensitivity.
“Think of it like a continuous glucose monitor, but for intestinal gas,” Hall said.
Moving forward, Hall and his team are launching the Human Flatus Atlas, recruiting hundreds of participants to establish normal baseline flatulence levels. Specifically, Hall is looking for gas passers across the spectrum that the team identified in their research: “zen digesters,” who eat high fiber diets but experience minimal flatulence; “hydrogen hyperproducers,” who flatulate frequently; and those who fall between those two extremes.
If you’d like to help, you can sign up here. Just know that your days of blaming it on the dog are over.
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Lead image: Aleksandra Kirichenko / Shutterstock
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