The Journal of mHealth Vol 3 Issue 1 (Feb/Mar 2016) | Page 11

INDUSTRY
NEWS
News and Information for
Digital Health Professionals

Smart Pill Senses the Body's
Fibre Factor
Researchers have conducted the first ever trials of smart pills
that can measure intestinal gases inside the body, with surprising
results revealing some unexpected ways that fibre affects the gut.
Intestinal gases have been linked to colon cancer, irritable bowel
syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but
their role in health is poorly understood and there is currently
no easy and reliable tool for detecting them inside the gut.
The first animal trials of smart gas sensing pills developed at
Australia's RMIT University - which can send data from inside
the gut directly to a mobile phone - have examined the impact
of low and high-fibre diets on intestinal gases and offer new
clues for the development of treatments for gut disorders.
Lead investigator Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh, from the
Centre for Advanced Electronics and Sensors at RMIT, said the
results reversed current assumptions about the effect of fibre
on the gut.
"We found a low-fibre diet produced four times more hydrogen in the small intestine than a high-fibre diet," Kalantar-zadeh
said. "This was a complete surprise because hydrogen is produced through fermentation, so we naturally expected more
fibre would equal more of this fermentation gas.”
"The smart pills allow us to identify precisely where the gases
are produced and help us understand the microbial activity in
these areas - it's the first step in demolishing the myths of food
effects on our body and replacing those myths with hard facts.”
"We hope this technology will in future enable researchers to
design personalised diets or drugs that can efficiently target
problem areas in the gut, to help the millions of people worldwide that are affected by digestive disorders and diseases."
The trials revealed different levels of fibre in a diet affected both
how much gas was produced and where it was concentrated in
the gut - in the stomach, small intestine or large intestine.

The smart pills were trialled on two groups of pigs - whose
digestive systems are similar to humans - fed high and low-fibre
diets. The results indicate the technology could help doctors differentiate gut disorders such as IBS, showing:
»» high-fibre diets produce more methane gas in the large
intestine than the low-fibre diet, suggesting that painful gut
gas retention could be avoided by cutting back on highfibre food
»» low-fibre diets produced four times more hydrogen gas in
the small intestine than high-fibre, indicating a high-fibre
regimen could be better for patients with IBS caused by
bacterial overgrowth in small intestine
»» the ratio of carbon dioxide and methane gases remained
the same in the large intestine for both diets, suggesting
that neither diet would be helpful for people suffering IBS
diseases associated with excess methane concentration
The research, jointly conducted with the Department of Gastroenterology at The Alfred Hospital, Monash University, the
University of Melbourne and CSIRO, is published in the January edition of the high-impact journal, Gastroenterology. n

The Journal of mHealth

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