Smart Underwear: Because Regular Underwear Wasn’t Doing Enough. With Dr. Brantley Hall
Yes, scientists have invented smart underwear. And yes, we're going to have to talk about farts.
But this isn't really a story about underwear or even intestinal gas. It's about finding a new way to study the gut microbiome in real time.
In this episode, researcher Dr. Brantley Hall joins me to talk about the development of wearable “smart underwear” that continuously measures hydrogen produced by gut microbes.
We discuss why hydrogen can provide clues about what's happening inside the gut, how the device compares with traditional breath and stool testing, and what happened when participants wore it for more than 11 hours a day.
We also get into the engineering challenges of making smart underwear both comfortable and safe, including the rather important matter of not putting a lithium-ion battery in your underwear.
Brantley also explains how the device detected changes after participants consumed inulin, what this technology could teach us about individual responses to food, and whether continuous monitoring could someday have applications for personalized nutrition, IBS, food intolerances, and other digestive conditions.
And, naturally, we address the important question: When you've helped invent smart underwear, how exactly do you explain what you do for a living?
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