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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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Causes or Cures Podcast, your gateway to understanding health and groundbreaking medical research in a fun and easy to understand way. With Dr. Eeks as your host, join us as we sit down with the world's leading doctors and scientists to unravel the mysteries of health. From practical tips on well-being to the latest breakthroughs in medical research, we cover it all. Don't forget to subscribe. Now, let's ignite our curiosity and together dive into today's episode.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Hello, hello everybody, and thanks for joining in to this episode of Causes or Cures. I'm Dr. Ekes, your host. Hope you're doing well out there. So, underwear. Underwear? Under there. We're gonna talk about underwear today. We're not talking about dumb underwear. No, no, no. We are talking about smart underwear. Yes, smart underwear is a thing, you guys. It's a thing. In this episode, I'm talking with researcher Dr. Brantley Hall about a wearable device designed to continuously measure hydrogen gas produced by our gut microbes. Basically, it's measuring farts. Okay, that's the elevator pitch. And while the underwear part is admittedly fun, the bigger idea is pretty fascinating. A new way to watch how the gut microbiome responds to what we eat almost in real time. Smart underwear, you guys. So we get into how it works, what they learned, when people actually wore the device, and where this technology could eventually take us. Maybe by the end of this, you too will want a pair. Alright, so let's connect to Dr. Hall and learn more about smart underwear. Alright, everybody. We are connecting with Professor Brantley Hall. Brantley, thank you for joining in. And do you mind telling our listeners a little bit about yourself and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Sure thing. So I'm a microbiologist at the University of Maryland. We mostly study human gut microbes, and we're truly fascinated by the chemistry that microbes perform in your gut. And that doesn't seem like immediately like farts, but one of the key outcomes of microbial metabolism in your gut is gas production. And you know, until today, this has been largely unmeasured. So that's one of the big gaps we're trying to solve in my lab at the University of Maryland.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

We've never measured farts before.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Almost never.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

We can go into the technical details. I can describe in like a lot of detail what was measured and how it's not exactly farts. But yeah, farts have technically never been measured before.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

Okay. So when I first saw your paper and I saw some of the news articles, I'm like, smart underwear, like what is this? And then I said, I have to ask you to come on the podcast. And then I also have to ask you, like, how did you get this idea?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Like Okay, well, there's a story there. Um, so we were trying to do this in vitro, um, just like growing microbes, and we're trying to measure the amount of hydrogen that they produced. And the microbes in your gut, they live in an anaerobic environment. There's no there's no oxygen around. And so we have to replicate that to grow them in vitro. So we were, you know, measuring hydrogen or at least trying to in our anaerobic chamber in my lab, and the hydrogen sensor never worked. It worked great outside of the anaerobic chamber, but it did not work in the anaerobic chamber. And so I got really frustrated with this one day, and I'm like, I'm gonna take it home over the weekend and I'm gonna fart on it. I'm gonna see if we can measure this microbial metabolate because it's the exact same thing we're trying to measure. And you know, it works great outside of the chamber, but it didn't work inside the anaerobic chamber. So we switched up instead of trying to do this like directly in microbes, we took a more human-centric approach and now we're like studying the phenomenon in humans.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

I love that. So you just took the one. 100%. It's hysterical. Okay, but you know, and it sounds funny to people, and I get that, but like there's actually a connection here to something like scientific and that could help people. So, like if you were giving an elevator pitch, why smart underwear? Like, what's what's the big deal?

SPEAKER_01 3:59

One in five people report excess intestinal gas. There's no way to measure it. So you if you go to your doctor, we're stuck in like basically you know, the last century, they're gonna ask you from smiley face to frowny face, how bad is your gas? We think that gas production deserves to be measured. Just like we measure heart rate, like we measure postprennial glucose response. We should measure gas because it has a big effect on our health. It affects how we feel. If you have excess gas, it you know, um makes you think worse. You know, it kind of like makes you irritable. It it causes so many effects. And people talk about the gut brain axis, and this is one kind of communication strategy. The microbes, you know, it's a way that we feel what's going on in our digestive tract is the amount of gas and the sensation of bloating. And so there's like one of our problems is there's so many things related to this. It's kind of hard to answer just one. But I think in the future, we hope to kind of give a voice to people who show up with their doctor. They're like, I'm farting a hundred times a day. The doctor's like, no way. And we want to give this person like some objective data to show their doctor and say, I really am. This is this is my pattern, because right now it's based completely on subjective patient reports.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

And that's so interesting too, because I I don't remember like the last time I was asked that or offered that information at the doctor's office. But like, what is normal? Like if someone says they're farting five times a day, and or if someone says they're farting 50 times a day, like what what is a lot?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah. And so this is based on a very small study done in like the 1980s, but the number is 14 plus or minus six flattys per day. Now, this isn't actually a fart, though, because this study was done via rectal tubes. So they like had people in the office, they used a rectal tube and collected the gas and they kind of inferred farts from it. But I would note that like the rectum plays an important part in the actual kind of emergence of a flattus. And so I think a rectal tube bypasses one piece of it. So I don't even think that was truly the measurement of flatus, and it was in like two dozen people, and so like we we can do better in the 21st century.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

We can do better. I love that the emergence of Flatus. A flat is it Flatus or Flatus?

SPEAKER_01 6:03

I think you're supposed to say it Flatus, but like some people say it flatus. I I'm guilty of sometimes saying flatus because it was like flatulence. It's a it's but flatus is like I think what you should say. And like if you're in the UK, it's definitely Flatus. In the US, like people kind of like verge between Flatus and Flatus.

SPEAKER_03 6:19

Okay, so your device measures hydrogen and intestinal gas. So why hydrogen? What is that telling us about what the gut gut microbes are doing?

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Yeah, great question. So there's two major gases present in farts, um hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is also produced by humans. And so it's not a signal of microbial metabolism. It's not an exclusive signal. Like microbes produce it, but you know, there could be, you know, you could be standing behind a car or you could be breathing on it. So it's cross-sensitive to other things. But the amount of hydrogen that's present in a fart is extraordinary. There might be 30 to 50% hydrogen. And like you hope that you don't encounter any other environments with 30 to 50% hydrogen, because that's genuinely an explosive level. Actually, 4% is explosive. And so um, you really won't encounter 30 to 50% hydrogen anywhere else in the world. And so if you have such a high amount of hydrogen, it's an incredibly good signal for microbial metabolism. And so if there's hydrogen present in farts, it means your microbes in the gut are doing something.

unknown 7:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

And is that good or bad? Like, is it do you want more or do you want less, or are we trying to get like optimal range?

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Yeah, there's not one answer that's going to apply to everyone. So there are people, you know, that are farting too much and want to fart less. There's people who have, you know, the sensation of trapped gas and want to fart more. There's the dimension of our diet. So like I could give someone a diet that makes them fart zero times a day, but that probably wouldn't be a healthy diet. And so like one of our major challenges right now is with our ultra-processed food is adding more fiber back into our diet. 95% of Americans don't eat like enough fiber based on the FDA's recommended um amount. And so adding fiber is really important. It's you know so good for health, but at the same time, it's directly correlated with the production of flatus. And so you kind of you know could be eating a lot of fiber and farting 200 times a day, and you could feel very healthy. But what the most interesting thing is like we actually see these people, we call them Zen digesters, and we don't actually have a scientific explanation for this. They eat healthy high fiber diets, but don't fart much, which means that there's a microbial configuration out there, which supports a healthy high fiber diet without excess gas. And so those people are kind of, you know, what we're trying to kind of get to in other people, like tap figure out what that state is and how to like recreate that state in other people so they can eat healthy high fiber diets without farting.

SPEAKER_03 8:44

I'm gonna ask a really pedestrian grade school question here. Can you hold in? Can you actually hold in a fart and like not let it go? And are these based on self-report?

SPEAKER_01 8:55

So ours are based on objective, but um yeah, you can hold and some hydrogen is gonna diffuse across into circulation. And you breathe out some hydrogen produced by gut microbes. So you actually have farts in your breath, is like the way I like to say it. But hydrogen is very insoluble, and so not that much hydrogen like goes out. It might be like a considerable amount of the total, but it's very diluted in your breath. So there's not that much hydrogen. Is it possible to hold a fart and make it completely go away? Unknown. But do we see the pattern of people holding their farts? 100%. There's like a very kind of famous example in our lab of someone who like this person was wearing the device for one week every day in a row. And during the weekdays, it was like very few farts. And on the weekend, it was like 50 farts a day. And we knew this person, so we could ask them like what's going on here. And she's like, Well, I feel so so self-conscious because I live with a roommate and I don't want to just be farting all the time. But like when I'm at home, I go home on the weekends, I just let them rip. I feel less self-conscious. And so we 100% see that pattern. And actually, when we are doing studies, we have people wear it on one weekday and one weekend day to kind of compensate for that um pattern people have.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

That's really interesting. But so you can't hold it in forever, it will come out.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

I think. I think. I mean, there could be a very edge case where you have very few VARDs overall and they're holding them in. But I think that's going to describe a very small portion of people. It's and science doesn't know the answer to that either. So, like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

Um it's to me determined. More research is needed. So, one thing that surprised me about your paper. So, I people wore the device, like the smart underwear, for more than 11 hours a day. Yeah. So, okay, so to me that means like it's pretty comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

So tell me about the process, what it took to make these underwear and to get people to wear them.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

All right. I'll hold up the very first version. Oh yes. It's it's good to show the progress. So this is the very first version. So there's like a belt clip, and then this big wire would go into your pants, and this would stick to your underwear. And so obviously, no one wanted to wear that. So we've done many hardware revisions over the last five years, and we've got it down to something that's about the size of a stack of nickels. And um, do you have a snap? I'll hold up the snap, my camera can focus. This might be audio only, but there's a snap, and the snap goes on the inside of the underwear, and the smart underwear goes on the outside, and you kind of just snap it in and it fits, you know, pretty, pretty comfortably. There's a space, we like to say adjacent to the perennium, kind of like near your butt. And there's space there. And if you find the right spot and center it in your underwear, you really won't feel it very well. If if it's uh like it's off-center, you will feel it, but if it's on center, you you won't feel it that much. And actually, like the the paper was with an older device, but with our newer device, we have people wear it 24 hours a day. And no barn. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:47

Okay, so okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

So there goes my dog. No worries. Come here, Barnaby. There he goes again. Barnaby. All right, so were you hold on Barnaby? Barnaby. Barnabas. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

No worries.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Alright, now where did I Okay, okay, so you test it. Were you surprised that people were willing to wear it just because of the psychology around it, like measuring farts?

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Very much. And it's never been a problem to find people to wear it though. So when we launched our human flatus atlas study, we were thinking about how many devices should we make? And we we made 800, and we're like, oh, we'll never use all these. So 13,000 people have signed up so far. Um, and so we have an absolutely overwhelming demand. And I get emails from people every day um asking to be in the study. And so we're we're trying to make devices as fast as we can. Obviously, we won't be able to include all 13,000, but just based on the emails I get, there are people who are so motivated to understand like where they compare to the average and what is kind of triggering their flatulence patterns.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

And is it like men and women, all different ages?

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Perhaps women more than men, if we're being honest. Um really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:03

Wow. That's so because one of my questions was like, how who volunteered for this type of study? So you have no issues getting volunteers.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

We're we're our issues, we're completely overwhelmed by the amount of people emailing us. Yeah. Um, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

One part of your paper that I loved when you wrote to address fire hazard concerns associated with lithium ion batteries, we redesigned the power system to use two silver oxide coin cell batteries just because that created such a funny image in my brain. Because I was like, oh my gosh, like if there's a fire in your underwear, like literally, that's what I thought of. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

And it's it was a really big concern for us. I mean, I think there's the saying, you know, liar, liar, pants on fire. And we said that to ourselves a lot, and we didn't want that to happen to anyone. So um we've we've done a ton of engineering around making the battery safe. And like when now it's like encased in like a metal case, and there's like multiple chips on the PCB that make sure that it doesn't short and overpower or overheat. And so, yeah, there's never been any issues. Um, we were just trying to, you know, be safe. And so we we've we've been able to succeed in that part. Yeah. No one's ever had a battery issue.

SPEAKER_03 14:04

So you were able to detect changes after participants ate inulin, which is a type of dietary fiber. So can you tell our listeners a little bit about that? Like you were like, oh, yeah, this thing works.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Exactly. And the design of this study was literally just to say that this works. And so inulin is a very common fiber. It's made from chicory roots. And if you eat like a fiber one bar or a lot of foods that have added fiber, um, inulin is probably going to be the fiber that you eat. And in our testing, inulin probably causes more gas than most other fibers. So it's pretty gassy. So we just designed a study to contrast a no fiber versus high fiber diet. And the hypothesis was if smart out where is working in, we could detect that difference. And so we fed people dots candy and we found these Amazon fiber gummies that looked just like dots. So they were actually blinded to it. Um dots are terrible, actually. What was concerning is the Amazon fiber gummies were more delicious than the got the dots. So um, yeah, dots are terrible. But we had these two things. So that it was single blinded. We had people eat dots one day, and then these Amazon fiber gummies with six grams of anulin this the second day, and we compared the amount of farts. And very, very, you know, fortunately for us, and 36 out of 38 people, there were more farts on the you know day with the fiber than the day with just the regular dots. And so we are able to confirm, you know, we were very good at detecting farts.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

Very good at detecting farts. Wow. Did anything surprise you from your results?

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Oh my goodness, so many things surprised me. Um so I mean, this was complete scientific unknown. Uh so there we saw the first signs of the Zen digester in the study, in the very first study, but like people who were eating a lot but not farting a lot. That was like strange. Um, not the scientific prediction. We were surprised by how many times people were farting in the paper. Um, our person was like 59 times a day on average, but now we're up to like over 200 times a day on people are farting. And like imagine going to your doctor who read the medical definition, 14 plus or minus six, and you're like, hello, I'm farting 200 times a day. What are they gonna think? They're gonna think you're crazy. I was actually giving a talk at a medical school um like last month, and I I it was to like younger doctors, like residents and fellows. And I asked them, like in your medical school that they were in recently, how many times a day did they tell you people would fart? And actually, no one had learned about how many times it's normal either, which is an interesting thing. Um, and so yeah, that was extremely fascinating. We we were also fascinated by the patterns. I could go on forever. I'll I'll wrap this up. But a lot of people have these postprandial farts, and so it's like they eat and then they fart kind of shortly afterwards. And it's probably not the gas from the meal that they just consumed, but it's kind of like gas that's stored in their gut, and then the gastrocolic reflex becomes active after you eat, and like that gas is kind of passed shortly after. So we were kind of surprised at the patterns of this gastrocolic reflex that we could see um kind of in farts as well.

SPEAKER_03 16:50

Okay, I'm gonna ask another kindergarten-like question, but just because I have you on the line here, you did nothing with like the smell of the fart. Like, does the hydrogen gas correspond with the smell? I know that was not part of your work, but I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Great question. And we we actually have a an NIH grant on like this exact topic, measuring hydrogen sulfide and flattus. Um, so there's there's I'll I'll gonna give a hedge though. So as a scientist, you always have to hedge. There's there's multiple molecules that contribute to the odor of flatulence. Um, there's volatile sulfur compounds. The most abundant is hydrogen sulfide, and it has a rotten egg smell. And then it gets kind of they get larger. So there's methane thiol, so it's like CH3SH. And that one smells more like rotten cabbage. Like if you got like kemchi in your refrigerator and like open the refrigerator, that smell. And then the larger um volatile sulfur compounds have more of like a burnt rubber smell. If someone like did like a burnout in their car in front of your house, kind of like that smell. So I think the rotten egg smell and like the rotten cabbage smell are the most common kind of like um, you know, fart smells. But there's also amines. Um, and there's um molecules like scatol and spermidine that have some weird smells. And then there's this molecule called Endol, which is it's a fascinating molecule. It kind of has what people report to be a fecal odor, but um it's also used in perfume. And I smelled it. I made a bunch of different concentrations of it and smelled it. I don't think it smells good in any concentration, so it's very strange that they're using it in perfume. But so those are some of the molecules that like kind of lend farts their their odor. But these are like incredibly low abundance compared to hydrogen. There might be like one ppm hydrogen sulfide versus 200,000 ppm hydrogen. So our noses are just really good at detecting it. Um I I this is a hypothesis, but I would say that humans are probably adapted towards smelling rotten food and avoiding rotten food. I mean, imagine our ancestors and they're trying to like figure out is this you know safe to eat or unsafe to eat. And hydrogen sulfide is a pretty good signal of of decay. And so we're very, very sensitive at like PPB levels to hydrogen sulfide and methane thyl. And so those are kind of the main molecules. But we can measure them. Um, we haven't published our study about this yet, but it's uh we'll follow up maybe next year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

Yeah, definitely. I I'm I'm curious about that. And that that's such a great hypothesis. What you just said about, you know, kind of like how we evolved and then why we like run into the other room if somebody farts like that, or like you don't want to be the person to do that, and everybody wants to avoid you. Yeah. There's a lot of social interactions involved when it comes to farting and like shame and embarrassment and and humor too.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Um I think so. Yeah. And I think our culture is kind of puritanical and it's like treatment of farts that it's like, you know, we're like a quiet culture, and it's like very rude to be loud and interrupt and be smelly. But I think in other cultures they have a much more kind of let it rip attitude, and it'll just be like farting at the table and like it's okay. And so there's like a cult cultural dimension of of fart acceptance as well. Um, so I I I people love to talk about it in different cultures and like what their family's like or what they're, you know, like in their home country, what it's like. And it's very different.

SPEAKER_03 20:00

Where what country could you just like fart freely and feel proud? Loud and proud.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

So this person was from Southeast Asia. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:09

Oh, okay, okay. You're so right though. Like, yeah, here we're just like, oh, don't fart, don't do it, it'll ruin your social life. Yeah. Um, which is crazy, which is crazy because it's something that we have to do. But so so and from your research, it sounds like two people can eat like the exact same thing, and then their smart underwear are gonna show different measurements.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah, totally. And that was very surprising to us. We we didn't expect it. But and even between the same person between different days, like there were people who farted a hundredfold more on the Inulin day than on the sham day. So, like just by changing what you eat, you can fart a hundred times more one day versus another.

SPEAKER_03 20:48

Awesome. So, what what does this tell us?

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Uh yeah, so it gives you an idea of what your gut microbiome is up to. So that those people um who are farting a lot, their microbiomes are very active, they're metabolizing and producing hydrogen. This can lead to like overall physiological effects. So there's this gut brain axis phenomenon where if you have repeated distension of your GI tract, it can lead to sensitization, and then you become kind of like aware of normal amounts of gas to where you like, you become normal amounts of gas become painful. And that's a disorder called visceral hypersensitivity. Um, and so a lot of people with IBS actually have this disorder of on the gut brain axis called visceral hypersensitivity. And it's it's a big problem because these people will show up to their doctor and they're like, I'm farting a ton, but they're not actually farting a ton, but the doctor doesn't know how much they're actually farting because this is just the patient reported value. And so they can't get them the right treatment. And so we want to stratify people into like true high farters and actually low farters, but perceived high farts. And those people are going to get different kinds of like treatment regimens.

SPEAKER_03 21:50

Oh, wow. That's that's so interesting. Now, you'll hear someone complain of being bloated, right? And is that, but then you hear different things about bloat. You'll hear like, oh, Caused by too much cortisol. But cortisol, I'm sure, and you'll know more about this than I do, connects to the microbiome. But like, does that mean that you have a lot of gas when you're bloated?

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Not necessarily. Bloat is such a complicated phenomenon, and it's very annoying for gastroenterologists. I think this is a really good use of this more underwear, is identifying whether excess gas is going to be a cause of bloating in that person. So some people who are bloated truly will have a lot of excess gas. But some won't. Some will have other reasons like cortisol or, you know, like, you know, other other um constipation or some other issues, and even just like not actually even be bloated objectively. They just feel bloated. And so they they have the perception of bloating. And so um, this is kind of a a problem that doctors have because like you show up and they're like, are you bloated now? And it's like, no, I'll I'll be bloated later. And then like, but you're not bloated there, so they can't really evaluate it. Um there's even this like crazy disease, abdominophrenic dysynergia, where there's like a disorder of the muscles in in your kind of belly, and you wake up and your stomach's flat, but like by the end of the night, you look pregnant, and um, it's not related to gas production. It's bloating, but it's not related to gas production. And so there's a lot going on there. Um and the smart underwear can be useful in stratifying these people and understanding what is the cause of their bloating.

SPEAKER_03 23:18

Okay, so tell me what do you see smart underwear being used for? It sounds like you're in the research stage still.

unknown 23:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

But like, okay, so where do you see where do you see this going?

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Yeah, so I mean, it's very, very useful in research projects. And in fact, I'm involved in so many collaborations now um where people are feeding participants and trying to see like the amount of gas and how that relates to other phenomena, or even seeing whether um participants are actually following a diet. So if you give someone a very strict diet, an exclusion diet, and they're fighting a lot, they're not following the diet. So it gives you kind of an idea of compliance with the diet. So there's that research dimension.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

There's a big kind of change in the prebiotic industry or the fiber industry that's going on right now. You know, it was previously like psyllium and enulin were the major fiber ingredients, but those were kind of like chosen because they were cheap and they're not really good. And so now we're finding better fibers and prebiotics that we can add to food. And we're working with the kind of ingredient companies to help verify, you know, whether these are good, what dose you need, is it better than enulin or not? So there's that kind of like research use. But we think uh kind of a direct consumer use could also be something really interesting where people kind of like a microbiome test, people are very curious about themselves. And it's like a journey of self-discovery. It's like, what are my fart patterns like compared to other people? You know, if I eat like a lot of apples, do I fart a lot, or is it like garlic? Like a lot of people say I fart a ton after garlic, but you know, you could you know buy one of the devices and like eat different foods, and we could help you understand like the triggers that lead to your gas production. And so and even understand the kind of alignment of your gut-brain axis. Um so we would like ask people how much do you think you're farting, and then like measure how much they actually are farting, and be like, oh, well, you know, you're you're right on, or wait, you're vastly overreporting the number of farts you have. Like you're you're this is normal. Just like kind of like relax. And that's like sounds small, but like that's what a lot of people are looking for when they they kind of seek care from their gastroenterologists. Like, just this is normal because it's something we don't talk about, and something so stigmatized, and so like understanding that like where they sit is really important. So I could keep going, but I'm gonna I'm gonna stop there. There's many uses.

SPEAKER_03 25:27

Yeah, no, no, I love that. And I I just remember when when I was in med school, like you might ask someone after surgery, like, are you passing gas? But then it was like you don't really talk about like exactly, and it's always embarrassing.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

We're actually doing a study exactly on that, um the post-surgical part part resumption.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

Um that's a that's a brilliant, yeah. And that would be that's actually you know, just in terms of like, oh yeah, there's not an obstruction or something, or like this person, yeah. Oh, that's exactly fun.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Exactly. That would have to be a medical device, and so that would have to undergo approval. Um so there's a kind of bigger barrier to that. But we're 100% investigating whether it'd be interesting.

SPEAKER_03 26:03

Um, I love that. Now, would no a consumer can't get this right now. Smart underwear, like you can't go to Amazon and get smart underwear.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Not yet. But um but we're like it's coming. We it's coming, yeah. We have a spin-out company, and um we're gonna launch. I can't I can't name the details yet, but um we're gonna launch this fall and it will be a companion to a microbiome test. So you can do a stool microbiome test and then see how your farts relate to the microbes live in your gut and kind of kind of really good synergy between the two types of tests. So um expect to see something. It would be ultra exclusive at first, like just a few hundred people, but um, you know, yeah. No, people are are really like buggy me really hard to buy it. And so we're gonna try to make them, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:44

Oh no, I love that. So what is you got a lot of media attention? I'm just what what has been like what headline made you kind of like raise an eyebrow or laugh, or if did you see something out there where you're like, oh my gosh, that's right, or oh my gosh, that's wrong.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

There's been so much good coverage. My favorite headline is Fitbit for Farts. And so that was in the Wall Street Journal. I think that's a good name.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Fitbit for Farts, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

It gives you a good idea of what it is. That that's my favorite one. But um several journalists actually like wore the device and and did several trials um with with them and like ate different foods. And so those were my favorite ones when people people used it.

SPEAKER_03 27:21

I think it's in I think it would be a very interesting self-test. Like I would do it, honestly. But if you have an extra device lying around with it, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

I mean, we can send you one and you can show the results and you know look, you know, tell tell your reviewers how much you're farting.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

I'm not, I think it's super interesting what you're doing, and uh it's awesome that you created this. I'm I'm usually not like a person who monitors everything because like I feel like I could become too obsessive about it. And I I do, I let like a lot of things go, but um, I think this is very interesting in terms of like microbiome and nutrition and just seeing because sometimes you'll be like, Oh, why do I feel so gaseous today? Like, what did I think about? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

We've all had that day, and like what did we eat? Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 28:03

Yeah, yeah. Or like, is something wrong with me? Um, so do you tell people now that you invented smart underwear?

SPEAKER_01 28:09

For sure. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

Yeah, that's like your tagline.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

I mean, we we've done many cool things in my lab, um, found many important enzymes as well. But yeah, unfortunately, like Dr. Fart is the one that's catching up with me right now. That's the Doctor.

SPEAKER_03 28:22

How do you feel about that? It's fine.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

I I'm not offended by it at all. I think people people always want to make fart jokes to me, but they're like scared that I'm gonna be offended. I'm like, I love fart jokes, like have at it. Like, so no problem here.

SPEAKER_03 28:34

What's your favorite fart joke?

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Do you have one? Or it's more like a fart story. So there is a court jester who became like went from not owning land to owning land in England based on his fart performances. His name was Roland the Farter.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

I love that. So he his farts actually helped him find success. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

He was a court jester who became like a landed noble based on his farting ability.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

I my god. All right, so there was no dream too uh small or too that's good for him. Wow. All right, um, keep studying, kids. No, just kidding, guys. And you're doing a lot of research, and that sounds and then we might be able one day, smart underwear might be on Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:22

I I love that, Brent. This is cool. Thank you so much. I think it's great what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_03 29:28

Absolutely. Is there anything else my listeners should know or check out? I'm I'm gonna include the link to the study for sure.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Yeah. You can still sign up at flatist.info, f l-a t-us.info um if you want to. We we do have a pretty big backlog, but if you sign up, you can kind of get on the list for the you know next studies. We're we're gonna make thousands of devices and send them out. So if you sign up, you can get on the list and get notified when when more devices are coming out. We we love it.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

Flatisinfo.com.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

You didn't flattis.info, yeah. Just flatus.info.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

You didn't do fart.info.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

I I tried, but it was it was already taken.

SPEAKER_03 30:01

Um I won't I wonder who has that.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

It's not it's not a live webpage, if my memory serves me.

SPEAKER_03 30:07

It's just the oh did you try to find them and buy the it was listed for thousands of dollars, yeah. Forget it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

This is a university project, can't afford an expensive domain. But I think Flatus.info is a really good one. So it's you know, only five letters or nine letters total.

SPEAKER_03 30:21

No, you'll Flatus, it's it's memorable. Flatis.info. All right, all right. Maybe some listeners will check it out then.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 30:27

Thanks for joining. Um good for you. You're gonna become really rich.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

I don't think so. Well, would you be a fart millionaire? It's like you would tell people that. Yes, yes. I remember um, did you watch the show Frasier?

SPEAKER_03 30:40

Oh, of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

And I think that Niall's wife became rich from urinal cakes. But she told everyone she was rich from timber, but in fact, like she became rich from urinal cakes. I I think about that story sometimes. It's like I'm not embarrassed to tell people about farts though, so it's fine.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

No, I think and why would if it makes you super rich, you're gonna like farts measuring farts. That's that's good, it could go down in the history books.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

I mean, I think it's just an important thing we measure. I mean, think about all the aspects of human physiology that we measure, and we learn stuff from all of them. Like, I think there's something to learn here too.

SPEAKER_03 31:14

Yeah, oh no, for sure there is. You shouldn't be embarrassed at all. You'll be laughing on the way to the bank. Laughing and farting on the way to the bank.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

That's very kind.

SPEAKER_03 31:23

Um, but thanks for your time, and I'll follow follow up on email.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Sounds good. Great talking to you.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

Yeah, you too. Keep me posted on any other research that comes out.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

We'll do. There will be more stories soon.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

Yeah, yeah. Please do, please do. Um, I love this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

So fantastic. Great. Talk to you later.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

Take care. All right. Thank you everybody for tuning in. Let me know what you thought in the comments or on social media or over email or wherever you want to state your opinion on smart underwear. I will read it. And if you learn something, share it with a friend. Usually people love underwear stuff and fart stuff. Um, I don't know why, but we just do. And now it's time for the closing quote. This one is from Kurt Von Gutt. Am I saying his name right? Von Gutt. Gut? That's funny for this one. All right, here's here's the quote. I tell you, we are here on earth to fart around and don't let anybody tell you different. Do you agree? I I kind of agree. I think that's what we are here for, but then people lose sight of that and take ourselves too seriously. Like, oh, we're gonna live forever, and this is the end all be all, and we're really just like a bunch of ants crawling in our little ant farm. Anyways, uh yeah, don't go home with that thought. Go out there and manifest, manifest good things, and I hope to see you here next time. Yeah, all that positive psychology stuff. Insert here. Okay. Uh goodbye for now.