Every day, vital information about your health is flushed down the toilet – literally. Bowel movements contain a veritable treasure trove of biomarkers that can uncover a wide array of conditions, from things you lack in your diet to deadly diseases, including COVID-19.
"Assessing fecal matter can help doctors detect certain types of cancers, give insight into the microbiome, and provide a deeper look into nutrition and lifestyle habits," says Jessie Ge, MD, of the Department of Urology at Stanford University School of Medicine.
It can help doctors customize treatments for irritable bowel syndrome or inflammatory bowel disease, she says. And lots more.
"I don't even know how many conditions can be examined," Ge says, "because there are a lot."
The problem is today's methods for stool assessment are expensive, inconvenient, and kind of gross. Many tests make you to poop in a tray, scoop out a sample, and mail it to a lab. This creates a huge barrier for use, since a patient must be very motivated to do it.
One solution, according to Ge and other scientists, is to create "smart toilets" that can capture lab-quality samples where they're first dropped off. That way, doctors and their patients can gain key insights with little to no action required.
