Electronic pill monitors your breathing and heart rate from your gut
A smart pill can accurately monitor your breathing and heart rate from inside your gut, which may be useful for detecting sleep apnoea
By Alice Klein
17 November 2023
The device contains an accelerometer that measures breathing and heart rate by detecting vibrations in the gut
Ben Pless
A smart pill that can measure your breathing and heart rate from inside your gut could potentially diagnose sleep apnoea and even detect opioid overdoses.
Sleep apnoea is defined as lapses in breathing during sleep. Diagnosis usually involves an overnight stay in hospital while being hooked up to devices that monitor a person’s breathing, heart rate and other physiological measures.
Now, Giovanni Traverso at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues have developed an ingestible electronic device that may allow people to be assessed for sleep apnoea wirelessly and cheaply while at home.
Advertisement
Read more
AI could diagnose sleep apnoea by watching you slumber at home
The device, which is roughly the size of a vitamin supplement, contains a tiny accelerometer that measures breathing and heart rate by detecting vibrations in the gut. It also has a medical-implant radio to transmit this information to an external computer.
The team tested the smart pill in 10 people, with an average age of 41, who were already booked in at the West Virginia University Medicine Sleep Evaluation Center.
