Smart toilets and health.
Did you realize that you are flushing valuable health information down the toilet every day? Our bowel movements are full of biomarkers for various conditions, including cancer, COVID-19, irritable bowel disease, etc.
I don’t know about you, but I have no great desire to frequently obtain stool samples to send to a lab, even if I am willing to do it annually as a colorectal cancer screening.
The modern flush toilet has been around for over four centuries. My Toto toilet can wash, warm, and air dry me. But a recent study published in Nature reminds us that our toilets can potentially do much more.
The toilet’s history
Latrines that used a constant stream of water to carry away waste date back more than 5,000 years. Several ancient civilizations used them, including the Romans and the Mohenjo-Dara and Harappa of the Indus Valley.
Several years ago, as I walked through Turkey’s Aegean coast in the large resort town of Kusadasi (Ephesus), I saw latrines. These public toilets of ancient Ephesus formed part of the Scholastica Baths and sat next to the Temple of Hadrian.
The ancients constructed the toilets along a wall, like marble benches. I remember a central pool and a wooden ceiling over all of it. You can see a picture of it here:Ephesus Latrines (Public Toilets)The Latrines were the public toilets of the Ephesus city, and entrance fees were necessary to use them. They…www.Ephesus. ws
The modern toilet
Sir John Harington, Queen Elizabeth I’s godson and an English courtier, first described the modern flushable toilet in 1596. The device involved a two-foot deep bowl with waterproofing (pitch, resin, and wax).
An upstairs cistern fed water into the device with 7.5 gallons needed to flush. Fortunately, up to 20 people could use the toilet between flushes.
Into the future: Smart toilets and your health
We have come a long way in toilet innovation since Sir John Harington invented the modern flush toilet in 1596. Now Stanford researchers offer a disease-detecting “precision health” toilet.
The device can sense multiple signs of illness via automated stool and urine analysis. Imagine your toilet informing you that you have colorectal or bladder cancer.
Writing for the Stanford Medicine News, researcher Sanjiv “Sam” Gambhir, MD Ph.D., explains that alongside physical stream analysis, the toilet deploys urinalysis strips, or “dipstick tests,” to measure molecular features. Currently, the toilet measures ten biomarkers.
Then, the toilet sends the extracted data to a secure, cloud-based system. Gambhir explains that the system may be integrated into your medical record for easy access in the future.
A smart toilet may be heading your way.
The information I provided in this blog is for educational purposes only and does not substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult a medical professional or healthcare provider if you seek medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment. I am not liable for risks or issues associated with using or acting upon the information in this blog.
