I’ve had some interesting assignments over my writing career: I’ve checked into a sweat lab, slept in an altitude chamber, I’ve run while high—in the colloquial sense—and I’ve run literally at 18,000 feet and at -39 degrees (F and C are the same at that temp).
I’ve raced down one of the steepest Austrian ski slopes, up an Olympic Nordic ski jump, and up the Empire State Building stairwell at 4 a.m. But when the call to test a “fart monitor” came up, this high-fiber, vegetarian runner knew he was the man for the job.
I was to run the Human Flatus Atlas (HFA) device through the paces. The HFA is a battery-charged disc the size of a nickel that snaps to one’s underwear at the perineum (better known as the “taint strip”) with the device on the outside of the shorts and the snap on the inside. One simply wears the monitor for 22 out of 24 hours to measure the “Flatusomics Metric” or microbiome activity by keeping count of the bottom burp index: how many and the magnitude of gaseous releases.
The smart device is small and snaps into normal underwear. (Photo: Brantley Hall, University of Maryland)
I take great pleasure in breaking wind when in the presence of smokers or heavy perfume wearers, and if nothing else, this assignment merely gave me carte blanche to drop bombs in the holy names of both science and journalism.
Why Is This a Thing?
When I told anyone who would listen about my newest testing, they invariably asked me the simple question: “Why?”
I posed the same query to Brantley Hall, Ph.D., assistant professor of Biology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Maryland, the person in charge of the study pioneering the HFA. But first, I informed Hall that runners are experts when it came to farting and, in the running context, I explained how the calorie-intake-while-running equation had dramatically morphed over the decades I’ve been a part of the scene—at least in the ultra-distance one.
When I started running ultras in the early ‘90s, we barely consumed anything, and it was an asset to have a low metabolism because you could go the distance without bonking. Now, however, the number of carb calories one is able to successfully consume in an hour—see “How Many Carbs Do You Really Need to Run Your Best?“—is a bragging stat, the way one might flaunt one’s VO2-Max or PR.
It is odd to try to explain to a non-runner why someone would want to train their systems to accommodate consuming over 100 grams of carbs per hour while physically exerting themselves, but Hall quickly understood the GI challenge it posed.
And it was these GI concerns that drove much of the fart monitor’s “why.”
Hall explained that those suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, lactose intolerance, celiac disease, and similar gut maladies are often in severe and chronic pain, so detecting the origins and helping to treat its resolution are of utmost importance.
Wearing the HFA allows for insight into one’s digestion activity, tracking patterns, time the onset of fermentation from time of ingestion to a flatus event, gauge one’s microbiome activity and determine the smoothness of one’s digestion. All by measuring something called hydrogen incidence.
Zen Digesters are people who consume high-fiber diets yet experience minimal flatus. (Photo: Brantley Hall, University of Maryland.)
Gaining such knowledge through the sensor and app feedback, HFA users can adjust and see if changes in diet or lifestyle successfully alter their microbiome score. For example, a runner may reduce consumption of rear-vocalization-causing foods, known as FODMAP (Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols) that tend to fuel gut bacteria, such as beans, lentils, whole grains, fruits, cruciferous vegetables, and experience smoother digestion. With this device, they can assure the alterations continue to work in reducing their fumigation proliferation.
But(t) let’s start here: Bottom bleats are normal digestion events. They are a byproduct of colon fermentation that creates a mix of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, methane, and sulfur—the central source of the stink. Most bomb dropping occurs during sleep, when the anal sphincter relaxes. But to minimize the steaminess of one’s bedroom, there are supplements that may help and the HFA checks on effectiveness.
On that score, Hall is rather pro probiotics (does that make him antibiotics?) and we discussed some of the anti-gas products on the market. Hall confirmed that Lactaid works, although it hasn’t been objectively validated. Other products, like Gas-X, merely break down farts so you are more likely to crop dust but the same amount of gas is released, merely in smaller bubbles.
Passing the Gas (Test)
The HFA testing was neither invasive nor time consuming. I merely downloaded the app, attached the charged device to my underwear, paired it with my phone and took pictures of my food throughout the day. After 22 hours, I downloaded and recharged the device. The download provided a dashboard of results.
Apparently, my metrics were admirable: I toot sweet!
My Flatusomatics showed a “microbiome activity index” of a mere five points, meaning I was well under the average of 32 blasts per day compared to the other subjects tested by the University of Maryland lab. Hall placed me in the “Zen Digester” category, an honor that pleased me immensely and might end up on my resume or LinkedIn profile.
The only complication I experienced during the testing was that, when wearing it on my second run—having attached it to my running shorts as I had the first day—it fell off early in my outing. Fortunately, I heard it hit the ground and was able to find the device and reattach it. Sadly, it came unsnapped later in the run, becoming part of the mountain landscape.
I retraced my route several times but, alas, was unable to find it. I pitied the foolish person who might have found it as some mystery treasure, not knowing its tainted provenance (sorry, had to).
I was determined to return a couple of days later to try another time and, as luck would have it, I found it! I downloaded the second day’s results to learn they mirrored the initial scores.
It’s hard to know if this was all gaslighting or light gassing, but since most of my bloviation occurs while going to the bathroom, when the monitor doesn’t measure releases, that lowered my flatulence count. Moreover, as an endurance athlete—one who exercises relatively hard an average of 3-6 hours a day—it is a challenge to get the requisite 22 hours if it is inadvisable to wear the device during strenuous exercise. I shared those concerns with Hall, and he did some tinkering, and he sent me a stronger snap so I could wear it during more rigorous activities. Who knows, propulsion may pick up my pace?
Dr. Hall told me gut microbes are understudied and undervalued. He said there is a lot of interest from potential investors in this area. From what I have gathered, the fiber market is quite massive and the quality of supplemental aids to bowel movement isn’t of the highest quality. That’s where HFAs could play a role: helping to track the progress of egress!
