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’Smart Toilet’ Uses Artificial Intelligence to Monitor Bowel Health

posted by mrpg on Monday June 07 2021, @02:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-second-that dept.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for FatPhil:

'Smart Toilet' Uses Artificial Intelligence to Monitor Bowel Health:

DURHAM, N.C. -- An artificial intelligence tool being developed by Duke scientists can be added to the standard toilet to help analyze patients' stool and give gastroenterologists the information they need to provide appropriate treatment for chronic issues such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

The work is being done by Duke University's Center for Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Infectious Disease (WaSH-AID), and was presented Saturday at the virtual conference Digestive Disease Week 2021.

"Typically, gastroenterologists have to rely on patient self-reported information about their stool to help determine the cause of their gastrointestinal health issues, which can be very unreliable," said Deborah Fisher, MD, associate professor of medicine at Duke University and one of the lead authors on the study.

[...] The prototype has promising feasibility, but it is not yet available to the public. Researchers are developing additional features of the technology to include stool specimen sampling for biochemical marker analysis that will provide highly specific disease data to meet the needs of patients and gastroenterologists.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by looorg on Monday June 07 2021, @02:28AM (3 children)

    by looorg (578) on Monday June 07 2021, @02:28AM (#1142596)

    So in the future you won't even be able to crap in peace without the toilet snitching on you to Google or whomever. Im sure we like to think it will be for medical benefits but I would think it more realistic if it becomes another ad revenue stream. Softners, more bran, medications, laxatives or whatever other conditions they can test for. Your health benefits are secondary, at best, to the advertisers.

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  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday June 07 2021, @02:46AM

    by krishnoid (1156) on Monday June 07 2021, @02:46AM (#1142601)

    They can probably do it now, if Google decided to put in "fiber" (and other) sensors [popsci.com] along with their Fiber deployments.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07 2021, @02:46AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07 2021, @02:46AM (#1142602)

    Came here to say the same thing. I'm not in any hurry to send my shit (or an analysis thereof) to the cloud.

    But, I know one chronic sufferer of near-continual diarrhea, so far un-treatable after many many attempts at diagnosis (including a visit to Mayo Clinic). They might be the poster child for a device like this (and they are young enough that sending data to the cloud doesn't bother them at all).

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07 2021, @08:49AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07 2021, @08:49AM (#1142689)

    Welcome to The Island

    Enjoy your stay.

    We hope you win the lottery.