Scientists have found a novel way to keep regular tabs on our health, without a single trip to the doctor – a ‘SMART’ toilet seat that monitors our urine, stools, glucose and red blood cells, every time we sit down on it.
The technology – developed by a team of international researchers – uses a camera, sensors and AI to capture and analyse these intimate health markers. This includes videoing our urination stream to check for colour and photographing our stools to monitor for consistency (more information than I needed to know).
Sounds bizarre right? But by spotting abnormalities, it can detect the early signs of disease, including diabetes, inflammatory bowel conditions and cancer.
“We believe that inconsistencies … can provide valuable information about the prostate and bladder functions,” say the researchers.
The quirky technology is also as thorough as a check-up with your GP; but can be done much more frequently (six to seven times per day, in fact).
Plus, it performs the check-ups long before we normally would with a GP – heading off more serious complications.
Research says that an alarming number of people ignore their health symptoms before visiting a doctor. One study showed that 17% of patients diagnosed with rectal tumors waited a year or more to seek medical consultation after noticing symptoms – some waited up to five years.
The magic toilet also trumps wearable health-tech devices – because we won’t need to remember to use it.
There is still more work to do – the researchers designed the seat for users who stand up while having a pee so it needs to be re-worked for women (we’re guessing the research team are men).
They also need to work on people feeling comfortable to use the smart seat – in a survey of 300 participants, 30% (unsurprisingly) said they weren’t keen on the stool snapshots.
But with regular monitoring of our bathroom behaviour predicted to be the next big thing in medical science, the seat could be on its way to a loo near you soon.
