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Engineers at the Mbadachusetts Institute of Technology have come up with a hydrogel-based pill that acts like a fish punch: it swells quickly from the size of a tablet to that of a bullet from Soft and viscous table tennis when it reaches the stomach.
According to the engineers, from a commercial point of view, this invention can benefit industry players such as physiological monitoring and diagnosis, pharmaceutical companies and nutrition companies, although they are still in the research stage. later.
"Existing ingestible devices are usually made from hard plastics or more rigid metals than the digestive tract. Most existing gastrointestinal sensors remain in the digestive tract for less than a few days,Xuanhe Zhao, PhD, badociate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT and co-author of the study, told NutraIngredients-USA.
In addition, no endoscopy is required to administer monitoring devices when using a jelly-like pill. "Our smart pill can be administered orally as a common pill", He explained. "It swells quickly in the stomach into a soft hydrogel ball with a stiffness similar to that of food, and can stay in the stomach and measure the physiological conditions between the body and the body up. 39 to a month. "The largest shopping center
Dr. Zhao is running the eponymous lab Zhao at MIT, which he says website, Is an interdisciplinary research group with a mission "Advancing science and technology on the interfaces between humans and machines to address major societal challenges in health, water, security and joie de vivre".The largest shopping center
The first article published on this device was published yesterdayIn the newspaper Nature Communications. The authors showed how the jelly-like pill can be used for long-term physiological body monitoring and diagnosis using in vivo tests on pigs with gastric and gastrointestinal tract. intestinal are very similar to those of the man.
Implications for the nutrition spaceThe largest shopping center
Although the first article published on the hydrogel pill is focused on diagnoses, Dr. Zhao said that there were also potential applications in the area of nutrition, especially in the burgeoning one. personalized nutrition.
"Eating habits, food and drink consumption can be correlated with changes in gastric pH, temperature, pressure and many other biomarkers",He said.
"The smart hydrogel pill can wirelessly measure gastric temperature over a long period of time, for example a month. With this data, people can badyze and evaluate their eating habits and even customize healthy meal plans. "The largest shopping center
In addition, there is potential to develop the pill for the suppression of appetite. "The hydrogel balls can fill the stomach and make people feel full and eat less. This can be a simple but very impactful application of our technology, " He said.
And with any discussion of the gastrointestinal tract, it is impossible to ignore potential applications in the microbiome space.
"The hydrogel can help administer probiotics in the small intestine by protecting them from the acidic gastric environment. We are actively studying a number of these applications, "Dr. Zhao said.
Source: The largest shopping centerNature CommunicationsThe largest shopping center
Posted online, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08355-2
"Ingestible hydrogel device"The largest shopping center
Authors: Xiunyue Liu, et al.
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