Constipation, although not very serious, but is a chronic ailment for many. The ones suffering, do anything and everything to clean their systems but most treatments go in vain. Now in a revolutionary technological advancement, an electronic pill has been created to treat constipation. Yes, electronic pill.
The Vibrant Pill
Well, a startup based in Israel has come up with a Vibrant capsule that can literally shake the crap out of you. Promised as a chemical free and safe treatment for patients suffering from constipation, this pill is a revolution in its own way. Because it’s a pill, but it is not a medicine, it’s a technology.
How They Work
These pills work by vibrating inside the GI tract, thereby causing muscular contractions that take place and the waste gets moved through the digestive tract towards the rectum.
An algorithm, predefined by Vibrant’s research and development team and gastroenterologists, controls the capsule’s vibration schedule. A base unit that transfers the data to the capsule activates it. Once the system has been cleared the capsule is also washed out of the body with the bowel movement.
Trials
The idea of popping a vibrating pill may sound a bit weird, but according to some research tests in the U.S., the pill is believed to work.
While the idea of swallowing a vibrating pellet sounds, frankly, a bit crazy, it does actually work, according to some researchers who recently put it through tests in the U.S. Satish Rao and colleagues from Georgia’s Augusta University tested it in two clinical trials and found that it is able to relieve constipation as advertised.
“Two randomized sham-controlled studies were performed in nearly 250 patients with chronic constipation using single or multiple vibrations per day,” said Satish Rao, professor of medicine at Georgia’s Augusta University. “In both trials, subjects took five capsules per week, on five separate days. Patients receiving Vibrant capsules had significantly greater bowel movements than [the] sham group. Specifically, we noted that Vibrant augments normal colonic biorhythm, and the increased bowel movements coincided with, or around the time of, Vibrant activation.”
Results
No side effects have been reported by the participants and they also went on to confirm that they did not feel any vibration as such in their bodies while the pills were doing their job. The results of the study will be presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology.
“The next step is to perform a sham-controlled phase 3 RCT that will begin January 2019 across multiple sites,” Rao said. “If this confirms efficacy and safety, the next step is [Food and Drug Administration] approval and marketing.”
It won’t be too long before the capsules are made available across the globe and now this seriously is one cutting edge poop- technology to be looked forward to. Isn’t it?
