This new device allows you to “listen to your gut”
If you read our recent piece on electrical stitches, you’ll know how we feel about the body’s electricity.
Spoiler alert: We think it’s fascinating and often surprising.
Today’s electrical medtech topic is no different. As it turns out, you can literally listen to your gut as it digests—thanks to a wearable patch that analyzes the electrical signals involved.
The story: New Zealand medtech Alimetry is helping us rethink what gastrointestinal diagnosis looks like with their new device.
- Their flexible electrode array wearable reads the natural electrical signals that power the gut’s movement. These signals are 100x weaker than those in the heart, which makes them difficult to detect.
- The firm also just raised $18 million in additional Series A funding, further powering its expansion.
What’s going on in your gut?: Sure, gastrointestinal problems are (usually) not something as grave as cancer. But regular GI distress affects as many as one out of every ten people. Even just meal-related abdominal discomfort—which Alimetry focuses on—takes its toll.
Step on the gas: Forgive us the pun, but if there’s one thing GI patients would love from the experience of GI diagnostics, it’s for it to go by faster.
- Identifying the right GI disorder and getting started with treatment often takes enduring initial consultation, diet interventions, referrals to endoscopy or colonoscopy, long wait times, etcetera.
- And the invasive procedures that often pin down what’s going on are nowhere close to pleasant.
Dinner and a diagnosis: In contrast, patients using Alimetry have a much less unpleasant experience: they get to eat a light meal and sit around for a few hours.
- More specifically, patients come into the clinic, where the device is applied to their abdominals. First, benchmark readings are taken.
- Then, patients eat and the device records data as that happens and for the next few hours. The patient also logs written notes of their symptoms in the companion app.
- Alimetry compiles a downloadable report, which can be sent to the patient’s provider to aid with diagnosis.
Alimetry’s future: Currently, the startup’s business depends on selling the device to hospitals in the U.S., U.K., and New Zealand. They’re also hoping to expand the technology’s applicability to pediatrics and colon conditions. Of course, stomach issues don’t just relate to eating—but it’s a great, noninvasive place to start.