Researchers say that the sound of toilet flushing can detect the presence of a disease in a person.

The study was conducted by researchers led by Maya Gatlin from the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States, and presented it at the 183rd meeting of the American Acoustic Society, which was held from the fifth to the ninth of December, and wrote about it by the "Yourik Alert" website.

Gatlin described how a microphone sensor can identify bowel disease.

The importance of detection for cholera

Cholera is a bacterial disease that causes diarrhoea, affecting millions of people and resulting in about 150,000 deaths each year.

Identifying the potential for community spread of disease alerts health professionals early and improves the allocation of resources and aid.

However, for obvious reasons, monitoring this and other bowel diseases is a delicate matter.

In her conference presentation, “The Fecal Thesis: Using Machine Learning to Detect Diarrhea,” Gatlin described how she and her team tested the technique, but with experimental sounds rather than a real-world setting.

Each audio sample of the output event was converted into a spectrograph, which essentially captures the sound in the picture.

Different toileting events produce different features in sound and spectrogram.

For example, urination creates a consistent tone, while defecation may have a unique tone.

In contrast, diarrhea is more random.

machine learning algorithm

The spectrograph images were fed to a machine learning algorithm that learned to classify each event based on its features.

The algorithm's performance is tested against data with and without background noise, to ensure that it learns the correct sound features, regardless of the sensor environment.

In the future, Gatlin and her colleagues plan to collect real-world audio data so that their machine-learning model can adapt to work in a variety of bathroom environments.

"We hope this sensor, which is small in size, can be deployed in areas where cholera outbreaks pose an ongoing risk," Gatlin said.

"The sensor could also be used in disaster areas (where water pollution leads to the spread of waterborne pathogens), or even in elderly care facilities to automatically monitor the bowel movements of patients," she added.

Diseases leading to diarrhea

The importance of this technique is that by detecting diarrhea, it may help in the early identification of many conditions that cause diarrhea.

Diarrhea can be caused by many things, according to Johns Hopkins University, including:

  • bacterial infection

  • viral infection

  • Difficulty digesting certain things (food intolerance).

  • Food allergy (such as gluten sensitivity).

  • Parasites that enter the body through food or water.

  • reaction to medications.

  • Intestinal disease, such as inflammatory bowel disease.

  • A problem with the way the stomach and intestines work (functional bowel disorder), such as irritable bowel syndrome.

  • As a result of stomach or gallbladder surgery.

  • Recent use of antibiotics.

  • Metabolic conditions such as thyroid problems.