Digital pill

[2][3] Such concerns, along with uncertain economic benefits, have made the broad introduction of digital pills in the healthcare practice challenging,[4] despite accumulating body of clinical evidence indicating their efficacy and safety.

[7][8] This digital pill's sensor, developed by Proteus Digital Health, is activated by acid in the stomach, and generates an electrical signal that is picked up by a patch worn on the ribcage; the patch in turn forwards information to a smartphone app.

[2] A video from the Wall Street Journal that shows an overview of how digital pills work can be found here.

Ingestible capsules containing video cameras are used for generating images of the macroscopic structures of hollow organs, such as the stomach and small bowel.

The presence of gasses like carbon dioxide and methane in the gut provides useful data for analysis of metabolic and digestional health.

This makes them ideal for data collection throughout the digestive tract, which includes multiple organs between the mouth and anus.

The most common clinical targets for the ingestible sensor in the oral cavity would aid in the determination of: electrolyte imbalances, body metabolism based on chemical makeup of saliva, hormonal imbalances, infectious conditions, i.e. HIV and viral hepatitis, allergy disorders and cancer.

[10] The pH value of the stomach is important for proper digestion and is something that can be detected by certain types of digital pills.