There are many methods to trace your well being, however nowadays most contain sporting a tool. Kohler has a brand new method: an app-connected digital camera to your bathroom that analyzes your poop and urine.
The Dekoda scanner attaches to your bathroom bowl and scans the contents to disclose insights about intestine well being and hydration, funneling all the information into an app so you may observe adjustments over time.
The machine is admittedly uncommon, however gastroenterologists say there’s worth in monitoring your bowel habits over time. Whether or not you want a tool that will help you do it, although, is debatable. Listed here are the main points in regards to the Dekoda scanner, plus what docs give it some thought.
How the Dekoda Scanner Works
The machine particularly makes use of spectroscopy to see how mild interacts together with your poop, whereas holding observe of issues like how typically you go, the consistency of your waste, and its form. Dekoda can even analyze your urine to see how hydrated you’re.
Not everybody who sits on the bathroom may have their output analyzed, although. To make use of the scanner, you’ll want to carry your cellphone subsequent to a sensor on the skin of the bowl or use a fingerprint analyzer to get issues began. Then, Dekoda will do a steady scan from the begin to end of your “session.”
Quickly after your lavatory journey, you’ll get insights delivered to a companion app in your cellphone. The app tracks your bathroom information over time to create a profile of your well being and progress.
Kohler stresses on its web site that Dekoda has “discreet optics” that analyze the contents of your bathroom bowl and nothing else.
The Dekoda is powered by a chargeable battery. When energy is working low, customers can take away the battery from the sensor and plug it right into a USB cable.
A consultant from Kohler Well being didn’t reply to On a regular basis Well being’s request for remark.
How A lot Does the Dekoda Scanner Value?
There are a couple of charges related to the Dekoda scanner. The {hardware} (the digital camera and its housing) prices $599. To make use of the scanner, you additionally want to enroll in a Kohler Well being app membership.
The price of the app membership varies. Single customers will pay $6.99 a month or $70 a 12 months, whereas these with a household membership (which may analyze as much as 5 individuals) will pay $12.99 a month or $130 a 12 months.
Kohler Well being App Offers You Well being Insights
Like many health and well being trackers, information from the scanner goes right into a corresponding app.
The app analyzes a spread of issues, together with your bowel motion consistency and frequency, how hydrated you seem like, and whether or not there’s blood in your stool. All these metrics are sorted into charts that element this info and the way it adjustments over time. The app additionally crunches information to ship insights, like what number of classes you had in a day and a breakdown of the forms of stool you handed.
The Dekoda will even offer you a intestine well being rating you may monitor over time.
What the Contents of Your Rest room Bowl Can Inform You About Your Well being
Whereas it’s a bit unconventional, gastroenterologists say there’s worth in wanting in the bathroom bowl.
“The thought of offering individuals extra direct entry to private well being information is a superb one,” says Aditya Sreenivasan, MD, a gastroenterologist at Northwell Lenox Hill Hospital in New York Metropolis. “It has gained a ton of momentum in our tradition, from providers like 23andMe offering genetic information, corporations providing microbiome testing, and legal guidelines that mandate that sufferers have entry to their very own medical information.”
However Dr. Sreenivasan says that deciphering information from the bathroom bowl is “extraordinarily difficult” for a tool, particularly on the subject of areas of drugs that aren’t fully understood, just like the intestine microbiome.
You’ll be able to acquire loads of the information that the Dekoda supplies just by wanting in your bathroom bowl, says Rishi Naik, MD, an assistant professor of drugs within the division of gastroenterology, hepatology, and vitamin at Vanderbilt College Medical Heart in Nashville, Tennessee. “I might see potential makes use of for these with visible impairment or when doing colonoscopy preparation, to visually have the ability to see in case your colonoscopy preparation has labored,” he says.
A Good Poop Scanner Is No Alternative for Colon Most cancers Screening
Dr. Naik worries that folks might confuse the information supplied by this machine with most cancers screening, and keep away from future exams consequently. “It shouldn’t be confused with stool-based exams for colon most cancers, that are detecting stool DNA, or fecal immunochemical exams, which detect hidden blood within the stool that this machine has not been proven to select up,” he says.
Total, docs advocate simply testing the contents of your bathroom bowl. However whether or not you want a tool to assist with that is questionable. “Your bowel actions might be helpful to judge for significant adjustments of your intestine well being,” Naik says. “Adjustments in stool caliber, mucus, and blood may give clues in your digestion, absorption, and total intestine well being and your vitamin.”
He factors out that you should utilize on-line diagrams just like the Bristol Stool Chart to search for adjustments in your individual bowel actions by taking a look at your poop and evaluating it with the chart.
Probably the most useful information from a scanner like that is the flexibility to sense blood within the stool, Sreenivasan says. “This could set off consideration for a colonoscopy in the best setting,” he says. “Different insights into intestine well being are possible tougher to interpret. The small print matter right here tremendously.”
In case you occur to identify blood in your stool, whether or not via a tool or the bare eye, Sreenivasan says it’s essential to contact a healthcare skilled for an analysis.
Naik says it’s additionally essential to see a healthcare skilled in case you have persistent adjustments in bowel habits, like:
“These should not regular and must be evaluated,” Naik says.
