A pill with a chip?
Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 7:05 pm
I wasn't sure where to post this, perhaps if we had an "Unnatural Aproach" forum or maybe the humor forum would also be good except I think these people are serious (which makes it not so funny).
Feeling sick? Take a pill with a chip.
http://content.zdnet.com/2346-9595_22-248995.html
Suffering from a queasy stomach? Philips has come up with a high-tech pill that will make sure the right dose of drugs is delivered right to the heart – or the guts – of your problem.
Here's the pill in question, known as the iPill – a 11 x 26 mm capsule designed to deliver its load only when it reaches the right area of the intestines.
(NHE's Note: That's roughly 7/16" x 1", i.e., one very large pill)
How does it know how far along the digestive tract it is? By analyzing the body's pH level as it travels. According to Philips, the body's "pH rises sharply upon exiting the stomach and becomes progressively alkaline from the upper intestine onwards".
The iPill can take the acidity information and combine it with data on how long it has spent in the body to decide the appropriate time to deliver the drug load it's carrying.
Jo Best of silicon.com points out that the iPill's cleverness doesn't stop there, however.
A delivery location can be loaded onto the iPill's microprocessor by way of a control program.
The program can then instruct the iPill how to drop its drugs – in a burst or released slowly, for example – as well as the location in the gut.
Other data, including body temperature, can be analysed by the iPill and transmitted back to a control unit outside the body via the pill's wireless transceiver. The unit can then amend the pill's instruction's accordingly.
The iPill which includes a microprocessor, battery, pH sensor, temperature sensor, RF wireless transceiver, fluid pump and drug reservoir, is currently in prototype stage.
According to Philips, however, the pill is ready for large scale manufacturing.
Feeling sick? Take a pill with a chip.
http://content.zdnet.com/2346-9595_22-248995.html
Suffering from a queasy stomach? Philips has come up with a high-tech pill that will make sure the right dose of drugs is delivered right to the heart – or the guts – of your problem.
Here's the pill in question, known as the iPill – a 11 x 26 mm capsule designed to deliver its load only when it reaches the right area of the intestines.
(NHE's Note: That's roughly 7/16" x 1", i.e., one very large pill)
How does it know how far along the digestive tract it is? By analyzing the body's pH level as it travels. According to Philips, the body's "pH rises sharply upon exiting the stomach and becomes progressively alkaline from the upper intestine onwards".
The iPill can take the acidity information and combine it with data on how long it has spent in the body to decide the appropriate time to deliver the drug load it's carrying.
Jo Best of silicon.com points out that the iPill's cleverness doesn't stop there, however.
A delivery location can be loaded onto the iPill's microprocessor by way of a control program.
The program can then instruct the iPill how to drop its drugs – in a burst or released slowly, for example – as well as the location in the gut.
Other data, including body temperature, can be analysed by the iPill and transmitted back to a control unit outside the body via the pill's wireless transceiver. The unit can then amend the pill's instruction's accordingly.
The iPill which includes a microprocessor, battery, pH sensor, temperature sensor, RF wireless transceiver, fluid pump and drug reservoir, is currently in prototype stage.
According to Philips, however, the pill is ready for large scale manufacturing.