Blocked up? Capsules that vibrate in the gut can help encourage bowel motions, a clinical trial has found.
Constipation is one of the most common gastrointestinal disorders, affecting up to 15 per cent of the population. The usual advice to eat fibre, exercise and take laxatives sometimes doesn’t work, leading to chronic pain and discomfort.
To address this problem, Israeli company Vibrant has developed capsules that vibrate in the large intestine to stimulate contractions and move digestive products along.
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The capsules – which are the size of typical fish oil capsules – contain electronic mechanisms that can be programmed to vibrate at different frequencies.
at Augusta University in the US and his colleagues recently tested the capsules in two clinical trials involving 245 people with chronic constipation.
Good vibrations
The participants were instructed to swallow five capsules per week for 8 weeks, taking each one before they went to bed at night. Half were given capsules that were programmed to vibrate when they reached the large intestine, and half were given identical non-vibrating placebos.
The capsules were set to vibrate for one or two 2.5 hour periods during the 24 hours after they were ingested. They were usually excreted after 1 or 2 days.
Participants who took the vibrating capsules had twice as many bowel movements per week as those in the placebo group. These tended to occur shortly after the vibration periods.
Most participants could not feel the vibrating sensation in their digestive systems, and no major side-effects were reported, says Rao, who will present the results at the  this week.
The team is now planning a bigger trial that will start in January. If successful, the vibrating capsules could be available in three years’ time, says Rao.
