--- title: Gas and Gut Bacteria: Could Intestinal Gas Reveal Underlying Illness? description: What does gut bacteria say about your health? Research is now looking at the composition of gases in our stomachs and GI tracts for clues. canonical: https://time.com/3743294/gut-bacteria-gas/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-13T14:57:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T05:08:02.835Z article:section: Health og:title: Could Intestinal Gas Reveal An Underlying Illness? og:description: What does gut bacteria say about your health? Research is now looking at the composition of gases in our stomachs and GI tracts for clues. og:url: https://time.com/3743294/gut-bacteria-gas/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt15f3fc8f3fa7a4ec/69878375e20a87051ca858ca/intestine-gas-stomach.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5200 og:image:height: 2925 og:image:alt: Overweight senior man touching stomach og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Could Intestinal Gas Reveal An Underlying Illness? twitter:description: What does gut bacteria say about your health? Research is now looking at the composition of gases in our stomachs and GI tracts for clues. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt15f3fc8f3fa7a4ec/69878375e20a87051ca858ca/intestine-gas-stomach.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Gas-Sensing Pills May Detect Underlying Stomach Problems > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. 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It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Mar 13, 2015 2:57 PM UTC  Overweight senior man touching stomach Overweight senior man touching stomach Getty Images  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Mar 13, 2015 2:57 PM UTC We treat all gas pretty much the same way—with a held breath. Then we ignore it. But our bodies are brimming with all kinds of interesting gases, many of which have a lot to say about our health. They’re worth paying attention to, argues a new [paper](http://www.cell.com/trends/biotechnology/abstract/S0167-7799%2815%2900025-6) in the journal _Trends in Biotechnology._ A multidisciplinary team in Australia say they’ve developed a noninvasive swallowable sensor, in the form of a pill, that can detect the gases brewing inside of you. Currently, experts rely on indirect measurements—like breath and fecal analysis—to gauge which gases are in the intestine. But a sensor could tell you straight from the source. The gas capsules aren’t yet available for human use, and the paper is just a discussion of techniques. But here’s the idea: When bacteria ferment undigested food in your gut, they release gases like carbon dioxide, hydrogen and methane, the researchers write. The types of gases bacteria produce, and their concentrations, depend on your health—and in certain concentrations, some gases can indicate gastrointestinal disorders, says Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh, study co-author and professor of electrical and computer engineering at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. A gas-sensing pill could give you a real-time glimpse into what’s going on in your gut; as the gases permeate the sensor, the sensors produce signals and digitize the data, then send it to an app, he says. “If some organic compound like butyrate goes up, that means something is happening to the wall of the stomach,” he explains, “and the thing that is happening is generally not good, has to be detected and should be addressed very quickly.” **MORE**: [You Asked: Should I Take Probiotics?](http://time.com/3712403/probiotics-probiotic-supplements/) Even for a person without stomach troubles, the sensor could be useful for figuring out exactly how foods affect the body, Kalantar-zadeh says. “Basically, this tells us if the food that we take transforms into energy efficiently in our body or not,” he explains. “That can actually have a very big impact on all the controversies about food.” While food science is tormented by conflicting findings—are low-carb diets [good](http://time.com/3222213/low-carb-diet-beats-low-fat/) or [bad](http://time.com/3636690/glycemic-index-heart-health-low-carb/)?—gas is more straightforward, Kalantar-zadeh says. “Information about the gases inside the stomach are not complicated information,” he says. “Automatically, we can have libraries that compare the charts for you, so basically it needs just an app to give you the information.” Currently, researchers are digging into our gut bacteria to figure out exactly what they say about our health, unearthing links to all kinds of issues from [food allergies](http://time.com/3175909/gut-bacteria-food-allergies/) to [how the body responds to medication](http://healthland.time.com/2011/10/14/what-do-gut-bugs-have-to-do-with-high-cholesterol-a-lot/) to [red meat’s role in heart failure](http://time.com/3541418/heart-health-diet-meat/). “This at least adds an extra degree of certainty to those kind of associations,” says Kalantar-zadeh. “It can have such a potential impact on the health of human beings.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3743294/gut-bacteria-gas/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3743294/gut-bacteria-gas/"},"headline":"Gas-Sensing Pills May Detect Underlying Stomach Problems","datePublished":"2015-03-13T14:57:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T05:08:02.835Z","description":"Research is now looking at the gases made by gut bacteria compounds for clues to our health","url":"https://time.com/3743294/gut-bacteria-gas/","keywords":["Diet & Nutrition","Bacteria","Gas","gut bacteria"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt15f3fc8f3fa7a4ec/69878375e20a87051ca858ca/intestine-gas-stomach.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mandy Oaklander","jobTitle":"Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt15f3fc8f3fa7a4ec/69878375e20a87051ca858ca/intestine-gas-stomach.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Overweight senior man touching stomach","caption":"Overweight senior man touching stomach","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/dietnutrition/","name":"Diet & Nutrition"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3743294/gut-bacteria-gas/","name":"Gas-Sensing Pills May Detect Underlying Stomach Problems"}}]}] ```