[Andrew Gigacz]

Most YourLifeChoices readers are used to a regular routine of popping pills each day. For many of us over 50s it can even be multiple times a day. My current cocktail of prescribed pills and capsules is quite colourful.

Remembering to take them all is a bit of a drag, but if it keeps me happy and healthy that’s a small price to pay.

But what about a pill that isn’t so much a pill as a device? How would you feel about swallowing something that’s the size and shape of a vitamin capsule but looks more like the valves that you might have found inside your grandparents’ radiogram?

Not quite as big maybe, but something like this:

When I first saw this photo, I was somewhat put off by the idea of sending it down my gullet, but knowing now what it can achieve I’ve changed my mind. This little baby can measure your breathing and heart rate from inside your gut. That makes it potentially able to diagnose sleep apnoea and even detect opioid overdoses.

Inside the pill is a tiny accelerometer that measures breathing and heart rate by detecting vibrations in the gut. It also has a medical-implant radio to transmit this information to an external computer.

I’ve never suffered sleep apnoea myself, but my ex-wife does, and I witnessed first-hand for many years the negative effects this had on her health. If I had the same condition, and I had seen her benefit from swallowing such a pill, I’d happily reprise the famous line from ‘When Harry Met Sally’ and say, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Of course the device isn’t a cure in itself, but it can help with diagnosis, which is usually a great first step in that direction.

The device is currently only in a very early test phase, and the fact that it’s excreted in a similar time-frame to most other things you swallow is one current drawback. But scientists believe they’ll be able to solve that issue in time, making the pill even more useful.

Would you be willing to pop a pill that’s really a device? Or is that a bit too much to swallow?

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