If you think you're an outlier in the gas department, science has news: You probably aren't. Researchers at the University of Maryland strapped "Smart Underwear" onto healthy adults for a week and found they passed gas an average of 32 times a day, though individual totals ranged from just four farts to nearly five dozen, reports Scientific American. The wearable device, fitted with chemical sensors, doesn't care about sound or smell—it simply tracks gases like hydrogen, a by-product of gut microbes at work.
In a second experiment, participants were first put on a low-fiber diet for a few days, then given fiber supplements, and the device picked up the resulting jump in hydrogen, suggesting it can spot changes in microbiome activity in real time. Lead researcher Brantley Hall says that without a clear baseline for what's normal, it's tough to know when gas is truly excessive. In fact, previous farting estimates came in much lower, with a release suggesting that discrepancy could be tied to the perils of self-reporting, complete with faulty memory, missing farts while sleeping, and the subjectivity of what constitutes a fart, among other factors.
The findings, published in Biosensors and Bioelectronics: X, challenge the idea that a single "typical" fart count can capture how human digestion works. Hall's team is now building a "Human Flatus Atlas," recruiting people across the spectrum—from low-gas high-fiber eaters to chronic farters—to better map gut function and, eventually, improve treatments for digestive issues.
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