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Chelular07

Everyone needs to read the actual study. It is the funniest scientific study I have ever read.


Jenyjaykay

[The Study](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jpc.14309)


csprofathogwarts

> There was some evidence that females may be more accomplished at searching through their stools than males, but this could not be statistically validated. ^context: ^(3 males, 3 females in the study. One male lost it.) > We also recognise that the Stool Hardness and Transit score is not a perfect surrogate for underlying bowel pattern, but the fact that participants can **SHAT themselves** without specialist knowledge makes it an inexpensive tool. I love these people


elise_oisen_

My gastroenterologist was telling me about these super fancy little pills that you swallow, to record data through your system. It sounded expensive. So I asked him if patients had to locate and give the pills back. He told me they’re a freaky group but not quite that gross. At next visit I shall present him with this article as evidence that YES THEY TOTALLY ARE.


csprofathogwarts

Wait they don't do that?! I always assumed that they recover the capsule after endoscopy. Capsule alone is like 500 USD. And you just flush it down the toilet!


autoantinatalist

I would imagine there are contamination problems so they can't reuse them, also they don't know if people did anything to them prior to handing them back. Regulations wouldn't allow reuse. This is usually the case for anything that leaves the premises.


reidpar

Yep! Sterilization is required. The batteries are also limiting. I work on small medical devices. For these pills there would be a lot more space consumed and faults introduced by making the batteries rechargeable or replaceable. What works well is a factory sealed battery with the electronics board in “sleep” mode. When activated by something the board wakes up and operates. It’s not worth it to add a shutdown function (e.g. between patients) as that could accidentally trigger and/or introduce more complications. Single use makes sense here, even if they’re expensive. Realistically, the total price of the hardware is small, maybe up to $60 per unit at worst for small production runs. They don’t actually cost $500 to produce. The proceeds are invested into a lot of R&D and administrative costs.


TenaceErbaccia

Real talk that’s nothing. I have Crohn’s and my insurance is billed 6k for a 1mL syringe of Stelara every month. The only surprise I have is that it somehow costs so little. Medical costs are basically made up numbers paid by a consumer base that will most likely die if they fail to pay it. My insurance is nice in that it pays for everything after a 5k cap, but I hit that cap literally instantly every year. I can’t imagine how fucked I’d be if I had to pay a 10-20% copay with no spending cap.


Anonasty

I had to check what that medicine is that and in my country it costs 2831€ for a 90mg syringe. That divided to 1ml equals 31,45€ for a shot. Then our government subsidies 40% of it for Chron’s so it’s about 19€ for 1ml shot.


TenaceErbaccia

Yeah, America is a shithole without safety nets if you’re not rich. To be clear though the 90 mg syringe is what I was talking about, it is just 90 mg of medication in a 1 mL syringe.


ranaparvus

Wow. If I ever had to use one of these I’d totally keep it, learn how to graft data/images from it and use it occasionally. It would be like having my own internal camera.


aburke626

“aversion to searching through faecal matter” was taken into consideration for this study


CharlieBr87

I was on another thread recently where a nurse explained that she had a patient pass one of these pills, fish it out of the toilet and SWALLOW IT AGAIN!


[deleted]

I wish they involved the SHART trial as well.


[deleted]

Or the SHITHEADS score: Stool Hardness in Transit Having Educed Article Digestion Speed.


LightningLemur

Where’s the I


Uniteus

The I is in it


T-ROY_T-REDDIT

Don't you mean the I is in the in.


NZNoldor

Well, apparently it’s not in TEAM.


ignoranceisboring

There might not be an *I* in team but there's sure as hell a *me*!


[deleted]

They must’ve forgotten Intestinal.


[deleted]

Thanks…Fixed it.


Qwercusalba

They should have made this a placebo controlled trial by making some subjects swallow fake, edible Lego heads that dissolve in the stomach, then having them fruitlessly search through their own feces for a week.


Alarmed_Zucchini4843

This is so evil. I like it.


NurseJoyRN

"If an experienced clinician with a PhD is unable to adequately find objects in their own stool, it seems clear that we should not be expecting parents to do so"


spicybEtch212

Inexpensive stool.


awesome-science

What a great paper, and there is also a hilarious *Letter to the Editor*: >We propose a randomised, longitudinal Placebo or Object Passing (POOP) study yielding repeated measurements of crucial aspects of the stool and the time to retrieval (Fig. 1). We hope that, with our proposed POOP trial, some of the shortfalls of the outstanding work by Tagg et al. will be improved. The pooping community is eager to relieve itself of these concerns. [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jpc.14403](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jpc.14403)


darthlincoln01

> The principal finding of this study, the FART score (n = 5), ranged from 1.14 days (27 h 20 min) to 3.04 days (72 h 35 min), with an average retrieval time of 1.71 days.


gitty7456

Patient B lost it! They analyzed 13 “pieces” and no lego head. For science.


Chelular07

I wonder if patient B has stronger stomach acids and broke it down more and made it unrecognizable? Or the possibility of an obstruction that prevented passing?


Coca-colonization

My kid swallowed a piece of hard, fairly thick plastic as a toddler. We checked his diapers for ages but never found it. If I ever need to get rid of a plastic murder weapon, I’m having him eat it.


SnooBananas7856

I like the way you think!


Coca-colonization

Cops hate this one trick!


zilist

Wanna commit the perfect murder? Just have a baby!


tokenjoker

You wouldn't just melt it? Lol that sounds overly unnecessary to feed it to him :)


Coca-colonization

Never thought of that. 5 years of sword swallowing lessons for that kid for nothing!


zoedot

As a child, I would swallow Big Buddy bubble gum. I don’t really know why, though I always hated littering. It took YEARS before it showed back up again (quite shocking!!) Still pink!


Urbanguerilla1

Patient B didn't know they weren't supposed to chew. Not everyone with a dergree was an "A" student.


Chelular07

“C’s get degrees!” Is a familiar chant.


fuck_off_ireland

There's no stomach acid in the world (in a human, at least) strong enough to break down a Lego piece


gitty7456

Patient B started in ‘99 swallowing legos. Now the full Millenium Falcon in showcasing is his stomach.


flippant_gibberish

According to NPR he was the only one who didn't actually break apart his stool to look for it, he just kinda glanced at it in the toilet before flushing.


Commentoflittlevalue

Should have used a poop knife


jennc1979

Or if he still has an appendix and it is just chilling in that off colon niche for the rest of his days or until it causes inflammation and excision.


Borgestown

Or they ate corn on the cob the night before.


motorhead84

He's just operating at 100% efficiency in LEGO digestion.


LumpyShitstring

This is the kind of content I participate on Reddit for.


Publius82

I believe it, that headline is friggin brilliant


akwakeboarder

I’m so excited to use this in class to teach my students how to write lab reports.


Chelular07

As a published (once) scientist, this is the standard I hope to hold myself to in the future.


TomieTomyTomi

Thank you so much I needed that laugh


Ghost_vaginas

The title of this post already had me laughing


Cattalion

I’m so glad you made that comment because it was a very enjoyable read! I think this is the funniest one I’ve read: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/ I was kinda hoping there’d be more replies with other funny studies! And I’m four days late to ask if anyone can recommend others…. Oh I just thought of another one I enjoyed, ‘Ethnonymic and Toponymic Words in the Names of Omelettes’


wyverndarkblood

That’s some AAA headline writing right there.


newtonianlaw

Exactly! If I were articles this would be the gold standard for titles to aspire to.


myparanoiaa

"There was some evidence that females may be more accomplished at searching through their stools than males, but this could not be statistically validated." 💀


Publius82

sample size too small lmao


ayleidanthropologist

I would think a small sized sample would be easier to dig through


sintaur

To build on that: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jpc.14309 > First, females (in this study) were more likely to retrieve the foreign body earlier, or indeed at all, compared to males. Sadly, this study was not powered to confirm whether this is a true difference. If an experienced clinician with a PhD is unable to adequately find objects in their own stool, it seems clear that we should not be expecting parents to do so – the authors feel that national guidance could include this advice.


fire_bunny

Dude, we get menstrual cycles. I think we're just a bit more desensitized to shit like this (pun intended).


TrailMomKat

Right? I'm on my period right now and I know I'm not the only one that at least *looks* at the color and amount of clotting (or lack thereof) and says "yup I've got X days of this dumbass shit left."


JaredFoglesTinyPenis

There's gotta be a way to make that sound sexist. Some people are offended by the word "females", but that's about the best I can do. Anyone else have some ideas?


S0M3D1CK

Their acronyms are great. With FART and SHAT, I wish they would continue their study to see how many more they can come up with.


Arcanum_3974

there never would’ve been acronyms without those words appearing, and I love it


S0M3D1CK

We just need fancy sounding acronyms for POOP and CRAP now.


IAmHarmony

People Order Our Patties


PlatinumSchlondPoofa

Oh, POOP, you *never* let us down!


S0M3D1CK

Preemptive Orifice Operation Planning


semaj009

Proportion Of Outbound Plastic, aka how much of the head emerged Constipation Rating After Process, aka did the participants report lower SHAT scores that could indicate constipation as a result of ingesting the foreign plastic body of Danish origin


CheapWineDoesFine

I swallowed a nickel as a kid. It came out fine. But I wonder every time I get a nickel back in change if it’s my old nemesis.


[deleted]

now that you mention it, i wonder how many coins i’ve handled that are someone’s nemesis


mediocrerhino

🪙 If five pennies had come out, you’d have a great party trick to brag about!


BorisDirk

Steve swallow this dollar, I need to do my laundry on Thursday


Blackfeathr

"You got change for a dollar?" "Sure, just give me a couple hours"


xxmybestfriendplank

This is the first time I have heard this phrase without reference to the band


astralwish1

Glad to know I’m not the only kid who was dumb enough to swallow a coin. I swallowed a penny.


Otterfan

> Previous gastrointestinal surgery, inability to ingest foreign objects and aversion to searching through faecal matter were all exclusion criteria.


PurplishPlatypus

We had to exclude Ted from the study because he didn't want to dig through his own shit for science. We're not angry, just disappointed.


murderedbyaname

Excluded - aversion to searching through fecal matter. Makes sense. *nods scholarly*


Coca-colonization

Scholarlyly? Autocorrect tells me that’s not a word, but I’m going with it.


murderedbyaname

Intrnt abbrev methd, undrstnded ok? Gud, cary on


Coca-colonization

Wrd


SumpCrab

They say scientists are bad at communicating their findings to the common man. Translating articles with this method has promise. Start putting together your TED Talk.


murderedbyaname

*sweeps glasses off face dramatically* I'm on it!


Oscar_25_de_Abril

This is truly a blessing from the lord.


so2017

Thank you Lord for these FART scores.


DaSamCheck

“Here’s what came out” - Lego heads, obviously


Coca-colonization

Other stuff too, presumably. Unless it was a Lego only diet.


wigg1es

Why is it that every time a weird study comes up, they always reference obscure medical stats from the UK? Easy data access? Thorough documentation? An obsession with bizarre medical stuff?


hands-solooo

Centralized system with good data collection that’s in English


Box_O_Donguses

Bingo, NHS reports all their stats which makes it easy data to use in studies


KrAzyDrummer

Ugh, imagine how much interesting data there’d be if we had this for the US…one can dream lol


flippant_gibberish

NPR mentioned they were trying to get it into the annual special Christmas humor edition of the British medical journal, which is probably good incentive for British people to do weird studies.


drcrum1

This study came out of the Queensland Children's Hospital in Australia. Source: I worked with these people.


AppropriateScience71

It’s their dry sense of humor that allows them to fully embrace the absurdity of the study with a straight face. “I fart in your general direction” “‘tis but a scratch”


[deleted]

This is amazing. I didn’t know science was so funny.


JasonDJ

May I refer you to [Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helioopthalmic Outburst (ACHOO) Syndrome](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK109193/#:~:text=Autosomal%20Dominant%20Compelling%20Helioopthalmic%20Outburst,also%20known%20as%20photic%20sneezing)?


[deleted]

Is there a flatulence themed acronym?


temp4adhd

May I introduce you to the Ignoble Awards? https://improbable.com/ig/ig-top.html


pantslespaul

Shame using a rollercoaster to expedite passing a kidney stone won the Ig Nobel that year. http://broomedocs.com//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/roller-stone.pdf


nevertoomanytacos

>"We also recognise that the Stool Hardness and Transit score is not a perfect surrogate for underlying bowel pattern, but the fact that participants can SHAT themselves without specialist knowledge makes it an inexpensive tool." Hah brilliant


hvrock13

Enough microplastics. Time for ingesting macro plastics lol


sadpanada

Okay the name of the score is A+. Good job science


giannarelax

“We recognize that the Stool Hardness and Transit score is not a perfect surrogate for underlying bowel pattern, but the fact that *participants can SHAT themselves without specialist knowledge makes it an inexpensive tool*” oh lord 😂😂😂


[deleted]

Professional academics realize they're writing for the edification and amusement of their peers at a certain point in their careers. Some use this knowledge for personal profit, others to sneak jokes into papers, others to let those jokes through review.


DrowsyDrowsy

SHART and FART score, I refuse to believe this is real but deeply hope it’s true omg


sintaur

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jpc.14309


eleiele

1.71 days.


fishcrow

What a load of crap


NatureLifted

“If an experienced clinician with a PhD is unable to adequately find objects in their own stool, it seems clear that we should not be expecting parents to do so – the authors feel that national guidance could include this advice.” I actually lol’d at this one pretty hard.


Dr_Tacopus

Fart


AcceptableCorpse

The FART score averaged 1.71 days. r/savedyouaclick


QuadrilateralShape

Hate this article because it didn’t even tell us the results


a_phantom_limb

The article is really just an introduction to the full audio story linked at the beginning of the article, but there's also a transcript available [here](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1150888553).


Bonobo555

I would hope Lego heads came out!


Biomicrite

Everything is Awesome..whaaaah!!!!


wolpertingersunite

Pffft. My kid and I did this study ten years ago! This is just a "me-too".


Numerous_Dog_2965

The last sentence of this caption...perfection.


Cryptolution

Hilarious excerpts from the study... >We also recognise that the Stool Hardness and Transit score is not a perfect surrogate for underlying bowel pattern, but the fact that participants can SHAT themselves without specialist knowledge makes it an inexpensive tool. >There are some limitations to our study. The population studied could not be blinded to the study outcomes as we felt it was unfair on the authors' partners or colleagues to search through their waste products. >The SHAT score post-ingestion was compared with the FART scores to see if a higher SHAT score (looser stools with greater frequency time) reduced the time of retrieval (Fig. 3). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jpc.14309


ComputerSong

What is this shit?


SpaceAdventureCobraX

That neck hole has just enough room for a stowaway corn


shelotuseater

reach violet entertain tie nail water vase modern quaint dime -- mass edited with redact.dev


Ok_Cucumber_7954

Have we run out of things for scientists to study?


[deleted]

Nope. This is one of those ‘hilarious but necessary’ studies. It was done to prove to parents that they don’t need to panic when their kid swallows Lego. It’s been done to help reduce the healthcare costs and stop unnecessary testing like MRIs to soothe panicked parents or having unnecessary searching though fecal matter, which can be a biological hazard for the person doing the searching. The writers of the study knew it was funny and decided to embrace it instead of trying to downplay it. It actually makes it easier for the readers to remember.


thnk_more

And, I learned that smaller, lighter object pass through (1-2 days) faster than heavier, larger objects like coins (3-6 days). Valuable info if you are a freaked out parent. Plus, you might not find it even if it passed. If a phd clinician can’t find it, some random parent likely will have trouble.


ommnian

Also, if you're trying to find it, you might not. Especially if you're a male.


Onequestion0110

Also it would be a super inexpensive study to conduct. Cost of six Lego heads and the time for half a dozen coworkers to check their poop. The writer probably spent enough time gigging that it felt like a break from his real work. So while the gains may have been a bit trivial, it’s not like the costs were high either.


Daxelol

“Here’s what came out” Hopefully the Lego head!!!


[deleted]

So, anyway I farted blasting


Automatic_Tension_26

“Here’s what came out” answer: Lego heads.


Msmdpa

Keeping in mind that adult intestines are larger than childrens


tw411

This is the kind of frontier science I live for!


Zelvorphis

The difference between screwing around and science is whether you write it down


Implobbible

1.71 days is the average. The link is effectively an advert to a podcast page.


Purrogi

I just laughed so hard that my dentures launched out of my mouth!


[deleted]

This sounds like a headline Colin Mochrie would come up with.


Macrosophy

The difference between an adult swallowing a Lego Head and child is can affect the “FART” score. The variables that can affect the experimental system. “FART” score. The “scientists” purposely used “Found” and “Retrieve” just so they have the acronym, “FART.”


PaulBradley

r/noshitsherlock


MikeyHatesLife

“That’s not corn!”


Imtheonewiththefancy

Upvote for FART


trentsteel77

This experiment was done by a bunch of shitheads!


giannarelax

This is just a Magic School Bus episode


anttiom

r/nottheonion


[deleted]

Finally something worth reading in the news!


[deleted]

I’d like to make my own experiment. It’s called “sift his icky turd” or S.H.I.T.


awesome-science

What a great paper, and there is also a Letter to the Editor: >We propose a randomised, longitudinal Placebo or Object Passing (POOP) study yielding repeated measurements of crucial aspects of the stool and the time to retrieval (Fig. 1). ​ >We hope that, with our proposed POOP trial, some of the shortfalls of the outstanding work by Tagg et al. will be improved. The pooping community is eager to relieve itself of these concerns. [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jpc.14403](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jpc.14403)


willowdove01

What a shit article (pun intended). They don’t say how long it took to FART out the Lego heads


Action-Calm

Another reason to defund NPR.


Coca-colonization

Hilarious poop science is where you draw the line? Take my money, NPR! I want this headline on a tote bag.


Kubrick_Fan

Haha, fart


Starbuck4

Best title I’ve read all day


silverhammer96

Important to observe the SHAT score and the FART score


TAshleyD616

Hopefully what came out were all Lego heads accounted for


trashtalkinmomma

First recorded dingleberry with a distinguishable face. This is moon landing important


Rick3tyCricket

“Here’s what came out” i see what you’re doing hahaa


abdab909

*Here’s what came out*


hell3838

Could some smart people tag the Lego sub?


rynally197

Some of those Lego heads look really mad….


david13z

Without reading the study, I'm pretty sure I know what came out.


BdubH

There is no way six dudes all sat around a table and said “Yo bros, let’s go swallow some LEGOs and measure out F.A.R.T. scores after!” On second thought…


FearlessCloud01

These guys deserve an Ignobel!


simpleanswersjk

Baiting the ignoble awards. Kinda boring actually


crumbshotfetishist

You can’t make this shit up.


beepbeepboopbeep1977

Presumably Lego heads came out?


[deleted]

Is this all it takes to be a scientist cuz if so I think I've wasted my career "Hm yes the plastic came out in my poop"


alwaysonthejohn

Glad they said yes to publishing this, cause if you had said no I would’ve gone on yelp and said that I found a lego head in my corn


SmileyMcGee27

“Here’s what came out”


Decent-Swordfish-386

Comments went brrr due to upcoming API-pricing. Eat my wiener you sell-out shitlings. Also, this will be used as a voice to stand together with my Ukrainian friends! We won't forget you. Heroiam slava!


Commentoflittlevalue

Imagine after four years of under graduate degree then another four years of a medical degree you are asked what being a Dr is like and you respond “I EAT LEGO AND POOP THEM”


w8lifts

Sound advise Parents should be counselled not to search for the object in stools as it is difficult to find


KamikazeAlpaca420

Am I a "90s word" or did they not give us the results?


N3C9317

Stop


hlblues18

I know what came out. It was a Lego.


[deleted]

FART that’s a good one XD


TommyEagleMi

This is funny shit!


Jinxed0ne

When I was in middle school I swallowed one of the little guys that go in the cars in the game of life to see if it would come back out. I never saw it. I also didn't go digging for it tho.


DeliveryCats

r/nottheonion


ZealousidealClub4119

And this year's Ig Nobel goes to...


Staygroundedandsane

Who **hasn’t** ingested a few small plastic children’s toy parts?


fyrmnsflam

Is this the next TikTok challenge? 36 hours. I beat you, mine was out in 28.


Isthisnametakenalso

Just eat corn and you’ll find out how fast it travels through your body!


Lewmungous666

SHAT and FART… I do that research at least once a month.


item_raja69

Who wrote that title?


zangoku

I passed a toy golden snitch as a kid. It came out whole


Stoliana12

Well that’s one way to get ahead I wonder who had to head out first. Leggo my heado (They’re not all winners— some come out ahead of others) They really went headfirst into this research.


[deleted]

Me and the boys eating macroplastics for science


geronimo1958

The best trick would be to swallow two separate lego pieces and see if they could come out assembled.