Photo: google - Flickr - Aqua Mechanical
A group of researchers in Australia are wanting to know about people's gassy habits, so they are inviting volunteers to chart their farts through an app to help them learn more about gut health.
Dietician Megan Rebuli told Checkpoint to be able to help people, they are wanting to know what normal looks like for people.
"What we've found working in the nutrition space is that people are really curious about their health and especially their gut health, and something that people report a lot of is bloating or excess flatulence."
She said they are most interested in the frequency of farts people have.
"You can download the app through our website called Chart Your Fart and every time you have a passing of gas, you can go into the app and you can log the occurrence, so that will take note of the time of day."
There are five characteristics they are interested in and people can rate them on a sliding scale in the app from low to high, she said.
"That's around the odour, the sounds, how long it kind of hung around for and how obvious it was.
"You can even view your own history as well, you can look at the time of day and the frequency of your own emissions, and how you're rated those characteristics."
She said the data collected was subjective, but if people wanted to get a second opinion it would make it more interesting.
"I've been talking to a few friends over the weekend who have turned it into a little bit of a competition and a comparison, but ultimately we know it is subjective data and that's okay it's part of it."
The researchers are looking for thousands of people to take part and over the weekend, they had 12,000 people set up an account.
"We're asking people to record for a minimum of three days. But you can go for as long as you like, that's just a starting point," she said.
However, she said people could be doing sneaky farts and not be aware.
"Especially in your sleep, you can't record those, we know that as well. I guess it's possible that something might slip out without you noticing it."
In terms of the odour of farts, the types of food people eat had an impact, she said.
"The types of food that you eat and specifically protein based foods, will cause a stronger odour, as will certain types of vegetables that are all really good for you."
She said if people did have strong smelling farts, they could balance it out by having more foods with high fibre.
"Different types of grains like wheat or barley tend to produce less stinky gas, so that can help. But if you have a sudden occurrence of very strong smells that could be a sign that there's something going on the inside to get checked out."
She said by the textbook, farting seven to 20 times a day is normal and relative to the types of food a person is eating.
"How much fibre you're eating, how much moving around you do? Are you indoors? Are you outdoors? Are you holding it in? It's really, really variable."
New Zealanders can get involved in the research too, she said.
"We would love to hear from you. There are some limitations that we might not be able to give feedback just yet, we've had a wider reach than we were expecting, which we're really excited about."
The end goal of the data is to write up a report, to help with gut health research, she said.
"We'll look into what's been reported, what's normal, and this is the starting point or it's big piece of what we're doing around the health and well-being of people."
"We're also wanting to hear from people about the types of public led research that they're interested in too, so we'll use that to inform more of our research going forward."
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