Mechanical stomach

British scientists have built what they say is the world's first artificial stomach: a shiny, high-tech box that physically simulates human digestion.
Constructed from sophisticated plastics and metals able to withstand the corrosive acids and enzymes found in the human gut, the device may ultimately help in the development of super-nutrients, such as obesity-fighting foods that could fool the stomach into thinking it is full.

"There have been lots of jam-jar models of digestion before," said Dr. Martin Wickham of Norwich's Institute of Food Research, the artificial gut's chief designer, referring to the beakers of enzymes typically used to approximate the chemical reactions in the stomach.

Wickham's patented artificial gut is a two-part model that is slightly larger than a desktop computer. The top half consists of a funnel in which food, stomach acids and digestive enzymes are mixed. Once this hydration process is finished, the food gets ground down in a silver metal tube encased in a dark, transparent box.

Software sets the parameters of the artificial gut -- how long food remains in a particular part of the stomach, predicted hormone responses at various stages, and whether it is an infant or adult gut.

Unlike previous gut models, Wickham's model incorporates the physiological elements of digestion, including the stomach contractions that break up food and move it along the assembly line of human digestion.

The artificial gut is already attracting commercial attention.

One company wants to use it to test whether a biscuit can release a specific nutrient in the small intestine. Another group wants to determine if soil contaminants, which could potentially be swallowed by children playing outside, get absorbed by the human body.

The model gut's focus on the physical and chemical reactions that take place in the stomach promises to provide a more detailed understanding of food structure and its impact on digestion.

"This is an important tool that will allow us to understand what happens in the gut," said Dr. Peter Ellis, a biochemistry expert at King's College in London, who was not connected to the project.

Other artificial stomach models have largely neglected the connection between food structure and digestion, according to Ellis. "This model is important because it gets the science of digestion right," he said.